Model of multipath propagation of ultrasonic pulses generated in soft tissue by linear arrays

Arrays of ultrasonic transducers used in medical diagnosis for safe and non-invasive visualization of the inside of a human body usually consist of many elementary piezoceramic transducers. In such an electromechanical construction of the array, while activating individual transducers, creation of crosstalk can be observed in the form of propagation of electric voltage and mechanical vibration on neighboring elements, which leads to distortion of the generated acoustical field, and in consequence reduces the quality of reconstructed medical images. Complexity of the problem rises rapidly in the case of arrays forming ultrasonic beams. In this paper, authors developed a numerical amplitude-phase model of multipath propagation of ultrasonic pulses generated in a soft tissue-like medium by such arrays. The model allowed simulation of acoustic field distributions, and to examine the influence of beam focusing in transmission mode on these distributions, taking into account electrical and mechanical crosstalk.

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Opracowanie ze środków MNiSW w ramach umowy 812/P-DUN/2016 na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (zadania 2017)