A new method of ultrasound color flow mapping.

Conventional ultrasound color flow mapping systems estimate and visualize only the axial velocity component. To obtain the transverse velocity component a modification of a multiple-beam method is proposed. The new two-dimensional color flow mapping system has a small size and consists of three transducers. The central transducer is an appodized and focused phased array. The other transducers are unfocused probes. Three transducers act as receivers and the central transducer operates as a transmitter. All receivers acquire rf scan lines that are then processed to estimate three axial velocity components using an autocorrelation method. These estimates are then combined to estimate the transverse velocity component, taking into account the geometric relationships among three transducers. Two algorithms for transverse velocity estimation are proposed. The first uses the Doppler angle estimate for calculation of the transverse velocity component. The other algorithm calculates the transverse velocity component directly from the axial components. The accuracy of the flow velocity estimators is estimated by simulations. Analysis of accuracy allows choosing the more effective algorithm for two-dimensional velocity estimation, which is insensitive to variations of the Doppler angle.