Development of a 12 element annular array transducer for realtime ultrasound imaging.

While the recent proliferation of ultrasound scanners based on annular array transducers has attracted widespread attention, very little published information is available on the physics, design criteria, and signal processing aspects of these instruments. In this paper, the first of a two part report, we describe the development and characterization of an annular array transducer for realtime medical imaging. Theoretical modeling of the pulsed fields of annular arrays is used to study and optimize array parameters. The factors which affect resolution and contrast in imaging--beam width, sidelobe levels, number of annuli, depth of field, and delay quantization--are discussed. A 12 element, 4.5 MHz, 30 mm design is adopted. Theoretical predictions showed excellent agreement with device measurements over a range of f-numbers (local/length/diameter) from f/1 to f/6.7 (30 to 200 mm range). Focusing to f/1 is an important advance in the state-of-the-art. A two transmit zone, dynamic receive configuration of array operation to exploit the f/1 focusing ability is proposed for realtime imaging.