Synthetic aperture-based beam compression for intravascular ultrasound imaging

In this paper, intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images acquired with a 64-el ement array transducer using a multistatic acquisition scheme are presented . The images are reconstructed from a collection of pulse-echo measurements using a synthetic aperture array imaging technique. The main limitations o f IVUS imaging are a poor lateral resolution and elevated grating lobes cau sed by the imaging geometry. We propose a Synthetic Aperture Focusing Techn ique (SAFT), which uses a limited number of A-scan signals. The focusing pr ocess, which is performed in the Fourier domain, requires far less computat ion time than conventional delay-and-sum methods. Two different reconstruct ion kernel functions have been derived and are compared for the processing of experimental data.