SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes the development of a Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based, 2D ultrasonic transducer array for 3D imaging in real time, featuring near-photographic image quality with sub-millimeter resolution at 20cm depth. Current 2D ultrasound systems employ a 1D array of transducers to accumulate images. A 2D array is universally acknowledged as the ideal approach for 3D image acquisition; however, multiple challenges must be overcome to make this practical, including: limitations in existing piezoelectric transducer technology, connecting an array with many elements (e.g., > 16,000) to front-end electronics, and processing large amounts of image data in real-time. The highly collaborative Phase I effort will focus on the design and simulation of key building blocks of the array, including a specialized transducer design; fully-populated array architecture with over 16,000 elements; and integrated multiplexing scheme to reduce interconnect lead count. The developed technology will bring many new capabilities to medical imaging, including volumetric flow, and real-time 3D imaging for tumor evaluation, image-guided surgery, and fetal echo-cardiography. Ultrasound provides real-time medical imaging, is safer than radiation-based modalities, and is less expensive to buy and maintain than magneto-resonance imaging (MRI) system. 2D ultrasound imaging is currently used for abdominal, breast, cardiovascular, OB/GYN, pediatrics, and a host of other diagnostic modalities. The developed 2D transducer array technology, once incorporated into a commercially viable, practical, easy-to-use, high quality 3D/4D ultrasound system has potentially immense societal impact. Such a system would

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project proposes to develop Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based, fully populated two-dimensional (2D) ultrasonic transducer array for three dimensional (3D) imaging in real time. Current 2D ultrasound systems employ a linear array of transducers to accumulate images. A planar array is universally acknowledged as the ideal approach for 3D image acquisition; however, multiple challenges must be overcome to make this practical, including: limitations in existing piezoelectric transducer technology, connecting an array with many elements (e.g., > 16,000) to front-end electronics, and processing large amounts of image data in real-time. The highly collaborative Phase II effort will build upon design and simulation results from the The system architecture will provide substantial flexibility in applying digital processing techniques, including adaptive beamforming, synthetic apertures, and phase aberration correction. The developed technology could bring many new capabilities to medical imaging, including volumetric flow, and real-time 3D imaging for tumor evaluation, image-guided surgery, and fetal echocardiography. Some of these include a breakthrough planar array technology overcomes a key bottleneck in the state-of-the-art in ultrasound, with spillover contributions to non-ultrasound fields (e.g. other MEMS, sonar, other medical imaging, nondestructive testing)