Research on ultrasonic coherent plane-wave compounding imaging method based on delay multiply and sum

• Introducing delay multiply and sum beamforming algorithms into ultrasonic plane wave imaging algorithms. • The proposed method can improve the imaging quality. • It has guided significance for high-resolution and high-quality ultrasound imaging. The simplicity of its acoustic emission principle and the efficiency of data acquisition make plane wave imaging a common choice in non-destructive testing. However, the absence of transmit focusing in plane wave imaging degrades resolution and limits detection accuracy. To resolve this problem, this paper propose a method of ultrasonic coherent plane wave compounding imaging based on delay multiply and sum (CPWC-DMAS). Firstly, plane waves are transmitted across a range of angles and the collected multi-angle plane wave echo signals are coherently combined to generate a synthetic focus. Then, the signals at each element undergo cross-multiplication and are then summed. Finally, the spatial coherence of the array signal is introduced into the cross-multiplied coherent compounded signal, thereby reducing background noise, suppressing artifacts, and improving the SNR and resolution. Experimental results demonstrate that compared with FMC-TFM and CPWC imaging methods, the CPWC-DMAS algorithm improves resolution by at least 52.5% and 43.7%, respectively, and enhances SNR by 43.7% and 32.9%, respectively.