The last Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Joint Symposium was held in 2013 in Prague, Czechia. Since then there has been tremendous progress in many areas of ultrasonics. Several older technologies, such as software beamforming and elastography, have matured to become routine clinical tools. New technologies, such as super-resolution imaging and machine learning, are now mainstream in the ultrasonics research community. Handheld systems have advanced markedly and wearable ones have been developed in the last few years by leveraging new transducer technologies. Finally, therapeutic ultrasound has evolved to address new applications such as neuro-modulation, and high intensity techniques such as histotripsy have been translated to the clinic. Overall, ultrasonics continues to evolve at a very rapid pace.
In this talk, we will review the state of the art in ultrasonics at the time of the last Joint Symposium.
Then, we will explore advances in several areas over the last decade. The talk will conclude by speculating about what will be the major advances in ultrasonics over the next decade.