Compressive Multiplexing of Ultrasound Signals

High-quality 3D ultrasound (US) imaging requires dense matrix-array probes with thousands of elements and necessitates an unrealistic number of coaxial cables to connect such probes to back-end systems. To address this issue, many techniques have been developed such as sparse arrays, mechanical scanning, multiplexing and micro-beamforming, which permit to achieve 3D imaging with existing 2D imaging systems but with a degradation in image quality. We propose a novel multiplexing method which relies on compressed-sensing (CS) principles to significantly reduce the number of coaxial cables. We exploit the compressive multiplexer (CMUX) introduced for radio-frequency signals to multiplex US signals in the probe head. The CMUX considers a set of signals as inputs, modulates them with chipping sequences and sums them to form a single output. On the reconstruction side, we propose two methods: one solving a CS-based problem exploiting sparsity of US signals in a pulse-stream model (CS-PS) and another one solving a least-squares problem in the Fourier domain based on bandlimited signal properties of US signals. We demonstrate through simulations and in vivo experiments that the proposed techniques lead to high-quality reconstruction with significantly fewer coaxial cables, up to 12x less with CS-PS.

Marcel Arditi, Adrien Besson, Dimitris Perdios, Jean-Philippe Thiran, Yves Wiaux

High-quality 3D ultrasound (US) imaging requires dense matrix-array probes with thousands of elements and necessitates an unrealistic number of coaxial cables to connect such probes to back-end systems. To address this issue, many techniques have been developed such as sparse arrays, mechanical scanning, multiplexing and micro-beamforming, which permit to achieve 3D imaging with existing 2D imaging systems but with a degradation in image quality. We propose a novel multiplexing method which relies on compressed-sensing (CS) principles to significantly reduce the number of coaxial cables. We exploit the compressive multiplexer (CMUX) introduced for radio-frequency signals to multiplex US signals in the probe head. The CMUX considers a set of signals as inputs, modulates them with chipping sequences and sums them to form a single output. On the reconstruction side, we propose two methods: one solving a CS based problem exploiting sparsity of US signals in a pulse-stream model (CS-PS) and another one solving a least-squares problem in the Fourier domain based on bandlimited signal properties of US signals. We demonstrate through simulations and in vivo experiments that the proposed techniques lead to high-quality reconstruction with significantly fewer coaxial cables, up to 12x less with CS-PS.

IEEE2018

Signal structure: from manifolds to molecules and structured sparsity

Sofia Karygianni

Effective representation methods and proper signal priors are crucial in most signal processing applications. In this thesis we focus on different structured models and we design appropriate schemes that allow the discovery of low dimensional latent structures that characterise and identify the signals. Motivated by the highly non-linear structure of most datasets, we firstly investigate the geometry of manifolds. Manifolds are low dimensional, non-linear structures that are naturally employed to describe sets of strongly related signals such as the images of a 3-D object captured from different viewpoints. However, the use of manifolds in applications is not straightforward due to their usually non-analytic and non-linear form. We propose here a way to `disassemble' a manifold into simpler components by approximating it with affine subspaces. Our objective is to discover a set of low dimensional affine subspaces that can represent manifold data accurately while preserving the manifold's structure. To this end, we employ a greedy technique that iteratively merges manifold samples into groups based on the difference of local tangents. We use our algorithm to approximate synthetic and real manifolds and to demonstrate that it is competitive to state-of-the-art techniques. Then, we consider structured sparse representations of signals and we propose a new sparsity model, where signals are essentially composed of a small number of structured {\it molecules }. We define the molecules to be linear combinations of a small number of atoms in a redundant dictionary. Our multi-level model takes into account the energy distribution of the significant signal components in addition to their support. It permits to define typical visual patterns and recognise them in prototypical or deformed form. We define a new structural difference measure between molecules and their deformed versions, which is based on their sparse codes and we create an algorithm for decomposing signals into molecules that can account for different deviations in the internal molecule structure. Our experiments verify the benefits of the new image model in various restoration tasks and they confirm that the development of proper models that extend the mere notion of sparsity can be very useful for various inverse problems in imaging. Finally, we investigate the problem of learning molecule representations directly in the sparse code domain. We constrain sparse codes to be linear combinations of a few, possibly deformed, molecules and we design an algorithm that can learn the structure from the codes without transforming them back into the signal domain. To this end, we take advantage of our structural difference which is based on the sparse codes and we devise a scheme for representing the codes with molecules and learn the molecules at the same time. To illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm we apply it to various synthetic and real datasets and we compare the results with traditional sparse coding and dictionary learning techniques. From the experiments, we verify the superior performance of our scheme in interpreting and recognising correctly the underlying structure. In short, in this thesis we are interested in low-dimensional, structured models. Among the various choices, we focus on manifolds and sparse representations and we propose schemes that enhance their structural properties and highlight their effectiveness in signal representations.

EPFL2015

Sampling the Multiple Facets of Light

Gilles Baechler

The theme of this thesis revolves around three important manifestations of light, namely its corpuscular, wave and electromagnetic nature. Our goal is to exploit these principles to analyze, design and build imaging modalities by developing new signal processing and algorithmic tools, based in particular on sampling and sparsity concepts. First, we introduce a new sampling scheme called variable pulse width, which is based on the finite rate of innovation (FRI) sampling paradigm. This new framework enables to sample and perfectly reconstruct weighted sums of Lorentzians; perfect reconstruction from sampled signals is guaranteed by a set of theorems. Second, we turn to the context of light and study its reflection, which is based on the corpuscular model of light. More precisely, we propose to use our FRI-based model to represent bidirectional reflectance distribution functions. We develop dedicated light domes to acquire reflectance functions and use the measurements obtained to demonstrate the usefulness and versatility of our model. In particular, we concentrate on the representation of specularities, which are sharp and bright components generated by the direct reflection of light on surfaces. Third, we explore the wave nature of light through Lippmann photography, a century-old photography technique that acquires the entire spectrum of visible light. This fascinating process captures interferences patterns created by the exposed scene inside the depth of a photosensitive plate. By illuminating the developed plate with a neutral light source, the reflected spectrum corresponds to that of the exposed scene. We propose a mathematical model which precisely explains the technique and demonstrate that the spectrum reproduction suffers from a number of distortions due to the finite depth of the plate and the choice of reflector. In addition to describing these artifacts, we describe an algorithm to invert them, essentially recovering the original spectrum of the exposed scene. Next, the wave nature of light is further generalized to the electromagnetic theory, which we invoke to leverage the concept of polarization of light. We also return to the topic of the representation of reflectance functions and focus this time on the separation of the specular component from the other reflections. We exploit the fact that the polarization of light is preserved in specular reflections and investigate camera designs with polarizing micro-filters with different orientations placed just in front of the camera sensor; the different polarizations of the filters create a mosaic image, from which we propose to extract the specular component. We apply our demosaicing method to several scenes and additionally demonstrate that our approach improves photometric stereo. Finally, we delve into the problem of retrieving the phase information of a sparse signal from the magnitude of its Fourier transform. We propose an algorithm that resolves the phase retrieval problem for sparse signals in three stages. Unlike traditional approaches that recover a discrete approximation of the underlying signal, our algorithm estimates the signal on a continuous domain, which makes it the first of its kind. The concluding chapter outlines several avenues for future research, like new optical devices such as displays and digital cameras, inspired by the topic of Lippmann photography.