Ultrasound Image Velocimetry (UIV) Uncertainty Quantification

Ultrasound image velocimetry (UIV) is a non-invasive flow measurement technique used to study flows through opaque media, especially in complex flows in clinical and industrial research applications. Sensitive decision-making based on these measurements intensifies the importance of characterizing the UIV measurement accuracy and uncertainty. However, UIV uncertainty quantification (UQ) is non-trivial due to the complexity of contributing error sources, their combination, and propagation through the measurement chain. This work presents a Generalized Moment of Correlation (GMC) method for UQ in a UIV measurement. GMC is based on the MC method for particle image velocimetry (PIV). However, the method accounts for the stretched shape of image intensities typical in an ultrasound image. Synthetic image analysis shows a 50% improvement in GMC UQ prediction compared to MC for particle image aspect ratios higher than 1.5. Furthermore, GMC is sensitive to the UIV error sources and predicts the measurement uncertainty with 90% accuracy. UQ in clinical ultrasound images also demonstrates reasonable levels of uncertainty with the consistent spatial distribution. GMC provides the first reliable UQ for a UIV measurement.