A fast parallelized eigen-based clutter filter framework for ultrasound color flow imaging

Abstract

BACKGROUND, MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVE: Eigen-filters with attenuation response adapted to clutter statistics have emerged as a new class of clutter suppression techniques in color flow imaging (CFI) to achieve high flow detection sensitivity in the presence of tissue motion. There is growing interest to extend this technique beyond laboratory investigations by incorporating it into the CFI processing routine on ultrasound scanners. Nevertheless, bridging such a gap from theory to practice is known to be challenging from a real-time computing perspective because the singular value decomposition (SVD) operation in eigen-filtering is known to pose heavy computational burden. Here we seek to overcome this issue by formulating a new technical framework that enables fast execution of eigen-filtering so as to foster their practical adoption in …