The design of newer ultrasonic imaging systems attempts to obtain low-cost, small-sized devices with reduced power consumption that are capable of reaching high frame rates with high image quality. In this regard, synthetic aperture techniques have been very useful. They reduce hardware requirements and accelerate information capture. However, the beamforming process is still very slow, limiting the overall speed of the system. Recently, general-purpose computing on graphics processing unit techniques have been proposed as a way to accelerate image composition. They provide excellent computing power with which a very large volume of data can easily and quickly be processed. This paper describes a new system architecture that merges both principles. Thus, using a minimum-redundancy synthetic aperture technique to acquire the signals (2R-SAFT), and a graphics processing unit as a beamformer, we have developed a new scanner with full dynamic focusing, both on emission and reception, that attains real-time imaging with very few resources.

This paper presents a computational method to calculate the reflected and transmitted ultrasonic fields at interfaces of complex geometry. The method is performed in two steps. As first step, the velocity potential impulse response from an arbitrary aperture is determined at the interface using the Rayleigh integral and considering the reflection and transmission coefficients. In a second step, the simulated fields are calculated by applying the RayleighSommerfeld integral to the whole, extended interface. In order to validate the method, some experimental cases as, for instance, plane and cylindrical concave surfaces between two media (water-acrylic) were tested. The experimental ultrasonic fields are in good agreement with those provided by the model. Furthermore, in the work, the compromise between the accuracy of the method and the computation time is studied.

An assessment of the standard fabrication Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) process Multi-User MEMS Processes (MUMPs) for complex air-coupled capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer array aperture manufacture is reported. A 1-D linear array and a 2-D sparse symmetric binned-array have been designed and manufactured, and then characterised experimentally using electrical impedance measurements, laser vibrometry and air-coupled field measurement; the experimental data are supported by simulated data using Finite Element technique and field simulation based on Huygens’ principle. A methodology for the manufacture of the array structures using the MUMPs process is described. Electrical characterisation shows the devices operation at 770 kHz and the existence of large parasitic capacitances and electrical losses. Mechanical crosstalk of array substrate has been measured at -40 dB using laser vibrometry. Moreover, the laser vibrometry measurement and the field characteristics of one element reveal that each element operates as a piston radiator

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