An Open-Source GPU-Based Acoustic Simulator for Fast and Accurate Modeling of Acoustic Scattering

Fast, accurate, and realistic simulations of ultrasonic scattering in biological tissues play an important role in biomedical ultrasound research. This study introduces UltraWave, a new open-source ultrasound simulation tool we developed for accurately modeling acoustic and elastic wave propagation in two- and three-dimensional heterogeneous media. UltraWave allows the utilization of multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver faster and more accurate full-wave simulations. The perfectly matched layer was integrated into the simulator. UltraWave was validated against well-established scattering theories in a variety of basic scattering scenarios, and achieved similar or higher accuracy than the widely used k-Wave toolbox. Additionally, UltraWave outperformed k-Wave in terms of computational efficiency with both central processing units (CPUs) and GPUs, particularly when using GPU acceleration for elastic wave simulations. These results demonstrated the potential of UltraWave as a promising tool for biomedical ultrasound simulations.