Axial lobes in coherent plane-wave compounding

Coherent plane-wave compounding suffers from an artifact that shows as axial lobes in the range direction. This artifact can be found in images all throughout the literature and yet it is not properly understood. We propose a theory for the mechanism that generates these axial lobes. The theory predicts that, by using a specific angle dependent transmit apodization, axial lobes can be removed. We validated this prediction in both simulated and experimental data, which seems to indicate that our theory is correct.