Archives of Acoustics, 39, 4, pp. 427-438, 2014
10.2478/aoa-2014-0047

Ultrasonic Synthetic Apertures: Review

Andrzej NOWICKI
Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences
Poland

Barbara GAMBIN
Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences
Poland

In the paper the concept of synthetic aperture used for high resolution/high frame rate ultrasonic imaging is reviewed. The synthetic aperture technique allows building extended “virtual” apertures, synthesized from smaller real aperture resulting in improved lateral resolution along full penetration depth without sacrificing the frame rate.

Especially, four methods, synthetic aperture focusing (SAF), multi-element synthetic aperture focusing (M-SAF), synthetic receive aperture (SRA) and synthetic transmit aperture (STA) are addressed. The effective aperture function, describing two-way, far field radiation is a useful tool in beam pattern analysis. Some basic notions, which are used to calculate the effective aperture are introduced in Appendix.
Keywords: synthetic aperture, effective aperture, ultrasonography.
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Copyright © Polish Academy of Sciences & Institute of Fundamental Technological Research (IPPT PAN).

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DOI: 10.2478/aoa-2014-0047