Ultrasonic Testing on Interface Information of
Human Abdominal Organs
Dandan Guo, Shangjie Ren, Feng Dong
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Process Measurement and Control
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Tianjin University
Tianjin, China
E-mail: fdong@tju.edu.cn
Abstract—Ultrasound imaging is a non-invasive, safe and low-
cost technique for medical diagnosis and monitoring. As different
tissues have different acoustic characteristics, ultrasound reflects
and scatters at the interfaces. A clinical ultrasound device can
position and image by extracting Time-of-Flights (TOFs). So
presenting TOFs easily extracted is quite necessary. A high
quality excitation signal makes the extraction of TOFs easy and
accurate. The reflection case and transmission case were
compared. Decrement signal and gauss signal were compared
also in this paper and research target is a two-dimensional cross-
section of human body model. The degree of difficulty of TOFs
extraction and decay rates evaluate the signal quality. The ideal
TOFs were calculated as a standard and the relative errors of the
two signals were compared. Reflection case can indicate interface
directly. Results demonstrate complex waveform affects the
accuracy of TOFs extraction in decrement pattern.
Keywords—human abdomen; organ interface; ultrasonic
testing; time-of-flight; signal extraction
I. INTRODUCTION
Ultrasound can be used to infer the internal structure of an
unknown field [1]. The changes of acoustic characteristic are
the main basis for imaging, which can provide valuable
information pertaining to the geometric shape and size [2, 3].
The ultrasound technique’s development can be divided into
several stages: Type-A ultrasound stage, two-dimensional
(gray-scale) ultrasound stage, Doppler ultrasound stage.
Ultrasound diagnosis has evolved from anatomical imaging to
functional presentation and molecular imaging. With the
continuous development of ultrasound imaging, it has received
more attention gradually and becomes universal in medical
diagnosis. It owns several excellent characteristics which make
it widely used in medical diagnose, such as (1) Ultrasound is
thought to be free from ionizing radiations. It is impossible to
substitute for X-ray for the detection of pregnancy and infants.
(2) X-ray can distinguish bone from soft tissue readily, but it is
not good at distinguishing between the soft tissues. However,
the ultrasound is good at it. (3) It is a real-time method with a
relatively fast speed. (4) The price is relatively cheap and easy
to be used as well as carry.
Ultrasonic imaging mainly consists of two types, reflection
and transmission [4]. Time-of-Flights (TOFs) can be extracted
from both of the two received signal which is the basis for the
final imaging. Pulse-echo imaging uses the signal acquired
corresponding to different paths to establish the location for the
target. There is one to one relationship between the TOFs and
the interface existing on the certain paths. Ultrasound
transmission tomography (UTT) uses the transmitted pulse to
reconstruct the sound-speed images of the two-dimensional
cross section [5]. Different distributions of tissues determine
the final transmission time.
In 1950, French did experiment with ultrasonic pulsed,
which have been carried out on postmortem material [6]. In
1954, Ballantine draw a conclusion that the bone has strong
scattering which can reduce imaging resolution [7]. In 1978,
Curry and White first produced color images to represent the
velocity of the bold flow with Doppler effect. [8] In the recent
years, ultrasound imaging has a more widely application.
Boozari and Potthoff used ultrasound to evaluate sound speed
for detection of liver fibrosis [9]. Duric and Littrup studied the
ultrasound imaging for the breast [10-12]. The breast cancer
can also be tested with ultrasound imaging [13-15].The obesity
can be estimated and prevented by using ultrasound imaging
[16-18]. M-mode scan are employed in examining moving
structures in the heart to check heart function [2]. Ultrasound
imaging can also used in the detection of pregnant women and
fetuses irreplaceably, as its safety [19].
The human abdomen contains many important organs, such
as the liver, kidney, and stomach. Detection and diagnosis of
the abdomen are very necessary. As a common malignant
tumor, liver cancer has a high incident [20]. The prevention of
pathological changes organs can be found out earlier by
ultrasound imaging. The resolution of imaging depends on the
accuracy of the TOFs extraction.
TOFs are extracted from the receiving signal. There is a
one-to-one relationship between TOFs and position. An
obvious trend of receiving signal indicates the TOFs are easily
extracted generally. A strong sound pressure means the signal
can be obtain easily. A small relative error means the
receiving signal has accurate simulation result. In order to get
more accurate interface information, a suitable excitation signal
is necessary.
The contradistinction of two kinds of signals and the
investigation about the spread of ultrasound in human abdomen
were studied in an actual body model. The reflection case and
The authors appreciate the support from the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 61571321) and Science and Technology Innovation
of Tianjin (No. 16PTSYJC00060).