Coarray sampling methods for forward looking IVUS imaging

Forward looking intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging with ring arrays can produce real time volumetric imaging. Due to the limited catheter size, data acquisition and image reconstruction are based on synthetic phased array processing to reduce the motion artifacts. The number of signal firing/receivening steps must be kept small. This can be achieved by reducing the redundant spatial frequency components. For this purpose, we explore different sampling methods. We tested the imaging performance of coarrays with different sampling schemes on the simulated point spread functions of original and control coarray sets. Simulation results show equivalent performance in 40 dB for an annular ring array of 64 elements with 2049 original and 350 reduced sets.