1.School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China 2.Department of Medical Engineering, University of South Florida, Florida 33612, USA
Fund Project:Project supported by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61701076) and the Key Research and Development Program of Science and Technology Planning Project of Sichuan Province, China (Grant Nos. 2019YFS0119, 2019YFS0127)
Received Date:01 July 2020
Accepted Date:04 August 2020
Available Online:08 December 2020
Published Online:20 December 2020
Abstract:Thermoacoustic imaging (TAI) is an emerging biomedical imaging method in which microwave is used as an excitation source to generate acoustic signals. The TAI possesses the advantages of high contrast of microwave imaging and high resolution of ultrasound imaging, which is also noninvasive. While the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of TAI is often very low. It is usually required by averaging the thermoacoustic signal many times to improve the SNR. However, averaging the signal to improve the SNR can significantly reduce the TAI’s time resolution, which hinders the development of rapid TAI. Here in this paper, we propose to reduce the cost and improve the time resolution of TAI based on multi-channel amplifier and additive circuit. The received thermoacoustic signals are divided into 4 channels and then entered into 4 amplifiers simultaneously.After being amplified, the signals are added and collected by the data acquisition system for reconstructing the image. The phantom results indicate that the time resolution of TAI increases 5 times and the SNR rises from 6 dB to 12 dB, with the multi-channel amplifier and additive circuit adopted. The method proposed in this paper is helpful in promoting the development and clinical application of TAI, especially it has a great significance for developing the ultra-fast TAI. Keywords:thermoacoustic imaging/ low cost/ additive circuit/ time resolution