Deterministic approach towards ultrasound speckle reduction

Abstract

The realisation that speckle in an ultrasound pulse-echo image arises from destructive interference of the received echoes, allows a deterministic technique for marking the presence of the speckle artefact, within a single RF A-line. The method is based on an analysis of the behaviour of the instantaneous frequency (time derivative of the signal phase) of the echo waveform, and is developed in terms of the complex zero representation of bandlimited signals. A simple, but effective, technique for reducing speckle in pulse-echo images of a tissue-equivalent object is proposed. The method may easily be developed for real-time implementation with commercial scanners.