Investigation of Blood Velocity Estimation Using Diverging Beam Synthetic Aperture Transmit Scheme: Preliminary Results

In this study, we evaluate the use of a novel synthetic aperture-based technique proposed for affordable system design for non-invasive ultrasound blood velocity estimation, aiming to provide velocity estimates that are comparable to traditional focused technique. Simulations were conducted using Field II<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> software to model linear array transducer with 64 active elements for conventional focused beam (CFB) technique and 8 elements for the recently-proposed Diverging Beam Synthetic Aperture Technique (DBSAT) with a virtual source behind the transducer. Experiments were conducted on a phantom with blood-mimicking circulating fluid. Studies employing Delay and Sum (DAS) beamforming and Doppler processing demonstrates that DBSAT provides similar metrics and retains parabolic profile achieving the set peak velocities close to 3 cm/s for flow rate of 75ml/min. Results indicate that a smoother velocity profile is observed in DBSAT due to improved lateral resolution, suggesting its potential for effective flow tracking and imaging with enhanced frame rates.