ADUMS
Adaptive 4-D Processing for Digital Ultrasound Medical Systems
ADUMS aims to define and develop an advanced 4D (3D-Spatial + 1D-Temporal) ultrasound system technology with high-image resolution capabilities. Technology is applicable in a variety of next generation system applications including a) Wireless communications echo cancellation and signal distribution by directional antennas, b) Volumetric ultrasound for medical imaging, c) 3D underwater sonar camera for divers, mine hunting, underwater inspection, d) 3D non-destructive quality inspection of materials. The differentiation between these systems is in the frequency regime that defines the application area and the array configuration in terms of sensor spacing and sensor technology. The proposed effort is based on the results of the EC-IST projects: "MITTUG", "TeleInVivo" and "mAgic" and will focus on the definition of a next generation fully digital ultrasound system technology that includes the development of an advanced 3D adaptive-synthetic aperture beamfoming ultrasound signal processing structure with unique 3D ultrasound visualization technology and a computing architecture development as an embedded system for linear and planar phased array ultrasound probes.
Projects Objectives
The ADUMS project aims to define and develop an advanced 4D (3D-Spatial + 1D-Temporal) ultrasound system technology that will be based on 3D adaptive beamforming to provide high-image resolution capabilities. 3D adaptive beamforming is applicable in a variety of next generation system applications. Although in all the relevant applications the signal processing technology is conceptually identical, the differentiation between these systems is in their employed frequency regime that defines the application area and the array configuration in terms of sensor spacing and sensor technology.
Wireless communication frequency regime for echo cancellation and signal distribution by directional antennas,
Volumetric ultrasound frequency regime for medical imaging,
Sonar high-frequency regime for 3D underwater camera for divers, mine hunting, underwater inspection,
Acoustic frequency regime for 3D tomography visualization, non-destructive quality inspection of materials.
In particular, the proposed developments of the ADUMS project consortium will be divided into two major areas that would include development of ultrasound linear adaptive phased array technology by the European partners and planar phased array technology by the North American partners. More specifically:
The development of 3D adaptive & synthetic aperture techniques.
Development of the relevant hardware for a fully digital ultrasound system technology.
Integration and concept demonstration of proposed developments with the ultrasound system functionality of the European Industrial Partner Esaote, a leading ultrasound system manufacturer.
Market analysis, planning and market exploitation of project developments.
Benefits
Our solution provides a next generation fully digital 3D/4D ultrasound system technology as an integrated solution for cardiac and abdominal imaging applications, which are revolutionizing the diagnostic capabilities of imaging systems. The expected benefits include:
For the patient: Significant reductions in time spend for diagnosis and improvements in treatment and therapeutic success rate because of improved high quality imaging.
For the medical professionals and organizations: Increasing clinical efficiency by increasing the patient throughput, reduce redundancy of measurements, price and availability of imaging devices, and overall treatment cost while in the same time improves the clinical treatment result greatly beneficial for both, the patient and the health-care system.
Economic Benefits: Making a modern and aggressively increasing 3D/4D ultrasound system market feasible to more centres in both, price and ease of use (subjective feeling of security for the applying physician), thereby offering a boost in increasing the number of customers for such systems world-wide.