Two main metrics are usually employed to assess the quality of medical ultrasound (US) images, namely the contrast and the spatial resolution. A number of imaging algorithms have been proposed to improve one of those metrics, often at the expense of the other one. This paper presents the application of a correlation-based ultrasound imaging method, called Excitelet, to medical US imaging applications and the inclusion of a new Phase Coherence (PC) metric within its formalism. The main idea behind this algorithm, originally developed and validated for Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) applications, is to correlate a reference signal database with the measured signals acquired from a transducer array. In this paper, it is shown that improved lateral resolutions and a reduction of imaging artifacts are obtained over the Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) when using Excitelet in conjunction with a PC filter. This novel method shows potential for the imaging of specular reflectors, such as invasive surgical tools. Numerical and experimental results presented in this paper demonstrate the benefit, in terms of contrast and resolution, of using the Excitelet method combined with PC for the imaging of strong reflectors.

通常采用两个主要指标来评估医学超声 (US) 图像的质量，即对比度和空间分辨率。已经提出了许多成像算法来改进这些指标中的一个，通常以牺牲另一个为代价。本文介绍了一种基于相关性的超声成像方法的应用，称为Excitelet, 到医学美国成像应用程序，并在其形式主义中包含新的相位相干 (PC) 度量标准。该算法最初是为无损检测 (NDT) 应用而开发和验证的，其背后的主要思想是将参考信号数据库与从换能器阵列获取的测量信号相关联。在本文中，表明当将Excitelet与 PC 滤波器结合使用时，通过合成孔径聚焦技术 (SAFT) 获得改进的横向分辨率和减少的成像伪影。这种新颖的方法显示出镜面反射器成像的潜力，例如侵入性手术工具。本文中的数值和实验结果证明了使用Excitelet在对比度和分辨率方面的优势 与PC相结合的强反射体成像方法。