Ultrasound Beamforming Based on GPU Parallel Computation
Chen Yinran1,2 He Qiong1,2 Luo Jianwen 1,2*
1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China 2Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Abstract：The conventional line-by-line focused mode restricts the improvement of frame rate in ultrasound imaging. In plane wave imaging, each image is obtained by only one transmission and reception, and thus ultrafast imaging can be achieved. However, the current beamformers cannot meet the demand of ultrafast ultrasound imaging for massive computation. In this paper, the feasibility analysis of parallel computation in delay\|and-sum beamforming algorithm was performed and two beamforming methods based on graphics processing unit (GPU) parallel computation including the 2 Kernel-based and 1 Kernel-based parallel beamformers were designed and implemented. The main differences between these methods were the calculations and data storage strategies of time delays in beamforming. Phantom experiments demonstrate that the computational frame rates of each method was 2,178 frames per second and 2,453 frames per second, respectively. Each of the methods obtained a speed up ratio of 99 and 111 compared to the normal method, which demonstrated that the GPU-based beamformer could significantly improve the calculating capability.
陈胤燃 何琼 罗建文. 基于GPU并行计算的超声波束合成方法[J]. 中国生物医学工程学报, 2016, 35(6): 677-683.
Chen Yinran He Qiong Luo Jianwen. Ultrasound Beamforming Based on GPU Parallel Computation. Chinese Journal of Biomedical Engineering, 2016, 35(6): 677-683.
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