# Super-Resolved Microbubble Localization in Single-Channel Ultrasound RF Signals Using Deep Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.04537 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04537/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Apr 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [WaveNet: A Generative Model for Raw Audio](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.03499/) (2016)
- [Multi-Scale Context Aggregation by Dilated Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07122/) (2015)
- [Generalised Dice overlap as a deep learning loss function for highly unbalanced segmentations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.03237/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [RF-ULM: Ultrasound Localization Microscopy Learned from Radio-Frequency Wavefronts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01545/) (2023)
- [Unsupervised Unfolded rPCA (U2-rPCA): Deep Interpretable Clutter Filtering for Ultrasound Microvascular Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.00660/) (2025)
- [4D-UNet improves clutter rejection in human transcranial contrast enhanced ultrasound](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18542/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, super-resolution ultrasound imaging with ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) has received much attention. However, ULM relies on low concentrations of microbubbles in the blood vessels, ultimately resulting in long acquisition times. Here, we present an alternative super-resolution approach, based on direct deconvolution of single-channel ultrasound radio-frequency (RF) signals with a one-dimensional dilated convolutional neural network (CNN). This work focuses on low-frequency ultrasound (1.7 MHz) for deep imaging (10 cm) of a dense cloud of monodisperse microbubbles (up to 1000 microbubbles in the measurement volume, corresponding to an average echo overlap of 94%). Data are generated with a simulator that uses a large range of acoustic pressures (5-250 kPa) and captures the full, nonlinear response of resonant, lipid-coated microbubbles. The network is trained with a novel dual-loss function, which features elements of both a classification loss and a regression loss and improves the detection-localization characteristics of the output. Whereas imposing a localization tolerance of 0 yields poor detection metrics, imposing a localization tolerance corresponding to 4% of the wavelength yields a precision and recall of both 0.90. Furthermore, the detection improves with increasing acoustic pressure and deteriorates with increasing microbubble density. The potential of the presented approach to super-resolution ultrasound imaging is demonstrated with a delay-and-sum reconstruction with deconvolved element data. The resulting image shows an order-of-magnitude gain in axial resolution compared to a delay-and-sum reconstruction with unprocessed element data.