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Project NWO VIDI CL-US

Ultrasound (US) has the unique potential to offer access to medical imaging for anyone, everywhere. There is no other imaging modality that you can literally carry along in your pocket. Devices have become ultra-portable and cost-effective, akin to the stethoscope. Unfortunately US image quality is still poor, and highly operator and patient dependent. This limits its diagnostic utility. 

* The challenge is: How can we design autonomous US systems that actively pursue information maximization, for every patient and every individual exam?

Ruud van Sloun proposes a conceptually new and highly-unconventional approach: Closing the ultrasound perception-action loop and make the imaging process utility driven. The US perception-action loop is Sloun's neuroscience-inspired interpretation of the cycle of (a) US acquisition (action), probing tissue with acoustic waves and recording reflections at the detection array, and (b) perceptual inference of the anatomical state and diagnostic quantities (utility).

Current US systems have a broken perception-action loop. New imaging actions are not driven by past perceptions and knowledge/beliefs about what is imaged. System operation is fixed and non-adaptive, disregarding useful past information. Systems have no mechanism to actively reduce uncertainty about the anatomy, function, and diagnostic question. 

This approach allows US to actively pursue information maximization by closing the loop. With tihis, we will show that US action and perception can be treated jointly, in a closed loop and utility-driven, using accurate generative models for probabilistic inference. This puts forward ambitious scientific and technical goals: to introduce new theoretical frameworks for US perception-action and probabilistic analysis methods, formalize and learn strong generative models from data, and design advanced inference algorithms for a next generation of US imaging systems with excellent performance. The ambition is to drastically boost the diagnostic precision and robustness of US exams using closed-loop ultrasound and this project aims to lay the fundamentals for this. 

Project:  CL-US | 2024-2029
Funded: NWO VIDI program
Projectleader: Dr.Ir. Ruud van Sloun 
Supported by: (PD) and (PhD)
Partners: Eindhoven University of Technolog (黑料福利网) , Philips, Catharina Hospital

The project CL-US is part of the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC), a partnership between the Eindhoven University of Technology, Royal Philips, Catharina Hospital, Maxima Medical Centre and Kempenhaeghe Centre for Sleep and Epilepsy.