Dictionary-Based Learning for 3D-Imaging with

Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Phased Arrays

Raphael Müller∗ , David Schenck∗ , Gianni Allevato† , Matthias Rutsch† , Jan Hinrichs† ,
Mario Kupnik† , and Marius Pesavento∗
∗ Communication Systems Group, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
† Measurement and Sensor Technology Group, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany

Abstract—The Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Op-

erator (LASSO) was recently introduced for imaging of sparse
scenes in low sample size scenarios. In this paper, we investigate
the imaging capabilities of LASSO for ultrasonic phased arrays
operating in air. Using sparse regularization and a dictionary of
measured array point responses, 3D images can be generated with
only a few, single pulse measurements. A priori, the dictionary
of point responses is learned by calibrating the array. The
underlying low-rank structure can be adequately expressed by
fitting rank-one vectors. A proof of concept shows the imaging
potential of our proposed scheme with a real ultrasonic phased
array.
Index Terms—air-coupled ultrasound imaging, high resolution
imaging, array calibration, array characterization, dictionary
learning, best rank-one approximation, denoising compressed
sensing, sparse reconstruction, L1 regularization.

I. I NTRODUCTION Fig. 1. Uniform Rectangular Array (URA) consisting of 64 Murata MA404S

Ultrasonic imaging has a wide range of applications, e.g.,
in navigation or healthcare [1], [2]. Compared to use cases in
fluids, airborne sensor solutions face a severe problem: The
reduced speed of sound in air and the requirement for large
coverage areas provoke large propagation delays which slow
down imaging frame rates. This shortcoming motivates the
use of sparse sampling concepts which provide high imaging
accuracy with only a few snapshot measurements.
Using a dictionary of array responses for different directions
and ranges, the received array response to a transmitted pulse
can be correlated to the entries of the dictionary in order to find
the corresponding angular and range locations present in the
received echo signal. However, for real hardware such array
responses are often difficult to characterize analytically.
The focus of our research is therefore on the calibration of
a given array in order to learn a dictionary of point responses
based on sample measurements for said point responses. This
approach is hardware-agnostic, making it applicable to various
forms of ultrasonic imaging systems. The major contribution
besides proposing an effective calibration procedure for air-
coupled ultrasonic phased arrays is given by the successful
imaging approach with real hardware based on a dictionary of
array responses.
This paper is structured as follows: In Section II, the
measurement setup is introduced. Section III describes the
LASSO imaging procedure followed by an explanation on how
to learn the dictionary in Section IV. Measurement results are
given in Section V and Section VI concludes this paper.
transducers. The array is controlled via custom electronics and features a
3D-printed waveguide for a grating-lobe free λ/2 acoustic aperture.
II. M EASUREMENT S ETUP
A. Air-Coupled Ultrasonic Phased Array
Phased arrays are composed of a collection of spatially
distributed sensors with phase shifters that allow to electroni-
cally steer their receive and transmit beam. This enables both
illumination of a distinct room section in the field of view
(FOV) of the sensor array and evaluation of the direction-of-
arrival (DOA) for incoming point source signals. The amount
of sensors in the array and their inter-element distance define
the array aperture, which gives a natural upper limit on the
resolution capabilities of the system.
In our work, we consider an 8×8 uniform rectangular array
(URA) consisting of ultrasonic transducers of type MA40S4S
manufactured by Murata (Nagaokakyō, Kyoto Prefecture,
Japan). Key signatures of these transducers are an output
power level of more than 120 dB at a distance of 30 cm and
their broad availability to both academic as well as commercial
customers. Their operating frequency of f0 = 40 kHz allows
us an imaging range of several meters as well as a sufficient
resolution of the scenery of interest.
B. Customized Waveguide
Achieving a grating-lobe free beam pattern is crucial to
prevent ghost targets during imaging. However, with a di-
ameter of 9.9 mm the physical dimensions of the MA40S4S

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transducers do not allow to directly place them next to each
other at λ/2 ≈ 4.3 mm. In order to overcome this drawback, a
waveguide is used [3]. It creates an acoustic aperture with the
demanded λ/2-pitch. Furthermore, an essential benefit of this
setup is that the separation of the acoustic aperture from the
mechanical one offers the possibility to operate the array in
harmful environments, e.g., at elevated temperatures. A custom
waveguide fabricated using standard 3D printing techniques is
depicted in Fig. 1.
Every waveguide channel adds the same path length from
the acoustic aperture to the respective transducer. Whenever
the behavior of a single sensor or channel of the array is
considered it should be noted that this includes both the
transducer and its respective waveguide channel. We therefore
shift the focus from the mechanic to the acoustic aperture
when referring to the phased array. The successful imaging
capabilities of the waveguide system have been proven earlier,
e.g., in [4], [5].
III. I MAGING WITH S PARSE R EGULARIZATION
Assume that the scene of interest is overall sparse and only
contains a few point targets. We have access to measurement
data received by M sensors, each one providing F frequency
points covering the given signal bandwidth. Using a dictionary
D ∈ CM F ×P where P denotes the number of positions for
which a sample array response exists, imaging can be realized
by applying the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection
Operator (LASSO) on received signals.
The LASSO procedure combines the classic Least Squares
(LS) problem with a sparsity promoting regularization term,
thereby introducing a trade-off between meeting the assump-
tion of a sparse scene and matching the receive data at
best to our dictionary. A minimization over the sum of a
data matching term under the Frobenius norm k · kF and a
regularization term under the L1-norm k · k1 which sums up
the magnitudes of the entries in its argument expresses this
trade-off [6]:
 
min ||y − Dx||2F + µ||x||1 . (1)
x | {z } | {z }
Data matching Sparse regularization
The minimization problem in (1) aims at finding the solution
vector of possible target positions x ∈ CP ×1 out of P points
in the FOV. Target locations are therefore obtained from the
support of the solution vector. In order to enforce sparsity on
x, the regularizing parameter µ ∈ R weights the importance
of the L1-norm term. A large µ introduces a bias at the cost
of ignoring the vectorized measurement snapshot y ∈ CM F ×1
obtained by illuminating the room. Consequently, a small value
for the regularization parameter results in high confidence for
the measurement data representing a sparse scene.
In general,
D = [d1 , d2 , . . . , dp , . . . , dP ]
has the structure of a fat matrix (M F < P ) where each
column dp represents the sample array response for one
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position p = 1, . . . , P in the FOV. Having access to the angular
response ap and frequency response bp , the array response dp
is calculated via the Kronecker product
dp = bp ⊗ ap . (3)
Unfortunately, bp and especially ap are hard to describe
analytically, due to deviations in the signal reception of every
transducer and artifacts in the array geometry. Production
tolerances and aging effects affect the phase and amplitude
of received signals, thereby creating unequal sensor channels.
Customized arrays like the one at our hands which features an
additional waveguide introduce further uncertainties into the
point response behavior of the array. This motivates to empiri-
cally learn the array responses through sample measurements.
A calibration procedure to learn a dictionary from sample array
responses is introduced next.
IV. L EARNING THE D ICTIONARY
A. Calibration
As shown in (3), the dictionary entry dp is constructed out
of two - up to this point, unknown - array responses ap and
bp caused by a point source (point target) located at room
position p. The angular array response
ap = a(ϑp , φp ) (4)
can be described as a function of azimuth ϑp and elevation
φp , whereas the frequency response
bp = b(τp ) (5)
can be described in dependence of the propagation delay τp
which is proportional to the range between the array and
the target position p [5]. Note how bp is independent of
the transducer, thereby making the assumption of a common
frequency response for all sensors.
The active calibration procedure proposed in this paper
involves an additional transducer placed at various room
positions. It serves as an active echo target, transmitting pulses
which are received by the phased array. At this point, the
imaging array is therefore only operated in its receive mode
to record the respective array responses. The corresponding
measurement setup is depicted in Fig. 3.
The total number of room positions P , sampled with this
approach, not only defines the size of the dictionary D but
also the resolution of the image produced when solving the
LASSO problem, as only discrete points are possible solutions
to the optimization problem in (1). Hence, a fine grid of sample
points is desirable for the calibration of D. Multiple snapshot
measurements for every room point are considered in order to
further improve the precision of the measured array responses.
B. Low Rank Model
(2)
After capturing the received pulses emitted from the active
echo target at position p, the sampled time sequences of every
transducer are transformed to the frequency domain using the
Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Then, the DFT signals are
stored in a 3D-array

X p ∈ CM ×F ×L , (6)
3

where L denotes the number of snapshots used to determine

the point response vector for position p. 2
We assume that only the active transducer contributes to

ηp [%]
the echo signal received by each sensor element. Furthermore,
this active target is assumed to be a point source in the far 1

field of the array in an environment that is free of any multi-

path propagation. Consequently, if every transducer shows an 0
identical (yet potentially unknown) frequency response, then 60
the received signal in (6) is characterized by a low rank tensor 40
40.1
and can be decomposed into 40
m 20

X p = a(ϑp , φp ) ◦ b(τp ) ◦ hp (7) 39.9 f [kHz]

using the outer product ◦ of the array steering vector

Fig. 2. The relative reconstruction error ηp quantifies the model mismatch
a(ϑp , φp ) ∈ CM ×1 , the frequency response vector b(τp ) ∈ done when assuming the pre-processed X̃ X p to be of low rank. Most often,
CF ×1 and a complex pulse gain vector hp ∈ CL×1 [7]. some transducers m show a frequency response which deviates from the one
Since the dictionary entries in (3) depend on ap and bp assumed on basis of a low-rank model. Such deviations show explicitly at the
edges of the bandwidth under consideration.
only, the received data tensor X p in (6) is decomposed to
find the best rank-one approximations for the angular and
frequency responses related to position p. Therefore, a tensor D. Dictionary Evaluation
decomposition is applied which can be expressed in terms of
an LS minimization problem [6], [7] The accuracy of the tensor decomposition in (8) can be
evaluated using the relative reconstruction error
Xp − a
min kX b(ϑp , φp ) ◦ b(τ b p k2 ,
b p) ◦ h (8) L
F b p (`)|2
ap ,b
b p ,h
bp X p (m, f, `) − a
1 X |X̃ bp (m)bb p (f )h
ηp (m, f ) = (10)
b
L X p (m, f, `)|2
|X̃
`=1
where abp , b
b p and h b p are the estimates whose outer vector
product match the measured data X p best in terms of the for any signal channel m = 1, . . . , M and frequency point
Frobenius norm. Reconstructing the data tensor by the outer f = 1, . . . , F by considering all snapshots ` = 1, . . . L. The
product Xb p = abp ◦ b
bp ◦ h
b p also shows the benefit of denoising inspection of the relative error in (10) shows to which degree
the data as Xb p is free of noise components which cannot be the received, pre-processed data X̃ X p is of low tensor rank.
described using a low-rank structure. The relative error of the tensor decomposition for a specific
position within the FOV of the sensor is depicted in Fig. 2 for
C. Low-Rank Pre-Processing different frequencies and sensors.

Real ultrasonic transducers show a unique filter characteris- V. E XPERIMENTAL VALIDATION

tic that affects the spectrum of the received signal. However, In order to verify our imaging approach, we first calibrate
this violates our assumptions of a mutual frequency response our URA with an additional MA40S4S transducer acting as
equal for every transducer. Therefore, a pre-processing step is an active echo source. All measurements are conducted in an
proposed next that equalizes the data of every receive channel. anechoic chamber that features a goniometer with two radial
For every position p, the DFT signals stored in X p (m, f, `) and one linear axis to adjust ranges and directions with both,
are weighted by the respective absolute inverse value over high accuracy and repeatability, as shown in Fig. 3.
all snapshots and the absolute mean over all channels and We sample point responses for a FOV of ±20° in azimuth
snapshots, i.e., and elevation, respectively. In total, 1088 different angular
PL PM directions (ϑ, φ) at a distance of 2.1 m are measured with
X p (ν, f, ξ)|
ν=1 |X L = 4 snapshots for every room position p. This results in
X p (m, f, `) = X p (m, f, `) ξ=1
X̃ PL , (9)
M ξ=1 |X X p (m, f, ξ)| P = 1088 dictionary entries dp . Consequently, for each of
the P data tensors X p a rank-one approximation as shown in
for m = 1, . . . , M . (8) is performed.
The pre-processed X̃ X p is then subject to the proposed tensor Since our dictionary only contains point responses for a
decomposition in (8) and therefore replaces X p in the process single range, it is not possible to make any statement on the
of estimating a bp , b
b p and hbp. accuracy of the distance estimation of the echo target. Instead,

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Fig. 3. During calibration, a transducer (left) is mounted on a rail, firing
pulses at the phased array (right) which can be steered using two rotational
axes. Together, rail and rotational axes allow to acquire point responses for
several ranges and directions.
we now focus on a 2D-image for a proof of concept of the
proposed dictionary-based imaging approach. According to
our assumed model (3), the range and the direction information
of the response vector dp can be decoupled as described
by the frequency and directional array responses bp and ap ,
respectively. Consequently, this allows separate imaging steps
for the range and angle of targets relative to the phased array.
For the actual imaging trial, the additional transducer from
the calibration step is mounted next to the URA to illuminate
the room. The URA therefore still works in its receive mode
and the whole ultrasonic imaging system acts in a pitch-
catch setup. As a target, we place a single tetrahedral corner
reflector with an edge length of 14 cm at the sample distance
2.1 m. Viewed from the array, the target is located at direction
(ϑ, φ) = (10°, 10°).
In order to solve the LASSO, we make use of the Soft-
Thresholding with Exact Line Search Algorithm (STELA)
[6]. This algorithm can be implemented on parallel hardware
architectures to efficiently solve the optimization problem in
(1). Hence, this contributes to our attempt on fast imaging
cycles for air-coupled ultrasound.
With the described setup, we are able to find a meaningful
solution vector x with a single pulse measurement. In order
to achieve a sparse solution, the regularization parameter has
been set to µ = 0.5kDT yk∞ where the term under the infinity
norm k · k∞ can be used as an initial value as a rule of thumb.
Finally, Fig. 4 depicts the obtained 2D-image, where the
value of |x| provides an estimate on the position of the target.
The larger the value of |x| the more likely a target is positioned
at the corresponding grid point in the dictionary.
VI. C ONCLUSION
Based on an experimentally measured dictionary of array
responses, we introduce a fast way to acquire images for air-
coupled ultrasound phased arrays using sparse regularization.
Applying best rank-one approximation to array calibration
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1
20
0.9
0.8
10 0.7
0.6
φ [°]
0 0.5
0.4
−10 0.3
0.2
0.1
−20
0
−20 −10 0 10 20
ϑ [°]
Fig. 4. Generated 2D-image by solving the LASSO with a calibrated
dictionary for a FOV of ±20° based on a single snapshot measurement.
Plotting the solution |x| shows the correlation between the received echo
signal and corresponding dictionary entries. The scene only contains a single
target, located at (ϑ, φ) = (10°, 10°) (marked in red).
measurements allows to build the required dictionary from
sampled receive data. This proves that the underlying rank-one
model can indeed be applied to characterize a given ultrasonic
phased array. Furthermore, our learning approach eliminates
the need for analytic array responses which are tedious to de-
scribe for real-world systems. Instead, our empirical approach
shows promising results for accurate imaging of sparse scenes.
Future work focuses on validating our approach for a
full 3D-image, taking both direction and range into account.
Additionally, resolving multiple targets is a subject of further
research.
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