Georgia Center for Medical Robotics (GCMR) Seminar Series

Recent developments in microfabricated ultrasonic transducer technology have led to more effective integration of these devices with microelectronics.

"Catheter Based Microscale Ultrasound Imaging Systems and Acousto-optical Sensors for Image Guided Interventions "

F. Levent Degertekin, Ph.D.
Professor
George W. Woodruff Chair in Mechanical Systems
The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Tech

This approach enables complex functionalities to be realized in compact implementations in addition to higher overall performance. Catheter based medical ultrasound imaging for guiding interventions is one of the areas where this approach can have direct and significant impact. In this talk, we first motivate miniaturization of ultrasound systems for guiding interventions in the arteries and the heart. We discuss several microsystems where capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) arrays are monolithically integrated with CMOS electronics (CMUT-on-CMOS). These include forward looking volumetric intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging system, essentially a flashlight in coronary arteries, and MRI compatible intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) catheters. We provide details on integrated circuit (ASIC) designs we developed for these applications which have increasing complexity from simple receiver multiplexing to transmit beamforming and receiver multiplexing on a single chip. We also describe approaches for massive parallel RF data transfer using time division multiplexing for cable reduction in catheter implementations. As an ultimate integration example, we present our work on guidewire IVUS where an imaging system to fit on a 0.014” diameter guidewire. Finally, we describe a novel acousto-optical sensor for catheter tracking during interventional MRI.

F. Levent Degertekin is the G.W. Woodruff Chair in Mechanical Systems, and is a Professor at the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests have been in micromachined acoustic and opto-acoustic sensors, medical ultrasound imaging systems, bioanalytical instrumentation, and atomic force microscopy. Most recently he has been working on intravascular and intracardiac ultrasound imaging, and acousto-optical sensors for guided interventions under MRI. He has authored 59 U.S. patents and over 130 journal publications. Dr. Degertekin serves as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control and as a standing member of the Imaging Technology Development (ITD) study section of the NIH (2016-2020). He received the Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Research Grant Award in 2001, an NSF CAREER award for his work on ultrasonic atomic force microscopy in 2004, IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (UFFC) Society 2004 Outstanding Paper Award, the IEEE UFFC Society 2014 Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonic Achievement Award, and most recently with his collaborators, the 2017 ASME Energy Harvesting Best Paper (EHBP) Award.