Estimation of varying ultrasonic attenuation.

This paper aims to investigate a method of estimating the attenuation and its variation. It is treated as an estimation problem by using modelling techniques known from communication theory. The model includes magnitude and position of specular echoes, a random description of echoes from diffuse reflectors, and a parametric characterization of attenuation. By processing the observed signal only in the time domain, low complexity calculation algorithms are achieved. Results obtained using simulated data indicate that the method works well on both broad-band and narrow-band signals.