Open Platforms for the Advancement of Ultrasound Research

The implementation and experimental test of new imaging methods has been hampered by the closed architecture of clinical ultrasound scanners for many years. The so-called open platforms, i.e. flexible scanners with unlimited access to raw echo-data, allow overcoming this limitation and are increasingly used in ultrasound research laboratories. In this paper, a family of open platforms developed in the MSD laboratory in Florence is described. The first system was designed by taking into consideration the need of accurately balancing computational power with cost, dimensions with programmability. A compact and flexible 64-channel system was thus implemented, and is presently adopted by more than 20 worldwide research centers. In the new version, which is in advanced development phase, emphasis is put on the capability of independently controlling a high number (256) of channels as well as on the computational power and memory size.