Decomposition of Two-Component Ultrasound Pulses in Cancellous Bone Using Modified Least Squares Prony Method – Phantom Experiment and Simulation

Wear, Keith A.

doi:10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2009.06.1092

« Previous Next »Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology
Volume 36, Issue 2 , Pages 276-287, February 2010

Decomposition of Two-Component Ultrasound Pulses in Cancellous Bone Using Modified Least Squares Prony Method – Phantom Experiment and Simulation

U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD, USA

Received 26 February 2009; received in revised form 27 May 2009; accepted 8 June 2009.

Abstract

Porous media such as cancellous bone often support the simultaneous propagation of two compressional waves. When small bone samples are interrogated in through-transmission with broadband sources, these two waves often overlap in time. The modified least-squares Prony's (MLSP) method was tested for decomposing a 500kHz-center-frequency signal containing two overlapping components: one passing through a polycarbonate plate (to produce the “fast” wave) and another passing through a cancellous-bone-mimicking phantom (to produce the “slow” wave). The MLSP method yielded estimates of attenuation slopes accurate to within 7% (polycarbonate plate) and 2% (cancellous bone phantom). The MLSP method yielded estimates of phase velocities accurate to within 1.5% (both media). The MLSP method was also tested on simulated data generated using attenuation slopes and phase velocities corresponding to bovine cancellous bone. Throughout broad ranges of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the MLSP method yielded estimates of attenuation slope that were accurate to within 1.0% and estimates of phase velocity that were accurate to within 4.3% (fast wave) and 1.3% (slow wave). (E-mail: keith.wear@fda.hhs.gov).