Axial strain estimation of tissue mimicking phantom based on acoustic shear wave

The mechanics characteristics of soft tissue are closely related to its physiological and pathological states. Ultrasound Elasticity Imaging technique is evolving into a new diagnosis modality for noninvasive measurement of tissue mechanics characteristics. The use of shear acoustic waves remotely induced in a localized region of soft tissue by the radiation force of a focused ultrasonic beam can great simplified the elasticity reconstruction process. In this paper, an accurate parallel time-delay estimation method based on PCA neural network is proposed to measure the axial displacement and strain of the tissue mimicking phantom. The axial strain and the elasticity distribution can then be obtained. The results show that this method has the advantages of high spatial resolution and insensitiveness to noise and it is feasible for remotely estimating the axial displacement and strain of soft tissue in deep region.