Reduction of effects of inactive array elements in phase aberration correction

Abstract

Phase aberration correction based on time delay estimation via minimization of sum of absolute difference (SAD) between radio frequency (RF) signals of neighboring elements is studied in the presence of missing elements. To examine the influence of inactive elements, phase estimation error is measured for various combinations of different number of missing elements, aberration level, and SNR. The measurements are performed on an experimental RF data set. Aberration delays of missing elements are interpolated using the phase estimate between the nearest active elements. The B-scan images are reconstructed for qualitative examination.