Isomorphism Between Pulsed-Wave Doppler Ultrasound and Direction-of-Arrival Estimation--Part I: Basic Principles

Mahmoud E. Allam, and James F. Greenleaf

ABSTRACT Direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of signals is an important area of research in sonar and radar signal processing. Over the last few decades, numerous techniques have been developed for high-resolution DOA estimation. In this paper, we show that velocity measurement using pulsed-wave Doppler ultrasound and DOA estimation are isomorphic problems. We discuss a number of DOA methods and their potential application to flow velocity measurement using ultrasound. Wide-band DOA methods are of special interest because the pulses used for Doppler ultrasound are also wide band. These wide-band methods generally involve a preprocessing step to convert wide-band signals to narrow band before applying high-resolution techniques. Application of DOA methods to Doppler ultrasound provides tools for high-resolution velocity measurement, identification of multiple velocity components within a sample volume, and clutter rejection.

© 1996, by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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