Resolution limit of overlapping ultrasound chirplet echoes via hypothesis testing

The axial resolution capability of an ultrasonic pulse-echo imaging system is known to depend on the bandwidth of the propagating pulse. However, the exact resolution limit, the minimum spacing between two reflectors that a given ultrasound imaging system can resolve, has been lacking. In particular, for a known transducer bandwidth, noise level, excitation frequency, and the dispersion rate, it is desirable to know the exact axial resolution limit. Such a limit is useful for assessing the performance of resolution improvement algorithms such as deconvolution methods. This paper develops a method to estimate the resolution limit in terms of propagating pulse characteristics, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and resolution success rate.