An open high performance system for real-time ultrasonic imaging

The design and development of an open and flexible ultrasonic imaging syste m based on a high performance computer architecture is presented in this wo rk. The system exploits the different forms of intrinsic parallelism freque ntly associated to the process of ultrasonic imaging creating a flexible, m odular and scalable test-bed for the implementation of existing methods and the development of new hardware architectures and processing algorithms. T ransmission beam focusing, scanning techniques and efficient interpolation schemes are developed and applied in order to increase the spatial resoluti on of the constructed ultrasonic images. The algorithms are assessed and im plemented in order to achieve a real-time response, a key goal in ultrasoni c image applications. The flexibility and scalability characterised by the system allow to incorporate new developments in technology and to utilise m ore complex algorithms for improving the images visual appearance in real-t ime. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.