DigitalUltrasoundHead

Short Description

In today's conventional 2D ultrasound imaging systems, the piezoelectric elements in the transducer head are connected to a backend system over a large cable containing hundreds of small coaxial cables. This is shown in the figure below:

We plan to replace this analog connection by a digital link as shown in the next figure:

In order to do so, the entire analog frontend of the ultrasound system needs to be integrated into the transducer head and a digital link needs to be designed.

Having all ultrasound specific hardware integrated in the transducer head, will allow to connect it over a standard interface, like USB 3.0, to a commodity platform for post processing. This new paradigm will enable new kinds of portable ultrasound systems.

Status: Available

Group Project/Semester/Master Thesis

Supervision: Pascal Alexander Hager (IIS)

Professor

Luca Benini

Detailed Task Description

This is an ongoing project at our lab and we are looking for motivated students to contribute in the development:

• In a first stage, we will use off-the-shelf components, which will be placed on a high-density printed circuit board (HDI PCB) in order to reach the required formfactor of a handheld device.
• In a second stage, a digital interface to connect the frontend with the backend system will be built.
• In a third stage, a processing element (either a small FPGA or an custom-made ASIC) will be placed into the transducer head for preprocessing in order to reduce the datarate in the digital interface.

If you are interested, contact us and we will setup a specific student project considering the current state of the project and the students interests.

Requirements

Experience in PCB design.

Links

? top