Short Courses (Monday, September 15)

Super-resolution ultrasound imaging has the capacity to distinguish and map structures that are smaller than the classical limit, typically a fraction of the wavelength. For ultrasound imaging, this means exploring features, such as blood vessels, in the micrometric range deep inside tissue. At the end of this course, students should be able to understand and reproduce super-resolution ultrasound imaging experiments, from data acquisition to image reconstruction, and apply such knowledge in their specific fields. 

This short course is based on a recent review article (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9913943) and will present basic principles of hydrophone measurements, including mechanisms of action for various hydrophone designs, sensitivity and directivity calibration procedures, practical considerations for performing measurements, signal processing methods to correct for both frequency-dependent sensitivity and spatial averaging across the hydrophone sensitive element, uncertainty in hydrophone measurements, special considerations for high-intensity therapeutic ultrasound, and advice for choosing an appropriate hydrophone for a particular measurement task. Recommendations will be made for information to be included in hydrophone measurement reporting.  The instructors are world-leading hydrophone experts who are active in the development of International Electrotechnical Commission standards on hydrophones and collectively have authored over 50 papers concerning hydrophone methodology in peer-reviewed journals. A live demonstration of hydrophone measurements will be presented.

This short course gives an introduction to therapeutic use of ultrasound that is currently transitioning from research studies to clinical practice. The ultrasound induced bio-effects useful for therapy will be reviewed along with the generation of ultrasound. Mainly the absorption of ultrasound waves in soft biological tissues leading to heat creation will be described as well as the concept of the equivalent time at 43°C. The second half of the course will cover mechanical effects of ultrasound, and will discuss non-thermal therapy approaches, including lithotripsy, histotripsy, non-thermal ablation and targeted drug delivery. The potential of therapeutic methods using ultrasound currently in preclinical evaluation and clinical practice will be discussed together with the future directions and potential impact of therapeutic ultrasound. The course will emphasize technological issues and system architecture constraints, and will cover the current therapy ultrasound systems and their use in clinical practice. Examples of the results of the clinical studies will be reviewed. 

This short course will present an overview of the basic techniques of Doppler blood flow imaging used in industry, followed by the limitations of these conventional approaches to image lower velocity blood flow. The course will then cover how low velocity flow detection has vastly improved with the advent of recent microvascular Doppler flow imaging modes now present on many commercial imaging systems. The second part of the course covers how the introduction of microbubbles solves a key limitation of even these new microvascular Doppler modes to provide visualization of relative differences in microvascular flow. However, ultrasound contrast has had limited clinical application in part due to a lack of quantification. Lastly, traditional and new efforts to quantify microvascular hemodynamics with microbubbles will be presented, particularly non-linear ULM approaches.

This course will focus on the theoretical and experimental aspects of three families of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) methods: those based on the backscatter coefficient, envelope statistics, and ultrasound attenuation. QUS methods permit quantifying tissue microstructure in great details in a user- and system-independent fashion. Therefore, QUS methods can be used to diagnose diseases, monitor treatment, or for active surveillance. These methods have a long history of success in numerous organ systems. Attendees will learn about the theoretical foundations of the methods, experimental methods and challenges, and become familiar with the state of the art. Upon completion of the course, attendees will have the foundational knowledge necessary to start investigating how QUS methods can be applied to their research and which previous published studies and methods are the most likely to be successfully applied. The course will also review QUS successes from recent studies from researchers within the IEEE IUS community.

This short course will provide an overview of techniques that are being developed in the field of Biomolecular Ultrasound, which consists in visualizing molecular and cellular processes occurring deep within living organs.

While ultrasound is widely used to assess human anatomy and physiology, it plays a very minor role in the field of molecular imaging. Recent advances are beginning to address this limitation thanks to molecular tools that allow ultrasound waves to connect to specific cellular functions.

The first part of this course will cover gas vesicles, a new class of genetically encoded ultrasound contrast agents that serve as the ‘green fluorescent protein for ultrasound’. We will review gas vesicle laboratory production techniques, gas vesicles physical properties from a molecular standpoint, engineering strategies to turn gas vesicles into reporter genes and acoustic biosensors, current and foreseeable biosensing applications, and remaining bioengineering challenges.

The second part of this course will cover imaging strategies dedicated to sensitive, specific and high-resolution gas vesicle detection. We will review gas vesicles physical properties from an acoustics standpoint, specific challenges that arise when imaging gas vesicles, latest trends in gas vesicle detection, foreseeable imaging developments, and remaining imaging challenges.

Conventional ultrasonic guided wave inspections typically rely on large phased-array systems, which are limited by bulky hardware, high power consumption, and complex data acquisition. Meta-transducers, on the other hand, integrate advanced functionalities such as beam steering or mode filtering directly into the transducer design. This “in-sensor” approach significantly reduces hardware requirements and simplifies signal processing, enabling in-situ, low-power, and real-time structural health monitoring. This course is divided into two parts. The first session covers the theoretical foundations of guided waves and introduces the key concepts behind meta-transducer technology,
including electrode shaping, anisotropic wavenumber filtering, and other novel design strategies, with examples illustrating how these designs outperform conventional approaches. The second part emphasizes practical modeling techniques and numerical simulations of guided wave propagation, demonstrating how to build, analyze, and optimize meta-transducer configurations using tools such as COMSOL Multiphysics. By the end of the course, participants will have both the theoretical background and the hands-on skills required to design and evaluate meta-transducers for ultrasonic inspections.

This concise course offers a comprehensive overview of machine learning and signal processing techniques tailored for ultrasonic imaging applications. We will present a range of case studies that address critical real-world challenges, including defect detection in essential components at nuclear facilities, pulse-echo chirplet estimation, and flaw identification in coarse-grained materials through advanced order statistics and deep learning networks. Additionally, the course delves into ultrasonic data compression via machine learning, the development of software-defined ultrasonic systems for communication across solid mediums, and the integration of hardware and software in system-on-chip designs specifically for ultrasonic signal processing tasks.

Acoustic tweezers, a cutting-edge technology at the intersection of acoustics, microfluidics, and biomedical engineering, have emerged as a powerful tool for the precise manipulation and sorting of microscale objects. This tutorial provides a comprehensive overview of the design, fabrication, and diverse applications of acoustic tweezers. The tutorial begins by introducing the fundamental principles of acoustic tweezers, highlighting the underlying physics of acoustic wave propagation and the generation of acoustic radiation forces. It explores various design strategies for creating acoustic tweezer devices, including transducer configurations, materials selection, and system designs.

Piezoelectric MEMS based acoustic wave resonators have been the backbone for low loss, high-rejection and compact RF filters over the past 30 years.  This course will provide an overview on basic principles of piezoelectric theory and acoustic wave propagation, material selection, underlying bulk acoustic wave resonator design, and measurement techniques for the design of RF bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters.

With the rapid miniaturization of acoustic wave resonators for frequency control and sensor applications, the analysis and design of these devices are increasingly transitioning to computer-based digital processes. This shift necessitates a strong emphasis on formulation and modeling that takes into account material properties and dynamic characteristics. In light of the heavy reliance on design tools, it is essential to begin with the fundamental theories underlying acoustic wave devices to support numerical analyses.

Owing to excellent performance, radio frequency (RF) surface and bulk acoustic wave (SAW/BAW) devices are widely used in the RF frontend of current smartphones. Nevertheless, SAW/BAW engineers are always requested to further improve the device performance. But how?

Successfully translating ultrasound innovations from research to industry requires a comprehensive understanding of product development, regulatory frameworks, intellectual property strategies, and commercialization pathways. This short course is designed to equip researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs with the critical knowledge and practical skills necessary to navigate this complex landscape and drive innovation from concept to market.

This short course explores the interaction of Analog Front End (AFE) electronics with passive ultrasound transducers, advances to the integration of the AFE with in-probe electronics, and finally considers the implications on ultrasound system design. The course starts by considering the electronics within a typical AFE. A basic electronics primer is provided including Characteristic Impedance, Impedance Matching, Cable Selection then Analog and Switched Mode Transmit Circuits, Transmit/Receive Switches and Multiplexers, Receiver AFE, Amplification including Noise Factor and Noise Figure, Filtering and Analog to Digital Convertors (ADC).