134 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ,
1, January 2011
Ultrafast Compound Doppler Imaging:
Providing Full Blood Flow Characterization
Jeremy Bercoff, Gabriel Montaldo, Thanasis Loupas, David Savery, Fabien Mézière, Mathias Fink,
and Mickael Tanter
Abstract—Doppler-based flow analysis methods require ac-
quisition of ultrasound data at high spatio-temporal sampling
rates. These rates represent a major technical challenge for
ultrasound systems because a compromise between spatial and
temporal resolution must be made in conventional approach-
es. Consequently, ultrasound scanners can either provide full
quantitative Doppler information on a limited sample volume
(spectral Doppler), or averaged Doppler velocity and/or power
estimation on a large region of interest (Doppler flow imaging).
In this work, we investigate a different strategy for acquiring
Doppler information that can overcome the limitations of the
existing Doppler modes by significantly reducing the required
acquisition time. This technique is called ultrafast compound
Doppler imaging and is based on the following concept: instead
of successively insonifying the medium with focused beams,
several tilted plane waves are sent into the medium and the
backscattered signals are coherently summed to produce high-
resolution ultrasound images. We demonstrate that this strat-
egy allows reduction of the acquisition time by a factor of up
to of 16 while keeping the same Doppler performance. Depend-
ing on the application, different directions to increase perfor-
mance of Doppler analysis are proposed and the improvement
is quantified: the ultrafast compound Doppler method allows
faster acquisition frame rates for high-velocity flow imaging, or
very high sensitivity for low-flow applications. Full quantitative
Doppler flow analysis can be performed on a large region of
interest, leading to much more information and improved func-
tionality for the physician. By leveraging the recent emergence
of ultrafast parallel beamforming systems, this paper demon-
strates that breakthrough performances in flow analysis can be
reached using this concept of ultrafast compound Doppler.
I. Introduction
D oppler-based imaging methods are well-established
tools on ultrasound systems for flow analysis and
quantification, and have become mandatory in the con-
text of cardiovascular disease assessment as well as cancer
diagnosis. There are two different kinds of Doppler modes
available: spectral analysis (continuous or pulsed) and col-
or-coded flow velocity and/or power imaging [1], [2].
Spectral analysis Doppler offers excellent temporal res-
olution and provides in-depth quantification of flow char-
acteristics by means of quantities such as the peak flow
Manuscript received June 19, 2010; accepted October 8, 2010.
J. Bercoff, T. Loupas, D. Savery, and F. Mézière are with Super-
Sonic Imagine, R&D, Aix en Provence, France (e-mail: jeremy.bercoff@
supersonicimagine.fr).
G. Montaldo, M. Fink, and M. Tanter are with Institut Langevin,
École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de
Paris (ESPCI) ParisTech, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (IN-
SERM), Paris, France.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TUFFC.2011.1780
0885–3010/$25.00
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vol. 58, no.
velocity as a function of time, the mean flow velocity as
a function of time, the resistance and pulsatility indices
within a cardiac cycle, the spectral broadening index, etc.
[1]. Spectral Doppler analysis requires continuous acquisi-
tions or very high sampling rates (several thousand hertz).
Flow quantification is then typically available only at a
single location (sample volume) or multiple locations along
the same line (multigating). Color flow imaging overcomes
the limited spatial sampling of the spectral analysis by
partly sacrificing the quantitative analysis, by reducing
the observation time at any given location and spreading
the ultrasound firings over a 2-D region of interest. The
information displayed is the mean flow velocity and/or
Doppler power estimated over an extended area. Those
modes are displayed in real time at frame rates that are
usually around a few hertz.
The big challenge of Doppler modes arises from the fact
that physicians ideally require simultaneous real time dis-
play of B-mode (gray scale) and PW-mode (duplex mode),
or even B-, color- and PW-modes (triplex mode). Duplex
and triplex simultaneous modes have become standard on
ultrasound systems, but suffer from frame rate limitations
in deep organs such as the liver or heart. Duplex and tri-
plex modes represent major technical challenges because
they require complex sequencing, high-energy ultrasound
transmission, and high processing power. Severe tradeoffs
on imaging mode quality and/or frame rate are necessary.
Consequently, there is a crucial need to significantly re-
duce the number of ultrasound firings required to perform
Doppler analysis (i.e., reduce the acquisition time) while
keeping constant or increasing performance.
Academic research into overcoming this issue has been,
and continues to be, extensive. Many directions have been
considered. The simplest solution consists of reducing the
number of transmit beams per color flow image by widen-
ing them [3]. Such an approach is currently implemented
on ultrasound systems but requires tradeoffs between sen-
sitivity and resolution to obtain a significant reduction
of the acquisition time. Other approaches have been pro-
posed, such as performing simultaneous transmissions [4]
and parallel beamforming, using synthetic aperture imag-
ing [5], [6], or reducing the number of samples required to
perform the Doppler estimation (ensemble length) while
introducing higher-performance processing methods [7],
designing pulses able to perform B- and Doppler-mode
imaging simultaneously [8]. Such approaches often require
the use of open and fully programmable electronic plat-
forms [9], [10]. Although proposed solutions show prom-
ising results, they add complexity to the Doppler-mode
© 2011 IEEE
bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
sequence and processing paths. As a consequence, most
of them have not yet become standards in current ultra-
sound systems.
In previous work, we proposed the use of plane-wave
insonifications to perform Doppler-based tissue motion
analysis [11]. Plane-wave transmission represents the most
efficient solution in terms of number of firings because the
whole medium is insonified in one shot. Ultrafast frame
rates (several thousands of hertz) can therefore be achieved,
and this has led to the introduction of a new quantitative
elasticity imaging mode [12]. The plane wave technique
implies compromises among resolution, contrast, and sen-
sitivity that are not significant for tissue motion analysis
but may become important when dealing with weak blood
flow scatterers. Udesen et al. [13] recently tested the plane
wave technique for color flow imaging. Coded excitations
were used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, but, as
stated by the authors, the poor contrast of the technique
limits its application to flow analysis in large arteries.
A way to improve the performance of ultrafast plane
wave imaging is to use several tilted plane waves [14].
These waves are sent into the medium and the backscat-
tered signals are coherently summed to produce a fully
dynamically focused image (in transmit and receive). Re-
cently, we introduced a new imaging method based on this
approach called the ultrafast plane wave compound tech-
nique [15]. We demonstrated that this technique allows
the realization of a B-mode of equivalent quality to the
standard focused approach with one-third the number of
insonifications. We also successfully applied this concept
to shear-wave-based elastography, allowing improvement
of this mode in terms of resolution, contrast, and sensitiv-
ity.
This paper investigates the ultrafast plane wave com-
pound technique in the framework of Doppler-based flow
analysis methods. The new technique is called ultrafast
compound Doppler imaging and is described in Section II.
Section III evaluates and quantifies the performance of the
new color flow imaging mode in phantoms and compares
it to conventional focused color flow imaging. It is shown
that, for a given mode performance, the acquisition time
can be reduced by a factor of up to 16. Based on these re-
sults, Section IV demonstrates how color flow imaging can
be enhanced using this insonification strategy through im-
proved sequencing and processing schemes. In vivo results
are presented. Section V proposes new tools for displaying
and analyzing the flow data provided by ultrafast imaging
(>500 Hz). Finally, Section VI discusses real-time imple-
mentation of the new mode on an ultrasound system, and
Section VII summarizes the conclusions of this study.
II. Background
A. Ultrafast Compound Imaging
In conventional ultrasound imaging, the medium is se-
quentially insonified using focused beams along different
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135
directions (or lines). Each image line is then computed
by processing the backscattered echoes coming from the
insonified direction. The maximal frame rate to produce a
focused image is set by the following equation:
c 1
Ffoc = , (1)
2Z n Lines
where Z is the maximal depth of the image, c is the speed
of sound, and nLines is the number of insonified lines. De-
pending on the application and the depth of interrogation,
frame rates varying from a few tens of hertz down to a few
hertz are typically achieved.
Ultrafast imaging can be performed by insonifying the
medium with a single plane wave transmit. Backscattered
echoes are simultaneously recorded from the entire scan
plane, and all imaging lines are simultaneously computed
using parallel beamforming processes. In this case, the
maximal frame rate is [12], [16]
c
Fflat = . (2)
2Z
The plane wave imaging method is the most efficient way
to increase frame rate, at the expense of image contrast
and spatial resolution [16], [17].
In the ultrafast compound imaging method, a set of
plane waves (NAngles) are sent into the medium at dif-
ferent angles at an ultrafast frame rate. The backscat-
tered echoes are, in a first processing step, beamformed
to produce NAngles ultrasound images. Each ultrasonic
image is produced by applying a conventional dynamic
receive focusing along each line of the image (conventional
delay-and-sum technique, fixed aperture ratio F/D ~ 1).
In a second step, these beamformed images are coherently
summed to obtain a compounded image which is dynami-
cally focused in transmit and receive. It is important to
note that the summation is done coherently before any
nonlinear process (envelope detection, etc.). The frame
rate is, in this case:
c 1
Fcomp = . (3)
2Z N Angles
Compared with a single flat insonification, the ultra-
fast compound imaging frame rates are reduced by NAngles
(number of plane wave angles) to improve image quality
(contrast, resolution). In a previous article [15], it was
demonstrated that when using NAngles ≈ 40, the ultrafast
compound imaging method has resolution, contrast, and
signal-to-noise ratio equivalent to the conventional focused
method. The acquisition time is then reduced by a typical
factor of 3 to 6, depending on the number of focused lines
(128 to 256) used in the conventional method. The con-
cept of plane wave compounding for increased image qual-
ity has been successfully applied to the field of transient
elastography [15]. This work investigates the performance
136 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control , vol. 58, no. 1, January 2011

of the ultrafast compound imaging method for Doppler-

based flow analysis.

B. New Technological Implementation for Fully

Parallel Beamforming

Ultrafast compound imaging requires the ability to ac-

quire and process ultrasound images at very high frame
rates, typically thousands of hertz. Conventional ultra-
sound systems usually reach frame rates of a few tens
of hertz as medium insonification and signal processing
are serialized by image line. Implementation of ultrafast
compound approaches is therefore not possible on such
systems because they require full parallelization of the im-
age formation process.
New platform architectures are needed, based on the com-
bination of ultrafast raw RF data acquisition capabilities and
full software-based and parallelized beamforming schemes.
The platform used in this work (Aixplorer, SuperSonic Imag-
ine, Aix en Provence, France) meets those requirements and
enables implementation of such new schemes.

C. Conventional Color Flow Imaging

In color flow imaging, flow velocity estimation relies on

the use of N narrowband (a few cycles) transmit pulses
sent at a fixed pulse repetition frequency (PRF) to esti-
mate the Doppler frequency (Fs). N is commonly referred
as the ensemble length. Based on the Nyquist theorem,
Fig. 1. (a) Conventional color mode and (b) ultrafast compound Doppler
to avoid aliasing, the PRF must be at least two times the sequences.
highest flow-related Doppler frequency of interest:

PRFflow ³ 2 Fs . (4)
D. Ultrafast Compound Doppler Imaging
The main steps of the processing are wall filtering to dis-
In the ultrafast compound approach, a set of NAngles
criminate tissue echoes from the flow signal and veloc-
tilted plane waves are transmitted at the ultrafast frame
ity estimation, most commonly based on autocorrelation
rate (PRFmax) to generate a compounded image, as il-
methods [18]–[20].
lustrated in Fig. 1. The sequence is repeated N times at
In this conventional approach, the sequencing strat-
PRFflow to be able to perform wall filtering and flow veloc-
egy is determined by the ratio between the maximum
ity estimation.
PRF achievable by the system at the considered depth
The maximum number of angles is determined by the
(PRFmax) and the necessary PRF to detect the desired
same parameter that controls the number of segments in
maximum flow velocity (PRFflow). This ratio gives the
the conventional method: the ratio between PRFmax and
number of lines that can be sequentially insonified before
PRFflow:
going back to the first insonified line:
NAnglesMax = PRFmax/PRFflow. (7)
Nlines = PRFmax/PRFflow. (5)
One obvious advantage of the ultrafast compound approach
To generate a color flow image that contains more lines
is that the concept of scanning the color image on a segment-
than Nlines, the image is subdivided into several segments
by-segment basis disappears. Because the whole medium is
of Nlines and the color sequence and processing are done
insonified for each transmision, there are no more tradeoffs
sequentially for all segments as illustrated in Fig. 1(a).
between frame rate and size of the color box caused by se-
The number of firings necessary to compute a full color
quence timing issues. Moreover, flow velocity estimation is
flow image is given by the following formula
performed simultaneously for all pixels and not at different
NFiringsC = Nlines ∙ NSegments ∙ N, (6) time instances, as in the conventional approach, leading to
true 2-D real-time Doppler flow imaging.
where NSegments is the number of segments needed to com- The number of firings necessary for a full color flow im-
plete the full color image. age is no longer linked to the number of lines within the

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bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
Fig. 2. Experimental 2-D PSFs of (a) focused, (b) flat, and (c) ultrafast compound (with 9 angles) methods. (d) A transverse cut of the PSFs at
the scatterer depth.
image, but to the number of tilted plane waves transmit-
ted, according to
NFiringsUltrafast = NAngles ∙ N. (8)
The gain GAT in acquisition time between conventional
and ultrafast acquisitions is then set by the following for-
mula:
G AT = N FiringsC/N FiringsUltrafast
(9)
= (N lines × N × N Segments)/(N Angles × N).
According to (5) and (7), and considering NAngles =
NAnglesMax = Nlines, this leads to the gain
GAT = NSegments. (10)
For high-speed flows, the typical number of segments in
a conventional color image is quite large, reaching up to
NSegments = 64 or even more (very high PRFFlow and large
color box). Therefore, the acquisition time gain of the
ultrafast compound method is potentially huge for such
large color boxes and high PRFs.
For low-speed flows, the gain in acquisition time is not
important because NSegment is small (typically NSegment =
1 to NSegment = 3). However, the gain in terms of sensitiv-
ity is considerable, because each pixel is insonified NAngles
times more when using ultrafast compound Doppler.
To evaluate the relevance of the ultrafast compound
method from a practical point of view, its performance
shall be quantified and compared with the conventional
focused Doppler technique. The next section is dedicated
to the in vitro assessment of the ultrafast compound Dop-
pler mode performance using the conventional color flow
mode as a reference.
III. Ultrafast Compound Doppler Imaging:
Performance Assessment
The performances obtained in terms of resolution and
contrast using plane wave compounding are studied in this
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137
section to provide insights for the next color flow section.
All experiments were conducted on ultrasound phantoms
using the Aixplorer ultrasound system (SuperSonic Imag-
ine). The probe used is a standard linear probe (128 ele-
ments, 0.3  mm pitch, 5 to 12  MHz) dedicated to small
parts and vascular applications. The probe was driven
by the system at ±50 V. To perform image comparisons,
the following parameters were chosen: Transmit pulse for
both methods: 3 cycles at 5 MHz, f-number for the focused
method = 3, maximal angle values for the compounded
approach: ±9°. The maximum angle affects the resolu-
tion of the compounded image, and has been chosen to
match the resolution of the focused method (f-number =
3). The number of angles used in the compound plane
wave method is a varying parameter of our experiments.
Signals received by the system were sampled at 20 MHz.
Ultrasound images were computed with a wavelength res-
olution of 0.3 mm.
Spatial resolution and contrast were calculated from
the experimental point spread function (PSF) of each im-
aging sequence on a single strong scatterer (50-µm wire
immersed in water). The 2-D PSFs for both modes were
calculated and compared with the so-called Flat mode,
which corresponds to the transmission of a single, un-
steered, plane wave. An example of 2-D PSFs for both
methods is shown in Fig. 2. The lateral resolution is as-
sessed by measuring the width of the PSF at the −6-dB
level. The axial resolution corresponds to the dimension
of the PSF at the −6-dB level in the axial (depth) direc-
tion. Finally, the anechoic contrast is calculated as the
ratio between energy outside a circle of 5λ centered in the
PSF and the energy of the complete PSF (λ being the
wavelength corresponding to the central frequency of the
pulse).
A. Resolution
The lateral resolution obtained for the three acquisi-
tion methods is shown in Table I. Although the single
138 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ,
Fig. 3. Anechoic contrast for different methods. Using 9 angles, the con-
trast is only 5 dB higher than in the focused mode.
flat mode presents a lower lateral resolution, the ultra-
fast compound method has equivalent resolution to the
focused mode. This was expected, because the lateral
resolution depends on the value of the maximum angles
chosen (not on the number of angles used) [15]. These
angles (±9°) have been effectively chosen to match the
focused mode apertures and resolution. The axial resolu-
tion is also shown in Table I. Because it depends only on
the bandwidth of the ultrasonic pulse, it is almost identi-
cal for all methods.
B. Anechoic Contrast
The anechoic contrast versus the number of angles is
shown in Fig. 3. The contrast decreases rapidly with the
number of angles: using NAngles = 9, the contrast level is
at −37  dB, only 5  dB higher than that for the focused
method. For NAngles = 16, the contrast difference is only
2 dB. As we will see in the next section, those numbers of
angles are an excellent choice for low-flow velocity imaging
that requires high sensitivity and resolution.
C. Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Montaldo et al. studied the signal-to-noise ratio of the
synthetic image obtained using compounded plane wave
insonifications compared with conventional B-mode im-
ages [15]. Assuming independent noise between insonifica-
tions, it was shown that the SNRs of both imaging meth-
ods (at the focal depth of the conventional focused image)
are linked by the following relation
SNR Comp N Angles N AnglesZ Fl
= = , (11)
SNR Foc g D
TABLE I. Spatial Resolution for the Different Modes.
Resolution Focused
Axial (mm) 1.07
Lateral (mm) 0.54
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vol. 58, no. 1, January 2011
where NAngles is the number of angles, g is the antenna
gain, ZF is the focal depth, λ is the wavelength, and D is
the array aperture. Considering a typical case in which λ
= 0.3 mm, ZF = 30 mm, and D = 9 mm, the SNR should
be the same for both methods when the number of angles
is equal to 9. If using more angles, the plane wave com-
pounding method should provide better SNR than the
conventional approach.
Experiments were conducted on a phantom to confirm
these findings. The SNR is measured using a phantom
containing a homogeneous distribution of scatterers. This
phantom is placed on a vibration-free table and a large
set of images is acquired. For each pixel of the image, the
mean signal s(x, z) and its standard deviation is calculated
using the complete set of acquisitions.
These values depend mainly on depth. To obtain a pre-
cise profile of the SNR as a function of depth, the SNR
values are averaged in the lateral direction and the final
measured SNR is
SNR(z ) =
åx s(x, z) . (12)
åx s(x, z)
Fig. 4(a) shows the depth dependence of the SNR for the
conventional focused method and an ultrafast compound
sequence relying on 16 angles. The focused method has a
lower SNR than the compound except at focal depth.
To compare both methods, we can define the SNR gain
as SNRcomp/SNRfoc. In Fig. 4(b), one can see that this
gain varies from 10 to 0 dB with a mean 5 dB gain over
all depths. Using an ultrafast compound sequence of 9
angles, the mean gain across the whole image is reduced
to approximately 2.5 dB.
D. Flow Analysis
Experiments were conducted on a calibrated Doppler
phantom (ATS 523A, ATS Laboratories Inc., Bridgeport,
CT) with blood mimicking fluid (Shelley Medical Imag-
ing Technologies, London, Ontario, CA) circulating with
a mean flow velocity of 4 cm/s in a 4-mm-diameter ves-
sel. The linear probe and acquisition parameters were the
same as those used previously. The acquisition parameters
are summarized in Table II. For the focus method, the
beam focus has been adjusted in the middle of the vessel
for the reference central line of the box (40 mm absolute
value)
Figs. 5(a) and 5(b) compare the power Doppler images
for both methods. Figs. 5(c) and 5(d) compare the color
Compound Compound
Flat 9 angles 16 angles
1.10 1.01 1.02
0.86 0.53 0.53
bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging 139

Fig. 5. Comparison between focused and ultrafast compound Doppler

images in a vessel phantom. (a) and (b) Power Doppler for focused
and compound modes, respectively (scale in decibels). (c) and (d) Color
Doppler for focused and compound method, respectively (scale in centi-
meters/second).

Fig. 4. (a) SNR versus depth: The ultrafast compound method with 16
angles has a higher SNR than the focused except at focal depth, where
they are practically identical. (b) SNR gain versus depth. The mean gain
is approximately 5 dB.
Doppler images in the same configuration. Qualitatively,
the methods are very similar.
For a quantitative comparison of both Doppler ap-
proaches, two quantities were assessed: the blood-to-tissue
ratio (BTR) in the power Doppler imaging mode and the
mean squared velocity error (MSE). The BTR is defined
as the average power signal within the flow vessel divided
by the average power in surrounding tissues. The mean
squared velocity error (MSE) corresponds to the devia-
tion of the experimental flow pattern from a theoretical
Poiseuille flow pattern distribution.
The measured BTR values are very similar for both im-
aging sequences: 17.7 and 17.8 dB for conventional color
flow imaging and ultrafast plane wave compounding, re-
spectively. Hence, it is clearly demonstrated that the tis-
sue clutter level is similar for both imaging methods.
For the calculation of the MSE, the theoretical Poi-
seuille profile v = vmax[1 − (r/R)2] is defined, where R is
the tube radius, r is the radial position within the tube,
and vmax is the maximal velocity in the center of the tube.
Because the Doppler angle between the flow and the beam
direction is known (18°), angle correction is performed to
derive the flow velocity from its projection along the direc-
tion of the Doppler beam. The estimated MSE is found to
be very similar for both methods: 0.25 and 0.27 cm/s for
conventional color flow imaging and ultrafast plane wave
compounding, respectively.
The performance of conventional method and plane
wave compounding for color flow imaging is summarized
in Table III. Quantitative values are provided for NAngles

TABLE II. Parameters for the Comparison of the Focused Doppler With the Ultrafast
Compound Method.
Conventional Compounded
focused plane waves
Depth (mm) 50 50
PRFmax (kHz) 14 14
Lines in segments 9 —
Angles — 9
PRFflow (kHz) 1.55 1.55
Lines to image 63 63
Number of segments 7 —
Ensemble length 11 11
Number of firings 693 99
Acquisition time (ms) 49 7
All parameters are identical except that the acquisition time is 7 times faster in the compound method.

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140 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control , vol. 58, no. 1, January 2011

TABLE III. Overview of the Imaging Performance of Each Mode.

Conventional Flat Compound Compound
focused (NAngles = 1) (NAngles = 9) (NAngles = 16)
Axial res. (mm) 1.07 1.10 1.01 1.02
Lateral res. (mm) 0.54 0.86 0.53 0.53
Contrast (dB) −42 −23 −37 −40
Mean SNR gain (dB) 0 −7 +2.5 +5
BTR (dB) 17.7 12 17.8 19.1
MSE 0.25 0.34 0.27 0.27
Frame rate max (Hz) 100 10000 1600 800
The frame rate is calculated for a typical 4-cm-deep image comprising 128 lines. Compared with conventional
color flow imaging, the plane wave compounding method reaches similar performances but exhibits a frame rate
8 to 16 times higher.

= 1, NAngles = 9, and NAngles = 16 angles and compared TABLE IV. Parameters for the Comparison Experiment
with the conventional color flow imaging. One can observe Between the Focused and Compound Doppler.
that most values are similar, except the maximal PRF is 8 Focused Compound
to 16 times faster for the ultrafast compounding approach Depth (mm) 25 25
depending on the number of angles used (9 or 16). PRFmax (kHz) 24 24
Reducing the plane wave compounding sequence to Lines in segment 8 —
Angles — 8
NAngles = 9 angles enables the generation of a very fast im- PRFflow (kHz) 3 3
aging modality (16 times faster than the focused one) with Lines to image 128 128
a very moderate loss in contrast (5 dB) and equivalent res- Number of segments 16 —
olution and SNR compared with the conventional mode. Number of frames 11 176
Moving to the 16-angle sequence drops the maximum flow Total number of firings 1408 1408
Acquisition time (ms) 58 58
velocity detectable and the gain in acquisition time by a
factor of 2 but allows contrast equivalent to conventional All parameters are identical except for the number of images.
color flow. Trade-offs are therefore possible depending on
the type of flow analyzed. The next two sections illustrate
how the optimization of such ultrafast sequences could TABLE V. Acoustic Power and Intensity (API) Parameters
for the Two Modes.
pave the way to many potential improvements and new
features of Doppler flow imaging. In Section IV, a method Negative
peak pressure Ispta
for the improvement of color flow imaging is presented and
Imaging method (MPa) MI (mW/cm2)
tested in vivo. In Section V, a new way to acquire, process,
Conventional focused 2.46 1.1 < 1.9 220 < 720
and analyze Doppler information with the use of ultrafast
Ultrafast compound 1.79 0.8 < 1.9 120 < 720
compounded sequences is introduced.

IV. Improving Color Flow Imaging: In Vivo
Experiments
In Section III, it was shown that the performance of
conventional color flow imaging can be reached in much
shorter acquisition time. Section IV investigates the pos-
sibility of using the resulting available time to introduce
additional color flow improvements. The sequences are
optimized in a different manner depending on the appli-
cation considered: for fast-flow optimization, steep wall
filtering and fast acquisition times are required, whereas
for low-flow optimizations, very high sensitivity and reso-
lution are pursued.
A. Fast Flow Optimization
To improve fast flow imaging, the number of angles
must be limited to keep the PRF high enough. Thus, the
ensemble length can be increased to fit the same acquisi-
tion time as for the conventional focused method.
1) Experiment Setup: Experiments were performed in
vivo on the common carotid of a healthy volunteer imaged
using an 8-MHz linear probe (256 elements). To compare
both methods at the same instant in the cardiac cycle, the
ultrasonic sequence consists of 58 ms of conventional fo-
cused imaging, immediately followed by 58 ms of ultrafast
plane wave compounding. The parameters for the acquisi-
tions are shown in Table IV. The number of firings, PRFs,
and duration of the acquisition are exactly the same for
both sequences. Only the total number of final images is
different: the ultrafast plane wave compounding sequence
is able to acquire 176 frames, whereas the focused method
generates only 11 frames because of the line-by-line ac-
quisition.
To ensure patient safety, acoustic power and intensity
(API) measurements were performed for both modes. The
results are shown in Table V. Measurements have been
performed following 60601–2-37 international guidance
[21]. Values for both modes are below FDA safety limita-
tions and plane wave compounding is found to outperform

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bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
Fig. 6. Focused color Doppler image (a) and compound color Doppler (b)
using the same acquisition time. The compound image has a very low
variance and is of much better quality than the focused one. (c) to (f)
are computed by reducing the number of frames to calculate the ultrafast
Doppler image, the acquisition time is accelerated by a factor of 2 to 14.
The image accelerated 14 times has a similar quality than the standard
focused image. No spatial or averaging filter is used in all these images.
conventional color flow in terms of mechanical index (MI)
and spatial peak time average intensity (Ispta).
2) Improving Velocity Measurement Accuracy: Figs.
6(a) and 6(b) compares the images obtained with the two
methods. These images are the direct output of the Dop-
pler frequency calculated without any kind of spatial or
temporal smoothing. As one can observe, the ultrafast
plane wave compound Doppler image reaches a very high
quality because of the long ensemble used (176 firings)
whereas the conventional Doppler method generates an
image with a high variance because of the limited tempo-
ral averaging offered by the ensemble of just 11 firings.
Using the same set of data, one interesting experiment
is to progressively reduce the number of acquisition frames
in ultrafast plane wave compounding (i.e., the ensemble
length) to increase the temporal resolution at the expense
of image quality. Figs. 6(c) to 6(f) present results from
such an experiment, with ultrafast Doppler images formed
using ensemble lengths of 88, 44, 22, and 12 firings. Com-
pared with the conventional Doppler method, the acqui-
sition time is reduced respectively by a factor 2, 4, 8,
and 14. Although the ultrafast Doppler image progres-
sively degrades with the reduced number of acquisition
frames, it remains better than conventional Doppler. Even
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141
Fig. 7. Thyroid scans using (a) ultrafast compound Doppler imaging and
(b) focused. Horizontal lines of the Doppler images are shown on (c) and
(d) for the ultrafast compound Doppler image and (e) and (f) for the
focused image.
for the fastest sequence (corresponding to an ensemble
length equal to 12) the ultrafast plane wave compounding
outperforms the quality of the conventional method. It is
important to note that the apparent change in the granu-
larity between the fastest ultrafast compound image [Fig.
6(f)] and the focused image [Fig. 6(a)] comes from the fact
that the conventional focused image is built gradually on a
segment-by-segment basis (16 segments, each containing 8
lines). Thus, the spatio-temporal continuity is not ensured
from one segment to the next, whereas the whole image is
acquired simultaneously in the compound approach.
B. Low-Velocity Flow Optimization
For clinical applications where low-velocity flow must
be detected in small vessels, the image contrast becomes
a key parameter. Here, the number of angles used to com-
pute a full color image is increased to 16 to obtain con-
trast performance similar to the conventional approach
(see Fig. 3) and a higher SNR (see Fig. 4). The spatial
resolution is also explicitly increased by choosing large
maximum tilting angles (±12° instead of ±9°). Both meth-
ods (conventional and ultrafast compound) are evaluated
on the thyroid of a healthy volunteer and presented in
Fig. 7.
The ultrafast compound image exhibits higher flow sen-
sitivity and less variance (14 times less) than the focused
one; for example, small vessels deep in thyroid are clearly
resolved, whereas they remain very difficult to detect in
the focused image. This is demonstrated in Figs. 7(c)–(f),
where the Doppler intensity is plotted along two horizon-
tal lines (2- and 2.2-cm depth) for both methods. Peaks of
Doppler signals are clearly present on the ultrafast com-
142 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ,
Fig. 8. Example of the signals in an ultrafast acquisition. (a) Signal I
at a selected point in the artery in arbitrary units. (b) After applying
the wall filter, the raw signal corresponding to blood flow is extracted.
(c) The mean Doppler frequency is calculated using a 15-point sliding
window for Fourier analysis.
pound image, whereas the same peaks are very close to
the noise background on the focused one.
The ultrafast compound method offers much better flow
detection and higher sensitivity and resolution than the
conventional method. Moreover, the penetration is signifi-
cantly higher in the ultrafast compound method, mainly
because of a better SNR at greater depths.
V. Ultrafast Doppler: Full Characterization
of Fast Flows
Standard color Doppler is limited to frame rates of up
to 20 to 30 Hz. At such frame rates, many fast transient
phenomena such as turbulence or short duration flow re-
versals are invisible. Therefore, color flow imaging could
tremendously benefit from higher acquisition rates.
Because the acquisition time of the ultrafast compound
Doppler images is significantly shorter than for the con-
ventional method, sequences can be designed to increase
the temporal sampling rate of the Doppler data. In this
section, we investigate the potential of the ultrafast com-
pound Doppler method to acquire Doppler data at high
spatial and temporal sampling rates.
A. Ultrafast Doppler
In this particular acquisition mode, Doppler data over
the full ROI is acquired at high repetition frequency (typi-
cally the PRF used in pulsed-wave Doppler mode) dur-
ing a complete cardiac cycle. The highly sampled Doppler
data are then stored into memory and are available for
multiple parallel processing and analysis schemes in a ret-
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vol. 58, no. 1, January 2011
rospective manner. To assess the performance of the new
acquisition scheme, experiments were performed on the
carotid of a healthy volunteer.
The implemented sequence is an ultrafast sequence
comprising 3 angles (−3°, 0 °, +3°) and an acquisition PRF
between angles equal to 20 kHz. The acquisition contains
gaps between sets of compounded images to obtain a flow
acquisition frame rate of 3 kHz, instead of the maximum
flow PRF of 6.66  kHz (20  kHz/3 angles). Doppler data
are acquired at this frame rate during a complete cardiac
cycle (3000 images in total).
Fig. 8(a) shows an example of the raw in-phase/quadra-
ture-phase (IQ) signal (The IQ signal corresponds to the
beamformed and demodulated ultrasound signal) at one
given location inside the arterial blood flow. A wall filter
is applied to this raw signal to extract the blood flow sig-
nal, which is displayed on Fig. 8(b). The mean Doppler
frequency is then calculated using 15 samples in a slid-
ing window (with a 10-sample step between adjacent win-
dows). The resulting Doppler frequency signal is shown in
Fig. 8(c) and has a temporal resolution of 150 Hz, which
is significantly higher than for the standard focused color
Doppler imaging (typically 10 to 15 Hz).
The complete movie comprises as much as 300 images.
Fig. 9 presents some interesting frames from the acquisi-
tion. To identify the temporal location within the cardiac
cycle, Fig. 9(a) shows the mean Doppler frequency of the
flow in the artery. In Fig. 9(b), the flow velocity is at its
minimal value. In Figs. 9(c) and 9(d), the aortic valve
opens and the flow accelerates. Between time steps (d)
and (f), the flow dynamics become more complex and
the Reynolds number can reach the critical value where
turbulence can appear [22]. In Figs. 9(e.1) to (e.5), a
sequence of 5 frames shows the rapid inversion of the
parabolic laminar flow into a profile where the speed is
temporarily almost zero in the center of the artery. In
Fig. 9(f), local turbulent phenomena start to develop.
The spatio-temporal trajectory and evolution of this lo-
cally turbulent flow can be followed during a few frames.
Finally, in Figs. 9(g) and 9(h), the profile becomes lami-
nar again.
The two cineloops corresponding to Figs. 9(e.1) to (e.5)
and Figs. 9 (f.1) to (f.5) have a total duration of 40 ms,
which is the required time to perform only a single Dop-
pler image in conventional color flow. This shows that such
temporal close-ups as the ones allowed by the ultrafast
compound imaging method could be of great interest to
fully analyze complex flow dynamics in arteries.
B. Full Spectra Analysis
The continuous acquisition of ultrafast compound im-
aging over a 2-D area of interest offers additional possi-
bilities for advanced flow quantification. For example, the
acquired data are perfectly suitable for generating full-
spectral analysis Doppler sonograms as those obtained by
the standard PW Doppler mode simultaneously for each
pixel of the 2-D color flow image. Therefore, we can per-
bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging 143

Fig. 9. Some selected frames of a complete cardiac cycle obtained with the ultrafast compound. (a) Average flow in the artery indicating the selected
frames. (b) Before the opening of the aortic valve, there is a minimal laminar flow. (c) and (d) Acceleration of the flow. (e) Inversion of the parabolic
profile in the deceleration. (f) Local turbulence is present and propagates in the artery. (g) and (h) Laminar flows in diastole.

form retrospective full-spectral analysis at arbitrary mul-
tiple points throughout the whole area of interest, unlike
conventional PW Doppler which is restricted to a given
location. The obtained Doppler spectra for each desired
pixel exhibit perfect time alignment, because they are
based on data acquired at the same time. Fig. 10 shows
two such Doppler spectra, obtained from sample volumes
denoted as b and c in the ultrafast Doppler image. Note
that the vertical elongation which is visible in some parts
of the spectra in Fig. 10 is a direct consequence of ap-
plying a rectangular windowing function to the Doppler
time sequence before the fast Fourier transform. Also note
that the acquisition parameters corresponding to the in-
put data of this figure are the same as those specified in
the previous paragraph.
By offering the possibility of performing full spectral
analysis throughout the color image, plane wave com-
pound sequences enable generation of Doppler sonograms
of higher dimensionality (Doppler frequency + time +
depth + lateral position) which can be exploited in a va-
riety of ways. For example, Fig. 11 shows a new type of
flow analysis by defining longitudinal and transverse lines
within the ultrafast color flow image, and generating Dop-
pler spectrum sonograms versus spatial position at mul-

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144 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ,
Fig. 10. (a) Two sample volumes plus (b) and (c) the corresponding
spectrograms using IQ data acquired at the same time.
tiple times. Negative flows are clearly quantified at the
time of the turbulence, Fig. 11(b).
This kind of spatial analysis could eventually be done
by allowing a user to manually draw a line to analyze a
particular trajectory of the flow. Thanks to the ultrafast
plane wave compounding technique, automation tools can
Fig. 11. Doppler frequency versus spatial position spectrograms at three different times (a), (b), and (c). Spatial analysis is done longitudinally (x)
and transversely (z) through the common carotid artery.
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vol. 58, no. 1, January 2011
also be envisioned to improve the efficiency of the Doppler
exam workflow. For example, the location of maximum
peak velocity over the cardiac cycle could be automatical-
ly detected and the full Doppler spectrum corresponding
to this specific location can be calculated and displayed.
More generally, this new Doppler sequencing opens the
possibility of complete offline quantitative analysis of the
blood flow from a single ultrafast compound acquisition.
VI. Discussion
This paper introduces a new approach of Doppler blood
flow imaging that significantly outperforms conventional
Doppler imaging. This approach is based on the successive
transmissions of compounded plane waves with different
tilting angles. The backscattered echoes corresponding to
these compounded plane waves transmissions are recom-
bined coherently to resynthesize ultrasonic images that ex-
hibit excellent contrast and highly improved frame rates.
Thanks to plane wave insonifications, each pixel of the
imaged area can be formed using many more time samples
than those used in conventional Doppler imaging.
As an immediate consequence, several key improve-
ments can be obtained relative to conventional Doppler
imaging. First of all, the acquisition time can be great-
ly reduced, typically by a factor of up to 16 (with the
9-angle sequence). Therefore, plane wave compounding
is extremely convenient for fast-flow imaging (arteries,
large veins) where transitory and turbulent flows could
be imaged with a much better temporal resolution. We
bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
demonstrated higher-quality flow estimation for fast-
speed flows, as shown in Section IV, without the need for
post-processing operators (spatial smoothing, temporal
smoothing, etc.) which are typically used in conventional
Doppler flow imaging to improve the quality of the raw
flow estimates. On the other hand, the technique is also
extremely interesting for slow-flow imaging, where resolu-
tion, sensitivity, and contrast are important. In that case,
the angle range and the number of angles are increased
(from 9 to 16 as illustrated in Section IV) at the expense
of a lower gain in acquisition time. Flow detection and
definition can be strongly improved for low-speed flows, as
shown in Fig. 7: because each pixel is derived from many
more time samples, much better sensitivity is enabled. Ul-
trafast compound Doppler imaging could provide a way to
image very-low-speed flows in small vessels; for example,
for evaluating tumor recurrence after chemotherapy or ra-
diotherapy treatments (prostate or breast cancer) [23].
Complex flows are difficult to analyze because of the
inability of conventional approaches to obtain Doppler
spectra simultaneously at several locations. To partly
overcome these limits, Tortoli et al. proposed multigat-
ed Doppler spectrum analysis to increase the amount of
quantitative information available compared with conven-
tional Doppler [24], [25]. A highly-relevant feature of ul-
trafast Doppler in this context is its ability to fully over-
come the fundamental limitation of conventional Doppler,
which is able to assess blood flow simultaneously only in
a very limited area of interest (this refers both to color
flow imaging and PW color modes). In ultrafast Doppler,
blood flow can be estimated simultaneously at each pixel
location in a wide 2-D region of interest. Because blood
flow is evaluated simultaneously for all pixels, it enables
a much better understanding of complex flows. Assessing
the full spatial and temporal distribution of flow enables,
for example, tracking pf turbulent flows, or the study of
viscosity or Reynold’s number thanks to the dynamics of
velocity distribution profiles in the artery. It also enables
the analysis of complex flow trajectories and dynamics
because the complete Doppler spectrum becomes available
for each pixel. One should notice here that the maximum
detectable frequency/velocity is NAngles times lower than
in classic PW single mode. NAngles should therefore be set
as low as possible for fast-flow analysis. The concept of
plane wave compounding can also easily be extended to
transverse Doppler measurements by using independent
sub-apertures of the array [26].
Finally, plane wave compounding provides a much
better use of the color and PW Doppler modes, because
they are fully integrated within the same real-time mode.
Perhaps more importantly, this new concept of ultrasonic
sequences also provides the possibility of obtaining quanti-
fiable Doppler spectra at all image locations in a retrospec-
tive manner, by using previously stored ultrafast Doppler
data. More generally, ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
opens up the possibility of exploring advanced flow imag-
ing and quantification techniques by taking advantage of
the simultaneous acquisition of Doppler information over
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145
a large region of interest with excellent spatio-temporal
continuity.
Of course, the possibility of implementing such a mode
in real time on an ultrasound system is also a real chal-
lenge, because it requires a complete redefinition of the ul-
trasonic system architecture. The two main requirements
are:
• Highly parallelized acquisition and processing ca-
pabilities to perform ultrafast imaging sequences,
i.e., imaging of the medium at ultrafast frame rates
(>1000 Hz),
• Very high processing performance to be able to gener-
ate ultrafast color images in real time. Overall, pro-
cessing capabilities of the ultrasound device need to
be increased at least by a factor of NAngles compared
with conventional techniques (each pixel is beam-
formed NAngles times) to provide real-time Doppler
information.
The requirements of such an ultrasonic platform can only
be provided by a highly flexible software architecture,
in which the system is able to acquire and process ul-
trasound images at ultrafast frame rates. A first clinical
system based on a fully software-based architecture was
developed in the framework of shear wave imaging (Aix-
plorer ultrasound system, SuperSonic Imagine). Ultrafast
data are stored in a digital memory and transferred at
3.5 Gbytes/s via a PCI express link to a software-based
processing block that leverages GPU processing power (1
CPU with 6 cores, 3.33 GHz sampling, and 1 GPU board).
All image lines can therefore be processed in parallel, en-
abling generation of a few thousands of ultrasound images
per second. The Aixplorer system is currently leveraged
for integrating real-time ultrafast Doppler imaging. Tech-
nical and clinical performances will be presented in a fu-
ture work.
VII. Conclusion
By moving beyond the concept of conventional ultrason-
ic imaging acquisitions, ultrafast plane wave compounding
enables revision of Doppler imaging and paves the way to
new perspectives in Doppler flow analysis. First, a signifi-
cant gain in acquisition time (up to 16 times faster) can
be achieved while keeping the Doppler mode performance
similar to today standards, offering significant frame rate
improvements and the opportunity for improved visualiza-
tion and advanced analysis of transient flow phenomena
such as turbulence and jets. Second, the ultrafast Doppler
sequence can be optimized so that it offers comparable
frame rates to conventional Doppler flow imaging but with
much longer ensembles, to enhance flow imaging perfor-
mance by increasing resolution, sensitivity, and introduc-
ing very fine tissue/flow discrimination. Finally, ultrafast
Doppler imaging can be used to acquire Doppler informa-
tion at very high spatial and temporal sampling rates,
146 IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control ,
allowing full spectral analysis on a large 2-D ROI in real-
time as well as using previously stored data. Therefore
this approach has the potential to strongly improve all
aspects of currently used flow imaging and analysis appli-
cations, as well as to expand the clinical applications and
diagnostic capabilities of Doppler ultrasound far beyond
what is currently available.
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Jeremy Bercoff was born 1977 in Paris, France.
In 2001, he received an engineering degree from the
Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie de Par-
is (ESPCI, ParisTech) with a specialization in
Physics. In 2004, Jeremy received a Ph.D. degree in
physics (acoustics) from the University of Paris VII
for his work on ultrafast imaging and shear-wave-
based elastography in soft tissues for cancer detec-
tion. In 2005, he co-founded SuperSonic Imagine, a
French medical ultrasound imaging and therapy
company in Aix en Provence, for which he led the
introduction in 2007 of a new real time elasticity imaging mode (shear
wave elastography) on the company’ first marketed product. He is the
author of 8 patents and more than 15 peer reviewed papers in the field of
medical imaging. His current research activities include ultrafast imaging,
new ultrasound beam-forming strategies, and functional ultrasound imag-
ing, such as color Doppler and elasticity imaging.
Gabriel Montaldo was born 1972 in Montevi-
deo, Uruguay. He received the Ph.D. degree in
physics from the Universidad de la Republica,
Uruguay, in 2001. Since 2002, he has worked in
the Laboratory Ondes et Acoustique at the Ecole
Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles
de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI). His principal re-
search includes applications of the time-reversal
process to adaptive focusing in heterogeneous me-
dia, biomedical applications of ultrasound, and
elastography. He has published more than 30 re-
viewed articles in the ultrasound domain.
Thanasis Loupas received the B.E. degree in
electrical engineering from the National Technical
University of Athens, Greece, in 1983. He was a
post-graduate research student at the National
Research Center “Democritos” in Athens, Greece
(1983–1984), and then moved to the Department
of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, Scotland, as a Ph.D. student
working on adaptive image processing algorithms
for speckle reduction in medical ultrasonic imag-
ing. After receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1988 from
the University of Edinburgh, he became a Research Fellow at the same
university working on real-time image processing and Doppler signal
processing techniques. In 1992, he joined the Ultrasonics Laboratory of
the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial & Research Organization, Syd-
bercoff et al.: ultrafast compound Doppler imaging
ney Australia, where he worked as a Research Scientist, Senior and Prin-
cipal Research Scientist in novel flow and tissue-motion estimation tech-
niques, and quantitative analysis of cardiac and obstetrical ultrasound
data. In 1996, he became a member of the Corporate Technical Staff at
Advanced Technology Laboratories, Bothell, WA, (subsequently acquired
by and integrated within Philips Medical Systems) where he worked on
a variety of R&D projects in the areas of Color/PW Doppler system
architecture and processing, as well as algorithms for computer-assisted
quantification and system automation, implemented in the HDI5000 and
iU22 ultrasound systems and the QLAB quantification software. He
joined SuperSonic Imagine, Aix-en-Provence, France as a Principal Sci-
entist in 2007, where he continues to work in the design and development
of signal and image processing algorithms for all imaging modes of the
Aixplorer ultrasound system, plus automatic optimization and quantifi-
cation techniques.
David Savéry earned the M.S. degree in 1998
from Mines Paris Tech, France, majoring in image
analysis and image processing.He then joined the
Laboratory of Biorheology and Medical Ultrason-
ics, University of Montréal Hospital, Montréal,
PQ, where he received the Ph.D. degree in bio-
medical engineering in 2003. From 2004 through
2005, Dr. Savéry was a postdoctoral fellow and
then senior member of the research staff at Philips
Research North America, Briarcliff Manor, NY.
David Savéry is currently R&D ultrasound engi-
neer at SuperSonic Imagine, Aix-en-Provence, France. He has contrib-
uted to the development of the Aixplorer ultrasound system since 2006.
His research interests are in statistical signal processing, medical imag-
ing, ultrasound tissue characterization, and biomechanics.
Fabien Meziere was born in December 1987 in
Bernay, France. In 2007 he entered the Ecole Su-
périeure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielle de
Paris (ESPCI ParisTech) and in 2011 obtained an
engineer degree with a specialization in physics. In
2009, he worked at SuperSonic Imagine on ultra-
fast compound Doppler imaging. He is now achiev-
ing his master’s degree in acoustics at the Univer-
sity of Paris VII.
Mathias A. Fink received the M.S. degree in
mathematics from Paris University, France, in
1967, and the Ph.D. degree in solid-state physics
in 1970. Then he moved to medical imaging and
received the Doctorat es-Sciences degree in 1978
from Paris University. His Doctorat es-Sciences
research was in the area of ultrasonic focusing
with transducer arrays for real-time medical imag-
ing.
Dr. Fink is a professor of physics at the Ecole
Superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles
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147
de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI), Paris, France, and at Paris 7 University
(Denis Diderot), France. In 1990, he founded the Laboratory Ondes et
Acoustique at ESPCI. In 2002, he was elected to the French Academy of
Engineering, in 2003 to the French Academy of Science, and in 2008 to
the Chair of Technological Innovation for the College de France.
His current research interests include medical ultrasonic imaging, ul-
trasonic therapy; nondestructive testing; underwater acoustics; telecom-
munications; seismology; active control of sound and vibration; analogies
between optics, quantum mechanics, and acoustics; wave coherence in
multiply scattering media; and time-reversal in physics.
He has developed different techniques in acoustic imaging (transient
elastography, supersonic shear imaging), wave focusing in inhomoge-
neous media (time-reversal mirrors), speckle reduction, and in ultrasonic
laser generation. He holds more than 50 patents, and he has published
more than 300 articles. 4 start-up companies have been created from
his research (Echosens, Sensitive Object, Supersonic Imagine, and Time
Reversal Communications).
Mickaël Tanter is a Research Professor of the
French National Institute for Health and Medical
Research (INSERM). For five years, he has been
heading the team Inserm ERL U979 “Wave Phys-
ics for Medicine” at Langevin Institute, ESPCI
ParisTech, France. In 1999, he was awarded the
Ph.D. degree from Paris VII University in phys-
ics.
His main activities are centered on the devel-
opment of new approaches in wave physics for
medical imaging and therapy. His current research
interests cover a wide range of topics: elastography using shear wave
imaging, high intensity focused ultrasound, ultrasonic imaging using ul-
trafast ultrasound scanners, adaptive beamforming, and the combination
of ultrasound with optics and MRI. In 2009, he received the Frederic
Lizzi Early Career Award of the International Society of Therapeutic
Ultrasound and the Montgolfier Prize of the National Society for Indus-
try Valorization (SEIN) in 2010. Mickael Tanter is the recipient of 17
patents in the field of ultrasound imaging and the author of more than
80 technical peer reviewed papers and book chapters. He is an Associate
Editor and TPC member of IEEE Ultrasonics and member of the Brain
Advisory board of the Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation. In 2005,
he, along with M. Fink, J. Souquet, C. Cohen-Bacrie and J. Bercoff
founded SuperSonic Imagine, an innovative French company positioned
in the field of medical ultrasound imaging and therapy; in 2009 they
launched a new-generation ultrasound imaging platform called Aixplorer
with a unique shear wave imaging modality.