An Open-Sourced Imaging Ultrasound Platform

PROJECT SUMMARY ABSTRACTUltrasound isand is poised to remaina ubiquitous biomedical imaging modalityIt is safefasteffectiveand affordableUltrasound imaging innovations are being actively developed to provide inexpensive solutions to public health concerns in areas as diverse as early cancer detectiontargeted drug deliveryand image guided surgeryYet significant barriers to research and innovation in diagnostic ultrasound persistAn ultrasound machine is a highly integrated system with hardwaresoftwareand algorithmic subsystemsInnovators and researchers need access to all subsystems to efficiently and effectively develop new technologiesbut no clean path exists for thisResearch gradesystems allow access to raw data but not the underlying hardware or softwarewhile tying users to a specific manufacturer for support and hardware developmentThe lack of a truly open system for ultrasound development discourages and likely prohibitsparticipationraises the cost of new research and developmentand prolongs the timeline from the research laboratory to the clinicAs a consequenceultrasoundandapos s potential is less effective and efficientlimiting its contributions to improve public healthA better approach is neededIn keeping with NIBIBandapos s mission to promote ultrasound as a broad based imaging toolCreare and its collaborators at the University of Illinois Urbana ChampaignUIUCand the University of CaliforniaSan DiegoUCSDplan to develop an open sourcedmodularready to use hardware and software platform for ultrasound imaging developmentOur hypothesis is that this platform will speed up and spur innovationreduce the cost of future researchenable new multidisciplinary collaborationsand provide a common framework to assess new technologies and algorithmsResearchersengineersand innovators will have free and unrestricted access to all hardware schematics and circuit board layoutsto the firmware and application interface source codesand to a framework for integrating new processing algorithmsThe platform will be tied together by an online community that hosts the system documentationschematicsand source codeprovides a mechanism for incorporating newuser contributed designs and featuresand includes a forum for the open sharing of ideas and datatroubleshooting issuesand promoting new collaborations and applicationsThe goal of this Phase I application is to developevaluateand open source an initial prototype ultrasound imaging system with a supporting online platform PROJECT NARRATIVEUltrasound is one of the most common biomedical imaging modalities owing to its safetylow costspeedportabilityversatilityinteractivityand effectivenessYet ultrasound imaging researchers still face significant technical barriers when developing new technologies and applications that will improve public healthThe proposed open sourced ultrasound imaging system removes these barriers by giving researchers full and unrestricted access to the entire imaging system