Doppler flow phantom failure detection by combining empirical mode decomposition and independent component analysis with short time Fourier transform

Nowadays, objective protocols and criteria for the monitoring of phantoms failures are still lacking in literature, despite their technical limitations. In such a context, the present work aims at providing an improvement of a previously proposed method for the Doppler flow phantom failures detection. Such failures were classified as low frequency oscillations, high velocity pulses and velocity drifts. The novel objective method, named EMoDICA-STFT, is based on the combined application of the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) techniques on Pulsed Wave (PW) Doppler spectrograms. After a first series of simulations and the determination of adaptive thresholds, phantom failures were detected on real PW spectrograms through the EMoDICA-STFT method. Data were acquired from two flow phantom models set at five flow regimes, through a single ultrasound (US) diagnostic system equipped with a linear, a convex and a phased array probe, as well as with two configuration settings. Despite the promising outcomes, further studies should be carried out on a greater number of Doppler phantoms and US systems as well as including an in-depth investigation of the proposed method uncertainty.