The noninvasive ultrasound imaging of the adult brain through the intact skull has had limited success due to the transmission distortion of the skull. The feasibility of measuring scalp and skull thickness by echo ranging and interference techniques to generate a model to compensate for distortion is proposed. Once the three dimensional model of the skull is obtained, ray tracing techniques are used to determine the time of flight and attenuation to the desired field point. Equalization for time of flight and path attenuation is introduced for each channel of a 7x7, two-dimensional array. Success in this research will provide a fundamental approach to noninvasive ultrasound imaging of the adult brain through the intact skull.
