Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study

This work proposes a proof-of-concept ultrasound blood-flow-monitoring circuit system using a single-element transducer. The circuit system consists of a single-element ultrasonic transducer, an analog interface circuit, and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Since the system uses a single-elem...

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Autores principales:	Hyun-Tae Park, Ji-Yong Um
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	automatic range-gate tracking image-free blood-flow monitoring Doppler ultrasound Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/80da08b7dde94b059f437697283724a4
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:80da08b7dde94b059f437697283724a42021-11-25T16:33:17ZImage-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study10.3390/app1122106172076-3417https://doaj.org/article/80da08b7dde94b059f437697283724a42021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/22/10617https://doaj.org/toc/2076-3417This work proposes a proof-of-concept ultrasound blood-flow-monitoring circuit system using a single-element transducer. The circuit system consists of a single-element ultrasonic transducer, an analog interface circuit, and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Since the system uses a single-element transducer, an ultrasound image cannot be reconstructed unless scanning with mechanical movement is used. An ultrasound blood-flow monitor basically needs to acquire a Doppler sample volume by positioning a range gate at a vessel region on a scanline. Most recent single-transducer-based ultrasound pulsed-wave Doppler devices rely on a manual adjustment of the range gate to acquire Doppler sample volumes. However, the manual adjustment of the range gate depends on the user’s experience, and it can be time consuming if a transducer is not properly positioned. Thus, automatic range-gate-positioning is more desirable for image-free pulsed-wave Doppler devices. This work proposes a circuit system which includes a new automatic range-gate-positioning scheme. It blindly tracks the position of a blood vessel on a scanline by using the accumulation of Doppler amplitude deviations and a hysteresis slicing function. The proposed range-gate-positioning scheme has been implemented in an FPGA for real-time operation and is based on addition-only computations, except for filter parts to reduce the complexity of computation in the hardware. The proposed blood-flow-monitoring circuit system has been implemented with discrete commercial chips for proof-of-concept purposes. It uses a center frequency of 2 MHz and a system-clock frequency of 20 MHz. The FPGA only utilizes 5.6% of slice look-up-tables (LUTs) for implementation of the range-gate-positioning scheme. For measurements, the circuit system was utilized to interrogate a customized flow phantom model, which included two vessel-mimicking channels. The circuit system successfully acquired Doppler sample volumes by positioning a range gate on a fluid channel. In addition, the estimated Doppler shift frequency shows a good agreement with the theoretical value.Hyun-Tae ParkJi-Yong UmMDPI AGarticleautomatic range-gate trackingimage-free blood-flow monitoringDoppler ultrasoundTechnologyTEngineering (General). Civil engineering (General)TA1-2040Biology (General)QH301-705.5PhysicsQC1-999ChemistryQD1-999ENApplied Sciences, Vol 11, Iss 10617, p 10617 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	automatic range-gate tracking image-free blood-flow monitoring Doppler ultrasound Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999
spellingShingle	automatic range-gate tracking image-free blood-flow monitoring Doppler ultrasound Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Physics QC1-999 Chemistry QD1-999 Hyun-Tae Park Ji-Yong Um Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
description	This work proposes a proof-of-concept ultrasound blood-flow-monitoring circuit system using a single-element transducer. The circuit system consists of a single-element ultrasonic transducer, an analog interface circuit, and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Since the system uses a single-element transducer, an ultrasound image cannot be reconstructed unless scanning with mechanical movement is used. An ultrasound blood-flow monitor basically needs to acquire a Doppler sample volume by positioning a range gate at a vessel region on a scanline. Most recent single-transducer-based ultrasound pulsed-wave Doppler devices rely on a manual adjustment of the range gate to acquire Doppler sample volumes. However, the manual adjustment of the range gate depends on the user’s experience, and it can be time consuming if a transducer is not properly positioned. Thus, automatic range-gate-positioning is more desirable for image-free pulsed-wave Doppler devices. This work proposes a circuit system which includes a new automatic range-gate-positioning scheme. It blindly tracks the position of a blood vessel on a scanline by using the accumulation of Doppler amplitude deviations and a hysteresis slicing function. The proposed range-gate-positioning scheme has been implemented in an FPGA for real-time operation and is based on addition-only computations, except for filter parts to reduce the complexity of computation in the hardware. The proposed blood-flow-monitoring circuit system has been implemented with discrete commercial chips for proof-of-concept purposes. It uses a center frequency of 2 MHz and a system-clock frequency of 20 MHz. The FPGA only utilizes 5.6% of slice look-up-tables (LUTs) for implementation of the range-gate-positioning scheme. For measurements, the circuit system was utilized to interrogate a customized flow phantom model, which included two vessel-mimicking channels. The circuit system successfully acquired Doppler sample volumes by positioning a range gate on a fluid channel. In addition, the estimated Doppler shift frequency shows a good agreement with the theoretical value.
format	article
author	Hyun-Tae Park Ji-Yong Um
author_facet	Hyun-Tae Park Ji-Yong Um
author_sort	Hyun-Tae Park
title	Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
title_short	Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
title_full	Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
title_fullStr	Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
title_full_unstemmed	Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study
title_sort	image-free ultrasound blood-flow monitoring circuit system with automatic range-gate positioning scheme: a pilot study
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/80da08b7dde94b059f437697283724a4
work_keys_str_mv	AT hyuntaepark imagefreeultrasoundbloodflowmonitoringcircuitsystemwithautomaticrangegatepositioningschemeapilotstudy AT jiyongum imagefreeultrasoundbloodflowmonitoringcircuitsystemwithautomaticrangegatepositioningschemeapilotstudy
_version_	1718413147510931456

Image-Free Ultrasound Blood-Flow Monitoring Circuit System with Automatic Range-Gate Positioning Scheme: A Pilot Study

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