Tensor Velocity Imaging with Motion Correction

Volumetric synthetic aperture imaging allows for tensor velocities to be estimated in the entire image volume at high frame rates. However, the approach assumes that scatterers are stationary across the low-resolution images. If not, motion effects can cause a severe decrease in the accuracy of the velocity estimates. This paper presents a motion compensation procedure that reduces motion effects in synthetic aperture tensor velocity estimates acquired with a row-column addressed probe. The procedure reduces the motion effects by translating the image coordinates of the low-resolution images with the velocity field. The velocity field is estimated using a transverse oscillation crosscorrelation estimator, and the flow measurements are acquired using a 3 MHz row-column addressed probe and the research scanner SARUS. For a peak velocity of 25 cm/s, a pulse repetition frequency of 2 kHz, and a beam-to-flow of 60 degrees, the proposed motion compensation procedure was able to reduce the relative bias from -27.0% to -8.3% without impacting the relative mean standard deviation of 8.8%±0.1%.