Signal Processing Overview of Optical Coherence Tomography Systems for Medical Imaging

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a new medical imaging modality with resolution in the μm range and depth of imaging in the mm range. OCT is based on the principle of low coherence interferometry. This modality has been applied to imaging in various biological applications including ophthalmology, gastroenterology, dentistry, cardiology, tumor margining, etc. OCT systems are signal processing intensive and well suited for embedded implementations using digital signal processors (DSP) and system-on-chip (SoC) application processors. Low-power DSP and SoC are key to making low cost, low power and portable OCT systems. The different types of OCT systems are described in this white paper with focus being on signal processing algorithms used in such systems.