High-order statistic for mean scatterer spacing estimation for human tissues characterization

The mean scatterer spacing (MSS) has been identified as an important parameter for characterizing human tissues presenting a semi-regular lattice texture. Most of the work in this area involves the uses of an estimated power spectrum density (PSD) of an autoregressive (AR) model to deduce the MSS from backscattered ultrasonic signals. In this paper, we propose a new method of MSS estimation using the third and fourth-order cumulants, named here TFOCs, of the AR parametric model. The results obtained by this new method is compared with those obtained using PSD.