Non-uniform ultrasound speckle phase distribution applied to scatterer spacing estimation [medical imaging application]

When regularly spaced scatters exist in an insonated region, the speckle phase may not be uniformly distributed. A novel frequency sweeping technique for scatterer spacing estimation is proposed and applied to simulated and to experimental data. Parametric expressions of the phase statistics are proposed and tested and tested for the estimation. Changes in these parameters identify the mean scatterer spacing for even and for odd multiples of the 1/4 wavelength cases, when sweeping the receiver quadrature demodulation frequency. This technique has good tolerance for variations in scatter spacing, and has real-time implementation capability