Photoacoustic coded excitation (PACE) is introduced as a new concept for photoacoustic imaging. Unipolar Golay codes (UGC) and Simplex codes (SC) are proposed as coding schemes and the coding gain with respect to time equivalent averaging is derived for both codes. Based on these analytic expressions the codes are compared to each other. It is shown that for realistic simulation parameters, employed for photoacoustic imaging using laser diodes, UGC outperform SC. Both coding schemes exhibit a positive coding gain compared to time equivalent averaging for these simulation parameters. These findings show that PACE is potentially a promising acquisition concept for photoacoustic imaging using pulsed laser diodes.
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