Quantitative ultrasound imaging based on seismic full waveform inversion

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11693113-B2
Application number	US-201816643321-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 30, 2018
Priority date	Sep 1, 2017
Publication date	Jul 4, 2023
Grant date	Jul 4, 2023

Abstract

This disclosure provides a system and method for producing ultrasound images based on Full Waveform Inversion (FWI). The system captures acoustic/(an)elastic waves transmitted through and reflected and/or diffracted from a medium. The system performs an FWI process in a time domain in conjunction with an accurate wave propagation solver. The system produces 3D maps of physical parameters that control wave propagation, such as shear and compressional wavespeeds, mass density, attenuation, Poisson's ratio, bulk and shear moduli, impedance, and even the fourth-order elastic tensor containing up to 21 independent parameters, which are of significant diagnostic value, e.g., for medical imaging and non-destructive testing.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for producing ultrasound images, comprising:
a transmitting element that emits a signal having a band of frequencies specified by a priori knowledge of a medium and an image reconstruction algorithm,wherein the transmitting element has a known and controlled location within the system, and wherein the medium comprises an animal tissue or a non-human object;
a receiving element that captures acoustic/(an)elastic waves that are emitted by the transmitting element and that are transmitted through and reflected from the medium, wherein the receiving element has a lateral extent smaller than a wavelength of the waves in the medium and a known and controlled location within the system;
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer readable medium containing programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:
convert the captured acoustic/(an)elastic waves into observed imaging data;
perform a Full Waveform Inversion process in a time domain on the observed imaging data against synthesized data derived from a simulated model of the observed imaging data using a wave propagation solver;
use the synthesized data to generate image representations of the medium; and
store or display the image representations of the medium.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising one or more additional receiving elements located at a different position from the transmitting element that captures the acoustic/(an)elastic waves that are transmitted through the medium.

3. The system of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the programming instructions for performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to perform three-dimensional acoustic or viscoacoustic simulations.

4. The system of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the programming instructions for performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to perform three-dimensional elastic or anelastic simulations.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions for performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to invert low-frequency content of the observed imaging data followed by progressively adding higher frequency content of the observed imaging data.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions further comprise programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to smooth the simulated model.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the programming instructions for smoothing the simulated model further comprise programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to smooth the simulated model by a Gaussian smoothing process.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions further comprise programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to generate the image representation of the medium that is a physical three-dimensional model.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions further comprise programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to generate the image representation of the medium that is immersed in a liquid.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions further comprise programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to generate the image representation of the medium that is immersed in water.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions for performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises programming instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:
(i) provide an initial physical model;
(ii) determine the synthesized data, by a computer, by simulating wave propagation through the physical model;
(iii) back-propagate adjoint source terms determined by a cost function based on a comparison of the synthesized data and the converted acoustic/(an)elastic wave data to update the physical model; and
(iv) repeat (ii) and (iii) until the residual between the synthesized data and the converted acoustic/(an)elastic wave data is less than a predetermined threshold.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the animal tissue is a human tissue.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the medium is an object being non-destructively tested (NDT) and the image representations of the medium comprise internal or external structural details of the object or speed of sound or attenuation in the medium.

14. A method of producing a set of ultrasound images, the method comprising:
emitting, by a transmitting element, a signal having a band of frequencies specified by a priori knowledge of a medium and the image reconstruction algorithm, wherein the transmitting element has a known and controlled location within a system, and wherein the medium comprises an animal tissue or a non-human object;
capturing, by a receiving element, acoustic/(an)elastic waves that are emitted by the transmitting element and that are transmitted through and reflected from the medium, wherein the receiving element has a lateral extent smaller than a wavelength of the waves in the medium and a known and controlled location within the system;
converting the captured acoustic/(an)elastic waves into observed imaging data;
performing a Full Waveform Inversion process in a time domain on the observed imaging data against synthesized data derived from a simulated model of the observed imaging data using a wave propagation solver;
using the synthesized data to generate image representations of the medium; and
storing or displaying image representations of the medium.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
capturing, by one or more additional receiving elements located at a different location from the transmitting element, the acoustic/(an)elastic waves that are transmitted through the medium.

16. The method of claim 14 or 15 , wherein performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises performing three-dimensional acoustic or viscoacoustic simulations.

17. The method of claim 14 or 15 , wherein performing the Full Waveform Inversion process further comprises performing three-dimensional elastic or anelastic simulations.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein performing the Full Waveform Inversion process comprises inverting low-frequency content of the observed imaging data followed by progressively adding higher frequency content of the observed imaging data.

19. The method of claim 14 , further comprising smoothing the simulated model.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein smoothing the simulated model comprises applying a Gaussian smoothing process to the simulation model.

21. The method of claim 14 , wherein the image representations of the medium is a physical three-dimensional model.

22. The method of claim 14 , wherein the medium is an object being non-destructively tested (NDT) for quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) or for measurement purposes.

23. The method of claim 14 , wherein capturing the acoustic waves further comprises immersing the medium in a liquid.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein the liquid is water.

25. The method of claim 14 , wherein performing the Full Waveform Inversion process comprises:
(i) providing an initial physical model;
(ii) determining the synthesized data, by a computer, by simulat

Assignees

• Univ Princeton

Inventors

• Bachmann Etienne
• Tromp Jeroen
• Davies Gregory L
• Steingart Daniel

Classifications

• G01S15/8993 Primary

  Three dimensional imaging systems · CPC title

• G01N29/348

  with frequency characteristics, e.g. single frequency signals, chirp signals (measuring frequency of mechanical vibrations or acoustic waves in general G01H1/06, G01H3/04; measuring frequency or analysing frequency spectra G01R23/00) · CPC title

• G01N29/0654

  Imaging · CPC title

• G01S7/52003

  Techniques for enhancing spatial resolution of targets (G01S7/52046 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06T2200/08

  involving all processing steps from image acquisition to 3D model generation · CPC title