Medical ultrasound imaging is the most widespread real-time non-invasive imaging system and its formulation comprises signal transmission, signal reception, and image formation. Ultrasound signal transmission modelling has been formalized over the years through different approaches by exploiting the physics of the associated wave problem. This work proposes a novel computational framework for modelling the ultrasound signal transmission step in the time-frequency domain for a linear-array probe. More specifically, from the impulse response theory defined in the time domain, we derived a parametric model in the corresponding frequency domain, with appropriate approximations for the narrowband case. To validate the model, we implemented a numerical simulator and tested it with synthetic data. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed model is computationally feasible, efficient, and compatible with realistic measurements and existing state-of-the-art simulators. The formulated model can be employed for analyzing how the involved parameters affect the generated beam pattern, and ultimately for optimizing measurement settings in an automatic and systematic way.

翻译：医学超声成像是最广泛使用的实时无创成像系统，其构成包括信号传输、信号接收和图像形成。多年来，通过利用相关波动问题的物理特性，学者们采用不同方法对超声信号传输建模进行了系统化研究。本文提出一种新颖的计算框架，用于在线性阵列探头中实现时频域的超声信号传输步骤建模。具体而言，基于时域中定义的脉冲响应理论，我们推导了对应频域的参数化模型，并针对窄带情况进行了适当近似。为验证该模型，我们构建了数值仿真器并使用合成数据进行测试。数值实验表明，所提模型在计算上可行且高效，能够兼容真实测量结果与现有先进仿真器。该模型可用于分析相关参数如何影响生成的波束模式，并最终实现测量设置的自动化和系统化优化。