Adaptive quantization for effective data-rate reduction in ultrafast ultrasound imaging

Doyoung Jang; Heechul Yoon

doi:10.7776/ASK.2023.42.5.422

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2023 Vol.42, Issue 5 Preview Page Next Page

Research Article

Adaptive quantization for effective data-rate reduction in ultrafast ultrasound imaging 초고속 초음파 영상의 효과적인 데이터율 저감을 위한 적응 양자화

30 September 2023. pp. 422-428

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Abstract

Ultrafast ultrasound imaging has been applied to various imaging approaches, including shear wave elastography, ultrafast Doppler, and super-resolution imaging. However, these methods are still challenging in real-time implementation for three Dimension (3D) or portable applications because of their massive data rate required. In this paper, we proposed an adaptive quantization method that effectively reduces the data rate of large Radio Frequency (RF) data. In soft tissue, ultrasound backscatter signals require a high dynamic range, and thus typical quantization used in the current systems uses the quantization level of 10 bits to 14 bits. To alleviate the quantization level to expand the application of ultrafast ultrasound imaging, this study proposed a depth-sectional quantization approach that reduces the quantization errors. For quantitative evaluation, Field II simulations, phantom experiments, and in vivo imaging were conducted and CNR, spatial resolution, and SSIM values were compared with the proposed method and fixed quantization method. We demonstrated that our proposed method is capable of effectively reducing the quantization level down to 3-bit while minimizing the image quality degradation.

Keywords

Ultrafast ultrasound

Quantization

Data-rate

Adaptive quantization

초고속 초음파 영상은 탄성 영상, 초고속 도플러, 초해상도 영상과 같은 다양한 초음파 기반의 기능성 영상 기술에 폭넓게 적용되고 있다. 하지만, 획득하는 데이터의 양이 많아 실시간 영상 재구성이나 3차원 또는 모바일 초음파 영상 응용으로의 확장이 제한된다. 본 논문은 적응 양자화 기법을 통해 초고속 초음파 영상으로 획득되는 대용량 Radio frequency(RF) 데이터의 전송 효율을 높이는 방법을 제안한다. 인체에서 반사된 초음파 신호는 높은 동적 범위를 가져 대부분의 현재 시스템에서 사용되는 고정 양자화 기법은 10 bits ~ 14 bits 이상의 높은 양자화 단계를 가진다. 양자화 단계 저감에 대한 화질 저하의 한계를 극복하기 위해, 본 연구는 영상 깊이에 따라 구간을 설정하고, 각 영역별 RF 데이터를 정규화하고 양자화하는 방안을 제안한다. 정량적인 검증을 위해, Field II 컴퓨터 모사 실험을 활용하여, 고정 양자화 방법과 제안하는 방법의 대조도 대 잡음 비, 공간 해상도 및 원본 대비 유사도를 비교하였다. 또한, 연구용 초음파 장비를 활용한 인체 모사 실험 및 인체 실험을 통해 최종 3-bit로 재구성한 영상에서도 제안하는 방법이 효과적으로 적용되는 것을 입증하였다.

키워드

초고속 초음파

양자화

데이터율

적응 양자화

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Information

Publisher :The Acoustical Society of Korea
Publisher(Ko) :한국음향학회
Journal Title :The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
Journal Title(Ko) :한국음향학회지
Volume : 42
No :5
Pages :422-428
Received Date : 2023-06-30
Accepted Date : 2023-08-17
DOI :https://doi.org/10.7776/ASK.2023.42.5.422

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea ISSN:1225-4428(Print) 2287-3775(Online) 한국음향학회지

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