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Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery
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Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2017) | Viewed by 105874

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Xiaoning Jiang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, 911 Oval Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Interests: micro/nanofabrication of smart materials and structures; ultrasound sensors and transducers; ultrasound imaging, therapy and sensing; sensors and transducers for extreme environments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Chao Zhang

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Research Center for Optomechatronics and Advanced Manufacturing,Nanshan Hi-new Technology and Industry Park, Shenzhen, China
Interests: Acoustic sensors, optical sensors, mechanical sensors, optomechatronics, smart systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Acoustics has profoundly affected today’s world in a broad range of technologies, including underwater sonar, audio communication, industrial non-destructive testing (NDT), industrial sensing, chemical and biological sensing, smart city, precision actuation, material processing and manufacturing, medical imaging, medical therapy, etc. Acoustic sensor and ultrasound transducer materials, design, fabrication, and characterization have been unprecedentedly challenged to meet such a broad range of applications. This Special Issue aims to bring together recent research and development concerning, a) novel acoustic sensors and their applications in medicine, biology, and smart electronics; and b) ultrasound transducers and their applications in medical imaging and drug delivery.

Papers addressing a wide range of acoustic sensing and transduction innovations are sought, including but not limited to recent research and developments in the following areas: Acoustic sensing and transducer materials and structures; acoustic sensor design, fabrication, characterization and their applications in medicine, biology and smart electronics; ultrasound transducers design, fabrication, characterization and their applications in ultrasound medical imaging and drug delivery; ultrasound therapy; ultrasound gene transfection; ultrasonic tweezers; acoustic assisted bio-manufacturing; and other associated acoustic devices for applications in medicine, biology and smart electronics. Both review articles and original research papers associated with acoustic/ultrasonic sensors, transducers and their applications in medicine, biology, and smart electronics are solicited. There is a particular interest in papers concerning acoustic micro/nano-sensors and micromachined ultrasound transducers for applications in medicine, biology and smart electronics are preferred topics.

Prof. Dr. Xiaoning Jiang
Guest Editor

Dr. Chao Zhang
Co-Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • acoustic sensors
  • ultrasound transducers
  • ultrasound drug delivery
  • micro/nano-fabrication
  • micro/nano-sensors
  • ultrasound imaging
  • ultrasound therapy
  • gene transfection
  • acoustic/ultrasound cell sorting
  • smart electronics

Published Papers (18 papers)

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12235 KiB  
Article
Dynamic Reconstruction Algorithm of Three-Dimensional Temperature Field Measurement by Acoustic Tomography
by Yanqiu Li, Shi Liu and Schlaberg H. Inaki
Sensors 2017, 17(9), 2084; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17092084 - 12 Sep 2017
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4505
Abstract
Accuracy and speed of algorithms play an important role in the reconstruction of temperature field measurements by acoustic tomography. Existing algorithms are based on static models which only consider the measurement information. A dynamic model of three-dimensional temperature reconstruction by acoustic tomography is [...] Read more.
Accuracy and speed of algorithms play an important role in the reconstruction of temperature field measurements by acoustic tomography. Existing algorithms are based on static models which only consider the measurement information. A dynamic model of three-dimensional temperature reconstruction by acoustic tomography is established in this paper. A dynamic algorithm is proposed considering both acoustic measurement information and the dynamic evolution information of the temperature field. An objective function is built which fuses measurement information and the space constraint of the temperature field with its dynamic evolution information. Robust estimation is used to extend the objective function. The method combines a tunneling algorithm and a local minimization technique to solve the objective function. Numerical simulations show that the image quality and noise immunity of the dynamic reconstruction algorithm are better when compared with static algorithms such as least square method, algebraic reconstruction technique and standard Tikhonov regularization algorithms. An effective method is provided for temperature field reconstruction by acoustic tomography. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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8169 KiB  
Article
The Ultrasonic Directional Tidal Breathing Pattern Sensor: Equitable Design Realization Based on Phase Information
by Arijit Sinharay, Raj Rakshit, Anwesha Khasnobish, Tapas Chakravarty, Deb Ghosh and Arpan Pal
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1853; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081853 - 11 Aug 2017
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 7089
Abstract
Pulmonary ailments are conventionally diagnosed by spirometry. The complex forceful breathing maneuver as well as the extreme cost of spirometry renders it unsuitable in many situations. This work is aimed to facilitate an emerging direction of tidal breathing-based pulmonary evaluation by designing a [...] Read more.
Pulmonary ailments are conventionally diagnosed by spirometry. The complex forceful breathing maneuver as well as the extreme cost of spirometry renders it unsuitable in many situations. This work is aimed to facilitate an emerging direction of tidal breathing-based pulmonary evaluation by designing a novel, equitable, precise and portable device for acquisition and analysis of directional tidal breathing patterns, in real time. The proposed system primarily uses an in-house designed blow pipe, 40-kHz air-coupled ultrasound transreceivers, and a radio frequency (RF) phase-gain integrated circuit (IC). Moreover, in order to achieve high sensitivity in a cost-effective design philosophy, we have exploited the phase measurement technique, instead of selecting the contemporary time-of-flight (TOF) measurement; since application of the TOF principle in tidal breathing assessments requires sub-micro to nanosecond time resolution. This approach, which depends on accurate phase measurement, contributed to enhanced sensitivity using a simple electronics design. The developed system has been calibrated using a standard 3-L calibration syringe. The parameters of this system are validated against a standard spirometer, with maximum percentage error below 16%. Further, the extracted respiratory parameters related to tidal breathing have been found to be comparable with relevant prior works. The error in detecting respiration rate only is 3.9% compared to manual evaluation. These encouraging insights reveal the definite potential of our tidal breathing pattern (TBP) prototype for measuring tidal breathing parameters in order to extend the reach of affordable healthcare in rural regions and developing areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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2589 KiB  
Article
Efficient Segmentation of a Breast in B-Mode Ultrasound Tomography Using Three-Dimensional GrabCut (GC3D)
by Shaode Yu, Shibin Wu, Ling Zhuang, Xinhua Wei, Mark Sak, Duric Neb, Jiani Hu and Yaoqin Xie
Sensors 2017, 17(8), 1827; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17081827 - 08 Aug 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 5429
Abstract
As an emerging modality for whole breast imaging, ultrasound tomography (UST), has been adopted for diagnostic purposes. Efficient segmentation of an entire breast in UST images plays an important role in quantitative tissue analysis and cancer diagnosis, while major existing methods suffer from [...] Read more.
As an emerging modality for whole breast imaging, ultrasound tomography (UST), has been adopted for diagnostic purposes. Efficient segmentation of an entire breast in UST images plays an important role in quantitative tissue analysis and cancer diagnosis, while major existing methods suffer from considerable time consumption and intensive user interaction. This paper explores three-dimensional GrabCut (GC3D) for breast isolation in thirty reflection (B-mode) UST volumetric images. The algorithm can be conveniently initialized by localizing points to form a polygon, which covers the potential breast region. Moreover, two other variations of GrabCut and an active contour method were compared. Algorithm performance was evaluated from volume overlap ratios ( T O , target overlap; M O , mean overlap; F P , false positive; F N , false negative) and time consumption. Experimental results indicate that GC3D considerably reduced the work load and achieved good performance ( T O = 0.84; M O = 0.91; F P = 0.006; F N = 0.16) within an average of 1.2 min per volume. Furthermore, GC3D is not only user friendly, but also robust to various inputs, suggesting its great potential to facilitate clinical applications during whole-breast UST imaging. In the near future, the implemented GC3D can be easily automated to tackle B-mode UST volumetric images acquired from the updated imaging system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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2777 KiB  
Article
A Frequency-Domain Adaptive Matched Filter for Active Sonar Detection
by Zhishan Zhao, Anbang Zhao, Juan Hui, Baochun Hou, Reza Sotudeh and Fang Niu
Sensors 2017, 17(7), 1565; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17071565 - 04 Jul 2017
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 5320
Abstract
The most classical detector of active sonar and radar is the matched filter (MF), which is the optimal processor under ideal conditions. Aiming at the problem of active sonar detection, we propose a frequency-domain adaptive matched filter (FDAMF) with the use of a [...] Read more.
The most classical detector of active sonar and radar is the matched filter (MF), which is the optimal processor under ideal conditions. Aiming at the problem of active sonar detection, we propose a frequency-domain adaptive matched filter (FDAMF) with the use of a frequency-domain adaptive line enhancer (ALE). The FDAMF is an improved MF. In the simulations in this paper, the signal to noise ratio (SNR) gain of the FDAMF is about 18.6 dB higher than that of the classical MF when the input SNR is −10 dB. In order to improve the performance of the FDAMF with a low input SNR, we propose a pre-processing method, which is called frequency-domain time reversal convolution and interference suppression (TRC-IS). Compared with the classical MF, the FDAMF combined with the TRC-IS method obtains higher SNR gain, a lower detection threshold, and a better receiver operating characteristic (ROC) in the simulations in this paper. The simulation results show that the FDAMF has higher processing gain and better detection performance than the classical MF under ideal conditions. The experimental results indicate that the FDAMF does improve the performance of the MF, and can adapt to actual interference in a way. In addition, the TRC-IS preprocessing method works well in an actual noisy ocean environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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4500 KiB  
Article
Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery in Multimodal Theranostic Capsule Endoscopy
by Fraser R. Stewart, Yongqiang Qiu, Holly S. Lay, Ian P. Newton, Benjamin F. Cox, Mohammed A. Al-Rawhani, James Beeley, Yangminghao Liu, Zhihong Huang, David R. S. Cumming, Inke Näthke and Sandy Cochran
Sensors 2017, 17(7), 1553; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17071553 - 03 Jul 2017
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 9196
Abstract
Video capsule endoscopy (VCE) is now a clinically accepted diagnostic modality in which miniaturized technology, an on-board power supply and wireless telemetry stand as technological foundations for other capsule endoscopy (CE) devices. However, VCE does not provide therapeutic functionality, and research towards therapeutic [...] Read more.
Video capsule endoscopy (VCE) is now a clinically accepted diagnostic modality in which miniaturized technology, an on-board power supply and wireless telemetry stand as technological foundations for other capsule endoscopy (CE) devices. However, VCE does not provide therapeutic functionality, and research towards therapeutic CE (TCE) has been limited. In this paper, a route towards viable TCE is proposed, based on multiple CE devices including important acoustic sensing and drug delivery components. In this approach, an initial multimodal diagnostic device with high-frequency quantitative microultrasound that complements video imaging allows surface and subsurface visualization and computer-assisted diagnosis. Using focused ultrasound (US) to mark sites of pathology with exogenous fluorescent agents permits follow-up with another device to provide therapy. This is based on an US-mediated targeted drug delivery system with fluorescence imaging guidance. An additional device may then be utilized for treatment verification and monitoring, exploiting the minimally invasive nature of CE. While such a theranostic patient pathway for gastrointestinal treatment is presently incomplete, the description in this paper of previous research and work under way to realize further components for the proposed pathway suggests it is feasible and provides a framework around which to structure further work. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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3948 KiB  
Article
Experimental Demonstration of Long-Range Underwater Acoustic Communication Using a Vertical Sensor Array
by Anbang Zhao, Caigao Zeng, Juan Hui, Lin Ma and Xuejie Bi
Sensors 2017, 17(7), 1516; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17071516 - 27 Jun 2017
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4389
Abstract
This paper proposes a composite channel virtual time reversal mirror (CCVTRM) for vertical sensor array (VSA) processing and applies it to long-range underwater acoustic (UWA) communication in shallow water. Because of weak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), it is unable to accurately estimate the channel [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a composite channel virtual time reversal mirror (CCVTRM) for vertical sensor array (VSA) processing and applies it to long-range underwater acoustic (UWA) communication in shallow water. Because of weak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), it is unable to accurately estimate the channel impulse response of each sensor of the VSA, thus the traditional passive time reversal mirror (PTRM) cannot perform well in long-range UWA communication in shallow water. However, CCVTRM only needs to estimate the composite channel of the VSA to accomplish time reversal mirror (TRM), which can effectively mitigate the inter-symbol interference (ISI) and reduce the bit error rate (BER). In addition, the calculation of CCVTRM is simpler than traditional PTRM. An UWA communication experiment using a VSA of 12 sensors was conducted in the South China Sea. The experiment achieves a very low BER communication at communication rate of 66.7 bit/s over an 80 km range. The results of the sea trial demonstrate that CCVTRM is feasible and can be applied to long-range UWA communication in shallow water. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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4124 KiB  
Article
A Study on the Model of Detecting the Liquid Level of Sealed Containers Based on Kirchhoff Approximation Theory
by Bin Zhang, Wen-Ai Song, Yue-Juan Wei, Dong-Song Zhang and Wen-Yi Liu
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1394; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061394 - 15 Jun 2017
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4435
Abstract
By simulating the sound field of a round piston transducer with the Kirchhoff integral theorem and analyzing the shape of ultrasound beams and propagation characteristics in a metal container wall, this study presents a model for calculating the echo sound pressure by using [...] Read more.
By simulating the sound field of a round piston transducer with the Kirchhoff integral theorem and analyzing the shape of ultrasound beams and propagation characteristics in a metal container wall, this study presents a model for calculating the echo sound pressure by using the Kirchhoff paraxial approximation theory, based on which and according to different ultrasonic impedance between gas and liquid media, a method for detecting the liquid level from outside of sealed containers is proposed. Then, the proposed method is evaluated through two groups of experiments. In the first group, three kinds of liquid media with different ultrasonic impedance are used as detected objects; the echo sound pressure is calculated by using the proposed model under conditions of four sets of different wall thicknesses. The changing characteristics of the echo sound pressure in the entire detection process are analyzed, and the effects of different ultrasonic impedance of liquids on the echo sound pressure are compared. In the second group, taking water as an example, two transducers with different radii are selected to measure the liquid level under four sets of wall thickness. Combining with sound field characteristics, the influence of different size transducers on the pressure calculation and detection resolution are discussed and analyzed. Finally, the experimental results indicate that measurement uncertainly is better than ±5 mm, which meets the industrial inspection requirements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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3605 KiB  
Article
Left–Right Asymmetry in Spectral Characteristics of Lung Sounds Detected Using a Dual-Channel Auscultation System in Healthy Young Adults
by Jang-Zern Tsai, Ming-Lang Chang, Jiun-Yue Yang, Dar Kuo, Ching-Hsiung Lin and Cheng-Deng Kuo
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1323; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061323 - 07 Jun 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5562
Abstract
Though lung sounds auscultation is important for the diagnosis and monitoring of lung diseases, the spectral characteristics of lung sounds have not been fully understood. This study compared the spectral characteristics of lung sounds between the right and left lungs and between healthy [...] Read more.
Though lung sounds auscultation is important for the diagnosis and monitoring of lung diseases, the spectral characteristics of lung sounds have not been fully understood. This study compared the spectral characteristics of lung sounds between the right and left lungs and between healthy male and female subjects using a dual-channel auscultation system. Forty-two subjects aged 18–22 years without smoking habits and any known pulmonary diseases participated in this study. The lung sounds were recorded from seven pairs of auscultation sites on the chest wall simultaneously. We found that in four out of seven auscultation pairs, the lung sounds from the left lung had a higher total power (PT) than those from the right lung. The PT of male subjects was higher than that of female ones in most auscultation pairs. The ratio of inspiration power to expiration power (RI/E) of lung sounds from the right lung was greater than that from the left lung at auscultation pairs on the anterior chest wall, while this phenomenon was reversed at auscultation pairs on the posterior chest wall in combined subjects, and similarly in both male and female subjects. Though the frequency corresponding to maximum power density of lung sounds (FMPD) from the left and right lungs was not significantly different, the frequency that equally divided the power spectrum of lung sounds (F50) from the left lung was significantly smaller than that from the right lung at auscultation site on the anterior and lateral chest walls, while it was significantly larger than that of from the right lung at auscultation site on the posterior chest walls. In conclusion, significant differences in the PT, FMPD, F50, and RI/E between the left and right lungs at some auscultation pairs were observed by using a dual-channel auscultation system in this study. Structural differences between the left and the right lungs, between the female and male subjects, and between anterior and posterior lungs might account for the observed differences in the spectral characteristics of lung sounds. The dual-channel auscultation system might be useful for future development of digital stethoscopes and power spectral analysis of lung sounds in patients with various kinds of cardiopulmonary diseases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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3014 KiB  
Article
Joint Estimation of Source Range and Depth Using a Bottom-Deployed Vertical Line Array in Deep Water
by Hui Li, Kunde Yang, Rui Duan and Zhixiong Lei
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1315; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061315 - 07 Jun 2017
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3879
Abstract
This paper presents a joint estimation method of source range and depth using a bottom-deployed vertical line array (VLA). The method utilizes the information on the arrival angle of direct (D) path in space domain and the interference characteristic of D and surface-reflected [...] Read more.
This paper presents a joint estimation method of source range and depth using a bottom-deployed vertical line array (VLA). The method utilizes the information on the arrival angle of direct (D) path in space domain and the interference characteristic of D and surface-reflected (SR) paths in frequency domain. The former is related to a ray tracing technique to backpropagate the rays and produces an ambiguity surface of source range. The latter utilizes Lloyd’s mirror principle to obtain an ambiguity surface of source depth. The acoustic transmission duct is the well-known reliable acoustic path (RAP). The ambiguity surface of the combined estimation is a dimensionless ad hoc function. Numerical efficiency and experimental verification show that the proposed method is a good candidate for initial coarse estimation of source position. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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15346 KiB  
Article
Detecting and Classifying Human Touches in a Social Robot Through Acoustic Sensing and Machine Learning
by Fernando Alonso-Martín, Juan José Gamboa-Montero, José Carlos Castillo, Álvaro Castro-González and Miguel Ángel Salichs
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1138; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051138 - 16 May 2017
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 6023
Abstract
An important aspect in Human–Robot Interaction is responding to different kinds of touch stimuli. To date, several technologies have been explored to determine how a touch is perceived by a social robot, usually placing a large number of sensors throughout the robot’s shell. [...] Read more.
An important aspect in Human–Robot Interaction is responding to different kinds of touch stimuli. To date, several technologies have been explored to determine how a touch is perceived by a social robot, usually placing a large number of sensors throughout the robot’s shell. In this work, we introduce a novel approach, where the audio acquired from contact microphones located in the robot’s shell is processed using machine learning techniques to distinguish between different types of touches. The system is able to determine when the robot is touched (touch detection), and to ascertain the kind of touch performed among a set of possibilities: stroke, tap, slap, and tickle (touch classification). This proposal is cost-effective since just a few microphones are able to cover the whole robot’s shell since a single microphone is enough to cover each solid part of the robot. Besides, it is easy to install and configure as it just requires a contact surface to attach the microphone to the robot’s shell and plug it into the robot’s computer. Results show the high accuracy scores in touch gesture recognition. The testing phase revealed that Logistic Model Trees achieved the best performance, with an F-score of 0.81. The dataset was built with information from 25 participants performing a total of 1981 touch gestures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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7753 KiB  
Article
Sound Power Estimation for Beam and Plate Structures Using Polyvinylidene Fluoride Films as Sensors
by Qibo Mao and Haibing Zhong
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1111; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051111 - 16 May 2017
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3897
Abstract
The theory for calculation and/or measurement of sound power based on the classical velocity-based radiation mode (V-mode) approach is well established for planar structures. However, the current V-mode theory is limited in scope in that it can only be applied to conventional motion [...] Read more.
The theory for calculation and/or measurement of sound power based on the classical velocity-based radiation mode (V-mode) approach is well established for planar structures. However, the current V-mode theory is limited in scope in that it can only be applied to conventional motion sensors (i.e., accelerometers). In this study, in order to estimate the sound power of vibrating beam and plate structure by using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films as sensors, a PVDF-based radiation mode (C-mode) approach concept is introduced to determine the sound power radiation from the output signals of PVDF films of the vibrating structure. The proposed method is a hybrid of vibration measurement and numerical calculation of C-modes. The proposed C-mode approach has the following advantages: (1) compared to conventional motion sensors, the PVDF films are lightweight, flexible, and low-cost; (2) there is no need for special measuring environments, since the proposed method does not require the measurement of sound fields; (3) In low frequency range (typically with dimensionless frequency kl < 4), the radiation efficiencies of the C-modes fall off very rapidly with increasing mode order, furthermore, the shapes of the C-modes remain almost unchanged, which means that the computation load can be significantly reduced due to the fact only the first few dominant C-modes are involved in the low frequency range. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations were carried out to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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7170 KiB  
Article
An Automatic Localization Algorithm for Ultrasound Breast Tumors Based on Human Visual Mechanism
by Yuting Xie, Ke Chen and Jiangli Lin
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1101; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051101 - 11 May 2017
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 6202
Abstract
Human visual mechanisms (HVMs) can quickly localize the most salient object in natural images, but it is ineffective at localizing tumors in ultrasound breast images. In this paper, we research the characteristics of tumors, develop a classic HVM and propose a novel auto-localization [...] Read more.
Human visual mechanisms (HVMs) can quickly localize the most salient object in natural images, but it is ineffective at localizing tumors in ultrasound breast images. In this paper, we research the characteristics of tumors, develop a classic HVM and propose a novel auto-localization method. Comparing to surrounding areas, tumors have higher global and local contrast. In this method, intensity, blackness ratio and superpixel contrast features are combined to compute a saliency map, in which a Winner Take All algorithm is used to localize the most salient region, which is represented by a circle. The results show that the proposed method can successfully avoid the interference caused by background areas of low echo and high intensity. The method has been tested on 400 ultrasound breast images, among which 376 images succeed in localization. This means this method has a high accuracy of 94.00%, indicating its good performance in real-life applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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11820 KiB  
Article
Vehicle Counting and Moving Direction Identification Based on Small-Aperture Microphone Array
by Xingshui Zu, Shaojie Zhang, Feng Guo, Qin Zhao, Xin Zhang, Xing You, Huawei Liu, Baoqing Li and Xiaobing Yuan
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1089; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051089 - 10 May 2017
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4527
Abstract
The varying trend of a moving vehicle’s angles provides much important intelligence for an unattended ground sensor (UGS) monitoring system. The present study investigates the capabilities of a small-aperture microphone array (SAMA) based system to identify the number and moving direction of vehicles [...] Read more.
The varying trend of a moving vehicle’s angles provides much important intelligence for an unattended ground sensor (UGS) monitoring system. The present study investigates the capabilities of a small-aperture microphone array (SAMA) based system to identify the number and moving direction of vehicles travelling on a previously established route. In this paper, a SAMA-based acoustic monitoring system, including the system hardware architecture and algorithm mechanism, is designed as a single node sensor for the application of UGS. The algorithm is built on the varying trend of a vehicle’s bearing angles around the closest point of approach (CPA). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method with our designed SAMA-based monitoring system in various experimental sites. The experimental results in harsh conditions validate the usefulness of our proposed UGS monitoring system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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2615 KiB  
Article
Experimental Demonstration and Circuitry for a Very Compact Coil-Only Pulse Echo EMAT
by Dirk Rueter
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 926; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040926 - 22 Apr 2017
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 7146
Abstract
This experimental study demonstrates for the first time a solid-state circuitry and design for a simple compact copper coil (without an additional bulky permanent magnet or bulky electromagnet) as a contactless electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) for pulse echo operation at MHz frequencies. A [...] Read more.
This experimental study demonstrates for the first time a solid-state circuitry and design for a simple compact copper coil (without an additional bulky permanent magnet or bulky electromagnet) as a contactless electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) for pulse echo operation at MHz frequencies. A pulsed ultrasound emission into a metallic test object is electromagnetically excited by an intense MHz burst at up to 500 A through the 0.15 mm filaments of the transducer. Immediately thereafter, a smoother and quasi “DC-like” current of 100 A is applied for about 1 ms and allows an echo detection. The ultrasonic pulse echo operation for a simple, compact, non-contacting copper coil is new. Application scenarios for compact transducer techniques include very narrow and hostile environments, in which, e.g., quickly moving metal parts must be tested with only one, non-contacting ultrasound shot. The small transducer coil can be operated remotely with a cable connection, separate from the much bulkier supply circuitry. Several options for more technical and fundamental progress are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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4091 KiB  
Article
Power MOSFET Linearizer of a High-Voltage Power Amplifier for High-Frequency Pulse-Echo Instrumentation
by Hojong Choi, Park Chul Woo, Jung-Yeol Yeom and Changhan Yoon
Sensors 2017, 17(4), 764; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17040764 - 04 Apr 2017
Cited by 31 | Viewed by 5637
Abstract
A power MOSFET linearizer is proposed for a high-voltage power amplifier (HVPA) used in high-frequency pulse-echo instrumentation. The power MOSFET linearizer is composed of a DC bias-controlled series power MOSFET shunt with parallel inductors and capacitors. The proposed scheme is designed to improve [...] Read more.
A power MOSFET linearizer is proposed for a high-voltage power amplifier (HVPA) used in high-frequency pulse-echo instrumentation. The power MOSFET linearizer is composed of a DC bias-controlled series power MOSFET shunt with parallel inductors and capacitors. The proposed scheme is designed to improve the gain deviation characteristics of the HVPA at higher input powers. By controlling the MOSFET bias voltage in the linearizer, the gain reduction into the HVPA was compensated, thereby reducing the echo harmonic distortion components generated by the ultrasonic transducers. In order to verify the performance improvement of the HVPA implementing the power MOSFET linearizer, we measured and found that the gain deviation of the power MOSFET linearizer integrated with HVPA under 10 V DC bias voltage was reduced (−1.8 and −0.96 dB, respectively) compared to that of the HVPA without the power MOSFET linearizer (−2.95 and −3.0 dB, respectively) when 70 and 80 MHz, three-cycle, and 26 dBm input pulse waveforms are applied, respectively. The input 1-dB compression point (an index of linearity) of the HVPA with power MOSFET linearizer (24.17 and 26.19 dBm at 70 and 80 MHz, respectively) at 10 V DC bias voltage was increased compared to that of HVPA without the power MOSFET linearizer (22.03 and 22.13 dBm at 70 and 80 MHz, respectively). To further verify the reduction of the echo harmonic distortion components generated by the ultrasonic transducers, the pulse-echo responses in the pulse-echo instrumentation were compared when using HVPA with and without the power MOSFET linearizer. When three-cycle 26 dBm input power was applied, the second, third, fourth, and fifth harmonic distortion components of a 75 MHz transducer driven by the HVPA with power MOSFET linearizer (−48.34, −44.21, −48.34, and −46.56 dB, respectively) were lower than that of the HVPA without the power MOSFET linearizer (−45.61, −41.57, −45.01, and −45.51 dB, respectively). When five-cycle 20 dBm input power was applied, the second, third, fourth, and fifth harmonic distortions of the HVPA with the power MOSFET linearizer (−41.54, −41.80, −48.86, and −46.27 dB, respectively) were also lower than that of the HVPA without the power MOSFET linearizer (−25.85, −43.56, −49.04, and −49.24 dB, respectively). Therefore, we conclude that the power MOSFET linearizer could reduce gain deviation of the HVPA, thus reducing the echo signal harmonic distortions generated by the high-frequency ultrasonic transducers in pulse-echo instrumentation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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5707 KiB  
Article
Development of a Double-Gauss Lens Based Setup for Optoacoustic Applications
by Hojong Choi, Jae-Myung Ryu and Jung-Yeol Yeom
Sensors 2017, 17(3), 496; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17030496 - 03 Mar 2017
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 6552
Abstract
In optoacoustic (photoacoustic) systems, different echo signal intensities such as amplitudes, center frequencies, and bandwidths need to be compensated by utilizing variable gain or time-gain compensation amplifiers. However, such electronic components can increase system complexities and signal noise levels. In this paper, we [...] Read more.
In optoacoustic (photoacoustic) systems, different echo signal intensities such as amplitudes, center frequencies, and bandwidths need to be compensated by utilizing variable gain or time-gain compensation amplifiers. However, such electronic components can increase system complexities and signal noise levels. In this paper, we introduce a double-Gauss lens to generate a large field of view with uniform light intensity due to the low chromatic aberrations of the lens, thus obtaining uniform echo signal intensities across the field of view of the optoacoustic system. In order to validate the uniformity of the echo signal intensities in the system, an in-house transducer was placed at various positions above a tissue sample and echo signals were measured and compared with each other. The custom designed double-Gauss lens demonstrated negligible light intensity variation (±1.5%) across the illumination field of view (~2 cm diameter). When the transducer was used to measure echo signal from an eye of a bigeye tuna within a range of ±1 cm, the peak-to-peak amplitude, center frequency, and their −6 dB bandwidth variations were less than 2 mV, 1 MHz, and 6%, respectively. The custom designed double-Gauss lens can provide uniform light beam across a wide area while generating insignificant echo signal variations, and thus can lower the burden of the receiving electronics or signal processing in the optoacoustic system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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3377 KiB  
Article
Effects of Non-Elevation-Focalized Linear Array Transducer on Ultrasound Plane-Wave Imaging
by Congzhi Wang, Yang Xiao, Jingjing Xia, Weibao Qiu and Hairong Zheng
Sensors 2016, 16(11), 1906; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16111906 - 12 Nov 2016
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6036
Abstract
Plane-wave ultrasound imaging (PWUS) has become an important method of ultrasound imaging in recent years as its frame rate has exceeded 10,000 frames per second, allowing ultrasound to be used for two-dimensional shear wave detection and functional brain imaging. However, compared to the [...] Read more.
Plane-wave ultrasound imaging (PWUS) has become an important method of ultrasound imaging in recent years as its frame rate has exceeded 10,000 frames per second, allowing ultrasound to be used for two-dimensional shear wave detection and functional brain imaging. However, compared to the traditional focusing and scanning method, PWUS images always suffer from a degradation of lateral resolution and contrast. To improve the image quality of PWUS, many different beamforming algorithms have been proposed and verified. Yet the influence of transducer structure is rarely studied. For this paper, the influence of using an acoustic lens for PWUS was evaluated. Two linear array transducers were fabricated. One was not self-focalized in the elevation direction (non-elevation-focalized transducer, NEFT); the other one was a traditional elevation-focalized transducer (EFT). An initial simulation was conducted to show the influence of elevation focusing. Then the images obtained with NEFT on a standard ultrasound imaging phantom were compared with those obtained with EFT. It was demonstrated that, in a relatively deep region, the contrast of an NEFT image is better than that of an EFT image. These results indicate that a more sophisticated design of ultrasound transducer would further improve the image quality of PWUS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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Review

Jump to: Research

2055 KiB  
Review
Photoacoustic Drug Delivery
by Yuqi Zhang, Jicheng Yu, Anna R. Kahkoska and Zhen Gu
Sensors 2017, 17(6), 1400; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17061400 - 15 Jun 2017
Cited by 39 | Viewed by 8933
Abstract
Photoacoustic (PA) technology holds great potential in clinical translation as a new non-invasive bioimaging modality. In contrast to conventional optical imaging, PA imaging (PAI) enables higher resolution imaging with deeper imaging depth. Besides applications for diagnosis, PA has also been extended to theranostic [...] Read more.
Photoacoustic (PA) technology holds great potential in clinical translation as a new non-invasive bioimaging modality. In contrast to conventional optical imaging, PA imaging (PAI) enables higher resolution imaging with deeper imaging depth. Besides applications for diagnosis, PA has also been extended to theranostic applications. The guidance of PAI facilitates remotely controlled drug delivery. This review focuses on the recent development of PAI-mediated drug delivery systems. We provide an overview of the design of different PAI agents for drug delivery. The challenges and further opportunities regarding PA therapy are also discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acoustic Sensing and Ultrasonic Drug Delivery)
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