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Manipulation of grating lobes by changing element shape

Abstract In this paper we present two approaches to manipulate the positions and levels of grating lobes in linear arrays by modifying the element shape. The first approach is to push the grating lobes outside the imaging plane in elevation direction by using skewed elements. The second approach is to use interwoven element (cut in a zig-zag fashion) to move the zero in the radiation pattern of the individual elements closer to the main lobe relative to the position of the first grating lobe. The performance of the suggestied designs is evaluated using simulations in Field II. The suppression of grating lobes is 20 dB for the interwoven elements. Keywords grating lobes, arrays, ultrasound, radiation pattern.

- pitch - element width - kerf - element height

Fig. 1 Symbols and terms describing transducer geometry. The pulse-echo radiation pattern of a linear array, which elements are omnidirectional can be approximated for the continuous-wave case as: ( )
( ( ) )

(2)

I.

RADIATION PATERN OF ARRAYS

where is the off-axis angle and is the wavenumber. The wavenumber represents a spatial frequency defined as

Imaging in modern ultrasound scanners is performed using linear or curved arrays. The aperture is thus sampled. This spatial sampling results in aliasing of spatial frequencies. The artifacts created by this aliasing are generally referred to as grating lobes. Different approaches to minimize the level of grating lobes have been investigated over the years. One approach is to remove the grating lobes by removing the periodicity in the array design [1]. Another approach is to select sets of elements so that the position of grating lobes in the transmit radiation pattern are cancelled by the zeros in the receive radiation pattern [2]. The goal of this study is to investigate methods to reduce the grating lobes by manipulating the shape of the elements without increasing the channel count. The notation used in the paper is shown in Fig. 1: pitch is the distance between the centers of two transducer elements; width is the physical width of the element in the azimuth direction; height is the width of the physical element in the elevation direction; and kerf is the distance between two elements. The relation between the pitch , the width and the kerf is: (1)

where is the center frequency, is the speed of sound and is the wavelength. The radiation pattern ( ) in (2) is derived using Fraunhoffer approximation which is valid for the far field and for the focal region in the near field. It represents essentially the Fourier transform of the apodization function of the array. It has a periodic nature with maxima located at those angles for which the denominator is equal to zero, i.e.

where is an integer number. When , the grating lobes appear at off the main beam. Fore example, if the beem is steered at 30 degrees, then a grating lobe will appear at 60 degrees. The pulse-echo radiation pattern of an array with elements with finite width is the product of the radiation pattern of ( ): the array ( ) and of the individual element ( ) ( ) ( ) (3)

The pulse-echo radiation pattern of the individual element can be approximated as ( ) [

(4)

Unlike arrays, elements do not have grating lobes, but a number of side lobes.

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The pulse echo radiation pattern of an array consisting of elements with width is shown in Fig. 2.
Amplitude [normalized]
Phased array

1 0.8 0.6

dx = 300m; w = 275 m

= 0

Amplitude [normalized]

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 -1

38 dB 0.4 0.2 0

-0.5

0 sin()

0.5

1
Amplitude [normalized]

Fig. 2 Pulse-echo radiation pattern of a phased/linear array transducer

0.8 0.6

= 10

The position of the zeros in the radiation pattern of a single element is inversely proportional to the width of the element , and can be derived from:

17.3 dB 0.4 0.2 0 -1

The position of the peaks of the grating lobes is inversely proportional to the pitch of the array . Usually the element width is smaller than the pitch and the first grating lobes are placed within the main lobe of the radiation pattern of the elements. A number of applications require beam steering. Two examples are spatial compounding and color flow mapping. The effect of steering on the radiation pattern is illustrated in Fig. 3. It shows the radiation pattern of an 8-element transducer with a pitch of 300 m and element width of 275 m. The radiation pattern of the single element does not change its position and steering the beam leads to a reduced level of the main beam. Simultaneously, the grating lobe moves towards the center of the radiation pattern of the single element and the ratio between the two is decreased from 38 dB to about 17 dB. Notice that both the main lobe and the grating lobes are evaluated in the imaging plane. In the rest of the paper we will consider two approaches to decrease the level of the grating lobe: (1) move the grating lobe outside the imaging plane, and (2) move the grating lobe beyond the first zero in the radiation pattern of the single element.

-0.5

0 sin( )

0.5

Fig. 3 Pulse echo radiation pattern of an array with

elements, pitch of 300 m, element width of 275 m, and a center frequency of 7.5 MHz.

II. INVESTIGATED APPROACHES

Rotate the transducer elements: A method for moving the grating lobes outside of the imaging plane is provided to us from the approximation of the radiation pattern, which can be loosely approximated by the Fourer transform of the function describing the aperture of the array. The properties of the 2D Fourier transform state that if the input function is rotated, then the spectrum is rotated too. An example is shown in Fig. 4 The top plot of Fig. 4 shows the position of the main lobe (red circle), the grating lobes (red-pink ellipses), and the imaging plane, which is illustrated by an orange rectangle.

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III. PRACTICAL DESIGNS

Grating lobe

Thickness of scan plane defined by lenses

A widespread process for manufacturing arrays is to subdice the transducer elements into square ceramic posts; fillin the space between the ceramic posts with kerf material; depose electrodes as metallization on top and on the bottom of the elements; and finally, cut the metallization using laser to form the final elements. The process structure is shown in Fig. 6.
electrodes ceramic posts

Fig. 4 A rotation of the direction of the elements results in a rotation of the

kerf material
azimuth

The bottom plot of Fig. 4 shows that by dicing the elements at an angle, we expect the grating lobes to rotate by the same amount, while the focusing in the elevation direction will remain largely unaffected, because of the effect of the acoustic lens. Since the focusing in elevation direction remains unmodified, we expect that the echoes coming from the grating lobes will be suppressed. Interweaved element: Another method is suggested by Fig. 3. The reason why the difference in the levels of the main and the grating lobes decreases, when the beam is steered, is that the grating lobe of the array is already inside the main lobe of the individual element. What is needed is to manipulate the radiation pattern of the individual elements in such a way, that the first zero in the radiation pattern is placed closer to the main lobe than the grating lobe. In this way, when the beam is steered, the grating lobe will coincide with the zero and will be suppressed. To achieve this, every element must collect energy from an area that crosses the boundaries between two elements, which gives interwoven elements as shown in Fig. 5.

elevation

Fig. 6 Illustration of the internal structure of a typical array A constraint on the design has been imposed, such that the cutting procedure is executed only over areas filled with kerf material.

Fig. 7 Investigated element designs: interweaved elements on the left and

Fig. 5 Interweaved elements. The elements are cut in a zig-zag pattern.

The resulting arrays are shown in Fig. 7. The design parameters are: center frequency =8 MHz; ceramic post size 100 m; element height =4 mm; pitch =300 m. Assuming speed of sound = 1540 m/s, the wavelength at the center frequency is 192 m and the pitch is:

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IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

Simulations were done using Field II. The physical elements were sub-divided into 40x3 mathematical elements and their delays and apodization functions were set such as to simulate the element geometries shown in Fig. 7. The elevation focus was set at 20 mm. The sampling frequency used in the simulation was set to 100 MHz.

This can be explained in part by the fact that the elements are not cut diagonally, but rather in a staircase fashion. The interwoven design exhibits still the lowest level of grating lobes.
0 -10 -20

Level [dB]

-30 -40

-50
-60

StdLog

-70
-80 -90 -30 -20 -10 0 10 Lateral [mm]

Ilv1Log

20

30

Fig. 9 The PSF of the interwoven design plotted against the PSF of atandard array at a depth of 40 mm and a center frequency of 8 MHz.

Figure 9 shows the maximum projection of the point spread function from Fig.8 for the interwoven and standard arrays. The level of the grating lobes for the interwoven design is about 20 dB below the level of the grating lobes of the standard array.
V. CONCLUSIONS

Azimuth [mm]

Azimuth [mm]

Fig. 8 The PSF at depth of 40 mm. The RMS values are shown. The contour lines are drawn at levels from -72 dB to 0 dB at a step of 6 dB.

It is possible to manipulate the position and the level of the grating lobes of an ultrasonic array by changing the shape of the transducer elements. Cutting the elements at an angle pushes the grating lobes outside of the scan plane. Creating interwoven elements moves the first zeros of the radiation pattern of the individual elements closer to the main lobe and suppresses the grating lobes with more than 20 dB, for an array with a pitch larger than 1.5 wavelengths.
REFERENCES
1. Steinberg, B. (1973). Comparison between the peak sidelobe of the random array and algorithmically designed aperiodic arrays. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation 21, no. 3 (May): 366370. doi:10.1109/TAP.1973.1140493. Lookwood, G.R., and F.S. Foster. (1996). Optimizing the radiation pattern of sparse periodic two-dimensional arrays. IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control 43, no. 1 (May): 15-19. doi:10.1109/58.484458. Jensen, J A. (2004). Simulation of advanced ultrasound systems using Field II. In IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical imaging from nano to macro, 636-639.

Figure 8 shows the point spread function (PSF) at a depth of 40 mm. The contour plots are of the root-mean-square (RMS) values of the point spread function. The plots are shown for two steering angles 0 and 5 degrees. The top row shows the PSF for the diagonally cut elements, the middle for the interwoven elements and the bottom for the standard array. Looking at the plots for =0, it can be seen that the grating lobes are rotated for the diagonal design and strongly suppressed for the interwoven elements, which is in unison with the expectations. When the beam is tilted, a plurality of grating lobes appear for the diagonal design.

2.

3.

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