A needle guide for use with a handheld probe having a connector protruding from a probe surface. The needle guide can include an upper portion including an upper surface, a lower portion defining a cavity to receive the connector of the handheld probe, and a needle channel. The needle channel can extend from a proximal portion of the upper surface to a distal end of the upper surface. The needle channel can have a fixed size. The needle guide can include a guide surface extending into the upper portion and the lower portion of the needle guide at a proximal end of the needle guide. The guide surface can include a concave shape with a conical surface that funnels into a proximal end of the needle channel.

A system and method from improving the image quality achievable with an ultrasound transducer by using a composite aperture for receiving ultrasound echoes. By using two receive cycles per vector, twice as many transducers may be used for receiving ultrasound imaging data than there are physical channels available in the ultrasound probe. An ultrasound probe utilizing a composite aperture can achieve high image quality from a system have reduced power, size, cost and complexity.

The present disclosure provides an ultrasonic probe assembly and a method using the same. The ultrasonic probe assembly includes: a handle and a probe body separable from the handle; wherein the handle is configured to control movement of the probe body in a body of an examinee; the probe body includes an ultrasonic component for emitting ultrasonic waves to the body of the examinee and receiving reflected ultrasonic waves to generate examination information, and a driving component for driving the ultrasonic component to move to change a direction of the ultrasonic waves emitted by the ultrasonic component.

An ultrasound device includes an ultrasound body having a shaft and an ultrasound sensor assembly disposed at a distal end portion of the shaft. The ultrasound sensor assembly is configured to enable ultrasound imaging. A clip is configured for positioning about a portion of a surgical tool. The clip is configured to releasably engage the ultrasound body to thereby releasably couple the surgical tool with the ultrasound body. A surgical system includes the ultrasound device and the surgical tool.

An ultrasound probe for a puncture needle and an ultrasound diagnostic device using the same are disclosed. The ultrasound probe for the puncture needle transmits ultrasonic waves to a subject from a transducer array which is arranged so as to be tilted at a predetermined array angle of inclination with respect to a subject contact surface, in a direction in which an angle of an ultrasonic wave transmission/reception surface with respect to a puncturing direction of the puncture needle punctured from a puncture position toward the front of the subject contact surface decreases, receives ultrasonic echoes, forms sound ray signals which are tilted to a side of the puncture needle, and generates a B mode image of a deep region of the subject from the sound ray signals.

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes a hardware processor that generates a first B mode image and a second B mode image on the basis of a first reception signal and a second reception signal whose beam width in the slice direction is narrower than the first reception signal, displays a display image on a display section, determines whether the end of the puncture needle in the display image is the actual needle point, and presents the determination result. The hardware processor presents the determination result on the basis of the first puncture needle image included in the first B mode image and the second puncture needle image included in the second B mode image.

Ultrasound apparatus and methods of processing signals are described. The ultrasound apparatus may include multiple channels. In some embodiments, signal processing techniques are described, which in some embodiments are performed on a per-channel basis. The signal processing techniques may involve using down-conversion and filtering of signals on multiple channels. The down-conversion and filtering may be done prior to beamforming.

A handheld ultrasound device may comprise components configured to provide decreased size, weight, complexity, and power consumption. The handheld ultrasound device may comprise a beamformer configured to implement and compress a flag table in place of a delay table. These improvements can decrease the amount of memory used to generate ultrasound images, which can decrease the size, weight, and power consumption of the handheld ultrasound device. Ultrasound image data on a handheld imaging probe can be compressed on the handheld imaging probe prior to transmission from the probe in order to decrease the amount of data transmitted from the probe. The compressed data may comprise compressed pixels to maintain spatial image resolution. The compression circuitry may comprise an amount of memory related to a dynamic range of the compressed data that is independent of the dynamic range of the input data, which can decrease memory, power consumption, and latencies.

An ultrasound imaging device or probe includes a tip having a heat conducting exterior housing within which an imaging element is positioned. The imaging element is engaged with a heat sink formed of an electrically insulating material that also has high thermal conductivity. The heat sink contacts and extends through and electrically insulating enclosure within which the imaging element is disposed. As a result, the heat generated by the imaging element can be readily conducted to the ambient environment via the heat sink and heat conductive exterior housing while also enabling the imaging element and other electrical components to be electrically insulated from the housing.

In order to estimate a temperature of a transmission-reception wavefront of a probe head, a first computing unit and a second computing unit are provided. The first computing unit estimates a temperature TA of the transmission-reception wavefront according to a basic function based on an internal temperature T1, an ambient temperature T2, power consumption Ptotal (=Pic+Ptd), and any other parameter. The basic function is a linear function. The second computing unit estimates a temperature TB of the transmission-reception wavefront according to an auxiliary function based on a previously estimated temperature Tpre, an internal temperature difference ΔT1, and any other, parameter. A selection unit selects any of the temperatures TA and TB depending on situations.