A device and method for performing ultrasound scanning of a substantially cylindrical object, the device comprising a cuff adapted to fit around a circumference of the object, a carrier mounted slidably on the cuff and adapted to traverse the circumference of the object, an ultrasound probe mounted on the carrier and positioned to scan the circumference of the object as the carrier traverses the circumference of the object, a carrier motor mounted on the cuff or the carrier and used to drive the movement of the carrier about the circumference of the object, and one or more data connections providing control information for the carrier motor and the ultrasound probe and receiving scanning data from the ultrasound probe.

Methods and apparatus are provided for non-invasive blood analysis. A blood analysis device (10, 30) comprises a housing (24) for receiving a human or animal body part or a container of blood. The housing (24, 32) comprises at least one wave emitter (18) for emitting an emitted wave to target blood, and at least one wave sensor (26) for sensing a response wave after the emitted wave has interacted with the target blood. The at least one wave sensor is configured to output at least one sense signal allowing a frequency spectrum of the emitted wave to be constructed.

A sensing device capable of detecting hardness includes a sensor array including a plurality of sensors, each of the plurality of sensors including a transmitter configured to emit a detection wave and a receiver configured to receive a reflected detection wave reflected by an object, the plurality of sensors arranged in a matrix form; and a controller configured to obtain image information and hardness information of each portion of the object from the reflected waves received by the plurality of sensors, and to form three-dimensional print data by mapping the image information and the hardness information.

The present invention relates to a safety diagnosis method for a structure using a nonlinear ultrasonic wave modulation technique. The safety diagnosis method includes: making the structure vibrate by applying signals of different ultrasonic frequencies; converting the responses of the structure generated by the vibration into digital signals; extracting first modulation signals by subtracting the harmonic responses and the linear responses of the signals of different ultrasonic frequencies from the digital signals and synchronously demodulating the digital signals; constructing a first sideband spectrogram by combining the first modulation signals generated by continuously changing at least frequency among the signals of different ultrasonic frequencies; and deciding whether the structure is cracked based on the first sideband spectrogram. Even though the power of the ultrasonic wave applied to the structure is very small as compared with the related art, whether there is the damage is precisely decided, and thus power consumption may be reduced.

An object information acquiring apparatus is used which includes a laser medium that oscillates laser light, an excitation source that excites the laser medium, a voltage accumulator that applies a voltage to the excitation source, a voltage supplier that supplies a voltage to the voltage accumulator, a voltage controller that limits a maximum supplied voltage from the voltage supplier, a receiver that receives a photoacoustic wave generated by an object irradiated with the laser light, and a constructor that acquires characteristic information relating to the object in use of the photoacoustic wave, wherein the voltage controller compares a measured voltage value obtained by implementing division of a supplied voltage from the voltage supplier with a reference voltage value defining the maximum supplied voltage.

The present invention relates to a sample information acquisition apparatus including a determination unit that determines a state of contact between a probe and a sample and whether the sample is on an optical path on the basis of an ultrasonic echo signal of ultrasonic waves received by the probe for the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the probe, prior to generation of a photoacoustic image; and a control unit that causes a light irradiating unit to irradiate the sample with light on the basis of a result of the determination. The determination unit determines the state of contact on the basis of information about multiple ultrasonic echo signals received by multiple transducers that are set apart from each other, among the multiple ultrasonic echo signals received by the multiple transducers in response to the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the multiple transducers in the probe.

A processing apparatus, comprises: a first acquirer configured to acquire a first specific information distribution of an object based on acoustic waves propagating from the object onto which light is irradiated; a second acquirer configured to acquire a characteristic value of the first specific information distribution of the object; a third acquirer configured to acquire information indicating a correspondence between an optical coefficient and the characteristic value of the first specific information distribution; and a fourth acquirer configured to acquire the optical coefficient of the object using the characteristic value of the first specific information distribution of the object and the information indicating the correspondence.

A method is provided for carrying out a sound test for detecting and/or analyzing material faults and/or mounting faults of at least one component, in which the component is excited, by striking, to experience vibrations which generate soundwaves, after which the generated soundwaves are detected and conclusions are drawn about material faults and/or mounting faults on the basis of the detected soundwaves, wherein the striking of the component and the detection of the vibrations are carried out using an endoscope device. In addition, embodiments of the present invention relates to an endoscope device which is configured to carry out the method.

Methods, systems and computer program products for nondestructive ultrasound imaging are provided. An example method defines a plurality of subarrays, each comprising a plurality of ultrasound transducer elements. The method transmits a plurality of ultrasound beams from each of the plurality of subarrays, each ultrasound beam being transmitted at a preset beamsteering angle. Subsequent to each transmit, the method receives, at the array, a plurality of ultrasound reflections corresponding to the plurality of ultrasound beams. For each point to be imaged, the method selects one set of received element data for each of the plurality of subarrays. The selected set of element data corresponds to an ultrasound beam having a focal point closest to the point to be imaged. Finally, the method reconstructs a point to be imaged based on the selected received element data, and constructs an ultrasound image by repeating this process for each point to be imaged.

A method for reconstructing a three-dimensional surface of a part using an ultrasonic matrix sensor including scanning the three-dimensional surface using a matrix sensor at different measurement points located at the intersection of scanning rows and of increment rows at each measurement point, acquiring a temporal row image representing a reflected wave amplitude received by each element from a selected row of the matrix sensor and acquiring a temporal column image representing a reflected wave amplitude received by each element from a selected column of the matrix sensor, constructing a two-dimensional row image for each scanning row on the basis of the temporal row images constructing a two-dimensional column image for each increment row on the basis of the temporal column images, and constructing a three-dimensional image on the basis of the two dimensional row images and of the two-dimensional column images.