Kim GD, Yoon C, Kye SB, Lee Y, Kang J, Yoo Y, Song TK. A single FPGA-based portable ultrasound imaging system for point-of-care applications.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2012;
59:1386-1394. [PMID:
22828834 DOI:
10.1109/tuffc.2012.2339]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
We present a cost-effective portable ultrasound system based on a single field-programmable gate array (FPGA) for point-of-care applications. In the portable ultrasound system developed, all the ultrasound signal and image processing modules, including an effective 32-channel receive beamformer with pseudo-dynamic focusing, are embedded in an FPGA chip. For overall system control, a mobile processor running Linux at 667 MHz is used. The scan-converted ultrasound image data from the FPGA are directly transferred to the system controller via external direct memory access without a video processing unit. The potable ultrasound system developed can provide real-time B-mode imaging with a maximum frame rate of 30, and it has a battery life of approximately 1.5 h. These results indicate that the single FPGA-based portable ultrasound system developed is able to meet the processing requirements in medical ultrasound imaging while providing improved flexibility for adapting to emerging POC applications.
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