Live demonstration: Inexpensive 1024-channel 3D telesonography system on FPGA
Volumetrie ultrasound (US) is a very promising development of medical US imaging. An under-exploited advantage of volumetric US is the mitigation of the strict probe positioning constrains necessary to acquire 2D scans, potentially allowing the decoupling of US image acquisition and diagnosis. However, today's 3D US systems are large and beset by high power and cost requirements, making them only available in well-equipped hospitals. In this work [1], [2], we propose the first telesonography-capable medical imaging system that supports up to 1024 channels, on par with the state of the art. As a first embodiment, we have implemented our design in a single development FPGA board of 26.7cm × 14cm × 0.16cm, with an estimated power consumption of 6.1 W. The imager exploits a highly scalable architecture which can be either downscaled for 2D imaging, or further upscaled on a larger FPGA. Moreover, our design supports two types of data inputs: real-time via an optical connection and offline over Ethernet. The reconstructed images can be visualized on an HDMI screen. The estimated cost of the proposed prototype materials is less than 4000€. TABLE I shows the resources utilization of the current design and the extrapolated utilization in case of further upscaling on a larger FPGA.