Spatial resolution improvement in Plane Wave Imaging using adaptive Sign Coherence Factor weighting

Abstract

In this work, an adaptive weighting function based on the phase dispersion, namely, Sign Coherence Factor (SCF) is adapted to plane wave ultrasound imaging. SCF weighting is tested on both simulation and experimental data provided by the Plane Wave Imaging Challenge in Medical Ultrasound (PICMUS) organizers. The results demonstrate that the spatial resolution in plane wave imaging can be improved using SCF weighting without compromising the other image quality metrics. Furthermore, the results are compared with conventional delay and sum beamforming algorithm.