Wavefield correlation imaging in arbitrary media with inherent aberration correction

Ultrasound imaging can suffer from aberration—distortions caused by acoustic propagation effects not accounted for by the beamforming algorithm. These can be corrected using known medium properties, but for delay-and-sum (DAS) algorithms, delay corrections must be computed for every pixel and element, which becomes computationally expensive, especially in volumetric imaging. These delays also need to be recomputed for each new geometrical registration of the probe. Recently, wavefield correlation imaging (WCI) algorithms, first developed for seismic applications, have been adapted for ultrasound. In this work, we integrate the heterogeneous angular spectrum method (HASM)—a spectral propagation technique designed for passive acoustic mapping that accounts for spatially varying media—into WCI to enable aberration correction during image formation. This method reduces computational complexity by roughly two orders of magnitude compared to corrected DAS. Numerical plane wave imaging simulations in anatomically relevant acoustic environments show a 66% improvement in resolution (CI: 54%–79%, p < 0.01) compared to the uncorrected case. Heterogeneous WCI thus shows appreciable promise for enhancing imaging in aberration-challenged scenarios, particularly in point-of-care devices with limited computational resources.