Arduino-Like Development Kit for Single-Element Ultrasound Imaging

An open-source software ecosystem for ultrasound imaging is widely available to developers, however, limited resources can be found on the open-hardware side. The focus of this work was to develop an easy-to-use platform kit (hardware and software) for providing the community a complete experimental setup for ultrasound imaging at a low cost, without the need for expensive and non-modifiable specific equipment. The goal of this work resembles the needs of medical systems in the 80’s where analog techniques using single-sensor devices were prominent. To this end, two open-source, arduino-like modules have been developed for building a simple, yet complete, single-channel analog front-end system, where all the intermediary signals are readily accessible by the user. A single-channel architecture avoids the beamforming overhead, though it limits the quality of the captured image, and brings simplicity to the system. The modules were tested using re-purposed ultrasound mechanical probes, as well as non-medical transducers. Furthermore, different digital acquisition systems were utilized for providing the images of interest. The developed modules can also be used in Radio Frequency (RF) projects, non-destructive testing and control projects, as well as in low-cost medical imaging projects on non-living samples.