Image reconstruction methods for frequency-domain photoacoustic elastography

Faculty: Jaya Prakash (Instrumentation and Applied Physics)  Phaneendra K. Yalavarthy (CDS)

Proposal:

Image reconstruction is a classical inverse problem and is typically under-determined due to experimental factors like faster data-acquisition, reduced radiation exposure, and physical limitation of data-collection. Photoacoustic elastography is an emerging technique used to obtain the elasticity distribution in the biological tissue, however photoacoustic elastography has been proposed in time-domain wherein pulsed lasers are used making the system bulky and expensive. Elastographic techniques could potentially enable cancer diagnostics and screening.

The project aims to develop model-based reconstruction using frequency domain approach to perform photoacoustic elastography which could potentially make the system compact and cheap. The developed frequency-domain approach will be combined with sparse recovery techniques/ deep-learning methods as part of this Ph.D. thesis topic to provide state-of-the-art reconstruction algorithms.

Background needed: Linear Algebra (and/or) signal processing.

Basic Qualifications: B.E./B.Tech. in EE/ECE/IN/CS/IT/BME (or) M.Sc. (Mathematics/Physics)