Estimation of the Speed of Ultrasound Propagation in Biological Tissues: A Beam-Tracking Method

A pulse-echo heam-tracking method for the estimation of the speed of sound in tissue is described. We have shown that precision on the order of k0.5 percent and accuracy on the order of l percent are obtainable in uniformly scattering foam phantoms using several echo-waveforms which are several centimeters long. The precision could he improved if 1) more uniform tissues or phantoms are used, 2) more uncorrelated echo-waveforms are examined, and 3) the length of each echo-waveform is extended. The potential effects due to refractive layers on the estimation are discussed.

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