High Resolution Image Reconstruction from Full-Matrix Capture Data Using Minimum Mean Square Error Deconvolution of the Spatio-Temporal System Transfer Function

The resolution of ultrasound images generated with conventional delay-and-sum beamformers, such as for example the Total Focusing Method (TFM), is limited by the overall system transfer function (point-spread function). This limits, for example the minimum distance between defects that can be detected without the defects showing up as one larger peak in the image. In this paper, we propose a technique based on modeling of the complete spatio-temporal transfer function of the imaging system, that efficiently suppresses this and thus increases the image resolution substantially. The method is demonstrated with simulations and compared with the TFM.