Electrical predictors for acoustic output

A method of predicting the acoustic output power and the spatial peak intensity of an ultrasonic medical imaging system based on the electrical measurable parameters is explored as a partial substitute for water tank acoustic measurements. The working hypothesis is that, given a transducer, the output power and the spatial peak intensity in water is completely determined by the amplitudes and phases of the excitation signals of all channels. Electrical predictors of acoustic output power and spatial peak intensity have been derived from the excitation signals and are found to be correlated with their acoustically measured counterparts with correlation coefficients of 0.998 and 0.985, respectively, for combinations of excitation pulse magnitude, pulse width and depth of focus