Method and apparatus for ultrasonic testing using temporal sparse firing

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and apparatus for ultrasonic testing using TSF (Temporal Sparse Firing). For each position of a plurality of positions of a phased array ultrasonic probe, an ultrasonic wave is transmitted into an object using a defined subset of transducer elements and propagation of the ultrasonic wave in the object is observed using receiving elements of the transducer elements to produced raw image data for the position, such that the defined subset changes for adjacent positions of the ultrasonic phased array probe. The raw image data of each position is combined to produce an ultrasonic image of the object. Notably, the ultrasonic image can be produced faster than traditional FMC (Full Matrix Capture) approaches because only a subset of the transducer elements transmit at each position. Meanwhile, diversity provided by the defined subset changing for adjacent positions can mitigate reduction in image quality as in traditional sparse firing.