Scabia Marco, Biagi Elena, Masotti Leonardo
Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy.
IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2002 Oct;49(10):1444-52. doi: 10.1109/tuffc.2002.1041086.
In this paper the architecture of a hardware and software platform, for ultrasonic investigation is presented. The platform, used in conjunction with an analog front-end hardware for driving the ultrasonic transducers of any commercial echograph, having the radiofrequency echo signal access, make it possible to dispose of a powerful echographic system for experimenting any processing technique, also in a clinical environment in which real-time operation mode is an essential prerequisite. The platform transforms any echograph into a test-system for evaluating the diagnostic effectiveness of new investigation techniques. A particular user interface was designed in order to allow a real-time and simultaneous visualization of the results produced in the different stages of the chosen processing procedure. This is aimed at obtaining a better optimization of the processing algorithm. The most important platform aspect, which also constitutes the basic differentiation with respect to similar systems, is the direct processing of the radiofrequency echo signal, which is essential for a complete analysis of the particular ultrasound-media interaction phenomenon. The platform completely integrates the architecture of a personal computer (PC) giving rise to several benefits, such as the quick technological evolution in the PC field and an extreme degree of programmability for different applications. The PC also constitutes the user interface, as a flexible and intuitive visualization support, and performs some software signal processing, by custom algorithms and commercial libraries. The realized close synergy between hardware and software allows the acquisition and real-time processing of the echographic radiofrequency (RF) signal with fast data representation.
本文介绍了一种用于超声检查的硬件和软件平台架构。该平台与一个模拟前端硬件配合使用，用于驱动任何商用超声成像仪的超声换能器，并可获取射频回波信号，从而能够构建一个强大的超声成像系统，用于试验任何处理技术，即使是在实时操作模式为基本前提条件的临床环境中。该平台可将任何超声成像仪转变为一个测试系统，用于评估新检查技术的诊断效果。设计了一个特殊的用户界面，以便实时、同时可视化所选处理程序不同阶段产生的结果。这旨在更好地优化处理算法。该平台最重要的方面，也是与类似系统的基本区别所在，是对射频回波信号的直接处理，这对于全面分析特定的超声 - 介质相互作用现象至关重要。该平台完全集成了个人计算机（PC）的架构，带来了诸多益处，例如PC领域的快速技术发展以及针对不同应用的极高可编程性。PC还构成了用户界面，作为灵活且直观的可视化支持，并通过定制算法和商业库执行一些软件信号处理。硬件和软件之间实现的紧密协同作用使得能够采集和实时处理超声射频（RF）信号，并实现快速的数据呈现。
