Some Thoughts on Ultrasound Futures

#uffc #STEM #healthcare #sensors #ultrasound #circuits

Abstract

Development of ultrasound technology began in the early 1950s and has continued at a fast pace to the present day.  In this talk I will review some of this history with the goal of understanding of options for future stages.  I have opted to split ultrasound development chronology into stages by the nature of the electronics with a largely software-based system as the final stage.  This talk will consider near-term futures that are gained from technologies such as software beamformation.  I will review areas of current research with information gained from topics identified by technical ultrasound conferences.  A hopefully interesting recommendation that arises from this analysis is towards research on improved understanding of sound/tissue interactions based on received echo data and how this understanding may be used to improve current image quality.  Another benefit from such analysis is the definition of an upper limit on performance of ultrasound scanners in a patient population.

Speaker Bio:

Kai E. Thomenius, PhD

Dr. Thomenius received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and physiology from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, in 1968, 1970, and 1978, respectively.

His background includes teaching and research at Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and MIT. He has held industry positions in medical ultrasound since 1976 for several ultrasound companies, most recently GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY, where he was a Chief Technologist in Imaging Technologies until retirement in 2013. Currently Dr. Thomenius is a consultant for CURT at Massachusetts General & Brigham. His work has centered on ultrasound systems design, beam formation, miniaturization of ultrasound scanners, and ultrasound bioeffects.

Dr. Thomenius is a Fellow of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM). He is a member of the editorial board of the Ultrasonic Imaging and has served as a reviewer of grant proposals for the NIH and DoD, and for articles in several ultrasound journals. He has served in the Technical Program Committees for several symposia.  He is the 2018 winner of AIUM’s Joseph H. Holmes Pioneer Award and was the Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE’s UFFC Group for 2022-2023.