Ultrasonic signal processing for in vivo attenuation measurement: short time Fourier analysis.

Short-time Fourier analysis is well suited for processing tissue echographic signals which are nonstationary. We have investigated the use of short-time Fourier analysis to provide an estimation of the echographic spectral composition as a function of time. It will be shown that the time dependence of the spectral centroid of this representation allows one to deduce easily the frequency-dependent attenuation. A simple correction of the noninvariant filtering effect due to diffraction is used to unbias the attenuation slope estimation. This new signal processing technique was first tested on simulated echographic data from a 1-D tissue model. Experimental results obtained from echo signals on a tissue-like phantom and on in vivo liver tissue show the influence of diffraction and attenuation respectively.