Real-Time High Frame Rate Color Doppler Imaging with Staggered Pulse Repetition Frequency

High-frame-rate (HFR) color flow mapping (CFM) improves the temporal resolution and sensitivity of Doppler imaging but remains limited by aliasing when Doppler shifts exceed the Nyquist limit. This work presents a real-time implementation of staggered pulse repetition frequency Doppler imaging to overcome these limitations in HFR-CFM. The method was deployed on a heterogeneous ultrasound research platform integrating FPGAs, DSPs, and an embedded GPU. Interleaved dual-PRF sequences were used to generate aliased velocity estimates with distinct wrapping patterns, which were processed on the GPU using dedicated parallel pipelines. In vitro experiments were performed using a flow phantom and a linear array probe. Results demonstrate that staggered HFR-CFM effectively suppresses aliasing artifacts and restores smooth velocity profiles in conditions where conventional methods fail, while maintaining high spatial and temporal resolution.