Forward-Viewing Ultrasound Imaging with Concentric-Ring Arrays for Registration-Free Needle Intervention

Current standard workflow of ultrasound (US)-guided needle insertion is complicated due to a separation of functionalities of localization and needle manipulation. This requires physicians to manage a hand-eye coordination between the needle and US image in their mind to perform safe and accurate needle insertions. Although there are commercial navigation systems for the US-guided intervention, recovery of the positional relationship requires the usage of external tracking systems and image-based tracking algorisms that may involve the registration error. For developing an US-guided needle insertion device that allows for the intuitive and simple intervention to physicians without any registration process, this paper serves the forward-viewing US imaging with the concentric-ring array. For optimizing the configuration of the concentric-ring array, we investigated that the design parameters of the number of ring-layer causes the image quality. In addition, we implemented the apodization weight for Delay-and-Sum beamforming with the ring-array configuration to reduce side-lobe artifacts. The performance of the concentric-ring arrays was evaluated with the Field II simulated and experimental data. The results demonstrated the successful visualization of cyst phantom and showed that the CNR was improved by increasing the number of ring layers and applying the proposed apodization weight.