A system and method include storage of an echo signal power spectrum of a reference phantom for a fundamental frequency band and an echo signal power spectrum of the reference phantom for a harmonic frequency band, acquisition of an echo signal power spectrum of a region of tissue for the fundamental frequency band and an echo signal power spectrum of the region of tissue for the harmonic frequency band, determination of a first backscatter coefficient based on the echo signal power spectrum of the region of tissue for the fundamental frequency band and the echo signal power spectrum of the reference phantom for the fundamental frequency band, determination of a second backscatter coefficient based on the echo signal power spectrum of the region of tissue for the harmonic frequency band and the echo signal power spectrum of the reference phantom for the harmonic frequency band, and determination of a non-linearity of the region of tissue based on the first backscatter coefficient and the second backscatter coefficient.

A robotic cleaning appliance includes a housing, surface treatment item, surface type detection sensor, and processor. The sensor emits sonic signals toward a surface being traversed and receives corresponding returned signals from the surface. The returned signals are used for surface type detection and include directly reflected primary returned signals and multi-path reflected secondary returned signals which return at a later time than the primary returned signals. The processor selects a window of time after transmission of a sonic signal such that the returned signals in the window comprise at least a portion of the secondary returned signals, wherein the window is related to round trip time-of-flight of the returned signals; processes the returned signals falling in the window to achieve a reflectivity metric; compares the reflectivity metric to a stored value; and based on the comparison, determines which surface type of a plurality of surface types has been detected.

Methods, systems and computer program products for determining a mechanical parameter for a sample having a target region using constructive shear wave displacement is provided. The method includes generating a first shear wave in the target region at a first excitation position and a second shear wave in the target region at a second excitation position; transmitting tracking pulses in the target region at a tracking position that is between the first and second excitation positions; receiving corresponding echo signals for the tracking pulses at the tracking position in the target region; and determining at least one mechanical parameter of the target region based on at least one parameter of a constructive shear wave displacement from the first and second shear waves simultaneously displacing tissue at the tracking position.

Systems and methods for improving spectral-shift methods for calculating acoustic attenuation coefficients are disclosed. Systems, methods, and apparatuses for transmitting ultrasound pulse sequences for improved signal-to-noise outside the main passband of ultrasound transducers are disclosed. Systems, methods, and apparatuses for using the echoes from the transmitted pulse sequences to calculate the attenuation coefficient are disclosed.

An ultrasound probe has a two dimensional matrix array transducer and a digital microbeamformer. The microbeamformer comprises a plurality of transmitters and amplifiers coupled to elements of the array transducer, a plurality of low power analog to digital converters and digital beamforming circuitry coupled to the amplifiers, a microbeamformer controller, a power supply and a USB controller which cumulatively consume three watts or less.

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system produces spatially compounded trapezoidal sector images by combining component frames acquired from different look directions. A virtual apex scan format is used such that each scanline of a component frame emanates from a different point on the face of an array transducer and is steered at a different scanning angle. For different component frames the scanlines are steered at respectively different angles. In an illustrated example, the scanlines of each component frame are incremented by five degrees relative to the corresponding scanlines in a reference component frame. When the component frames are combined for spatial compounding, the maximum number of component frames are combined over virtually the entire image field.

The invention provides a method for controlling the generation of a compound ultrasonic image. The method includes obtaining a first ultrasound image and applying adaptive beamforming to the first ultrasound image, thereby generating a second ultrasound image. A weighting is determined based on the first and second ultrasound images, wherein the weighting comprises at least one weighting component. The compound ultrasound image is then generated based on the first and second ultrasound images and the weighting component.

Provided are a method and device for ultrasonic imaging by synthetic focusing. The method comprises: exciting a plurality of matrix elements of an ultrasonic probe to transmit plane waves many times, wherein transmitting apodizations at the time of every transmission of the plane waves by the plurality of matrix elements correspond to the respective lines in a measurement matrix in which elements are randomly distributed; after every transmission of the plane waves, exciting all the matrix elements of the ultrasonic probe to receive echo signals, in order to obtain channel data; recovering a synthetic focusing channel data set by use of a compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to a channel data set and the measurement matrix; and subjecting the synthetic focusing channel data set to beamforming so as to generate an ultrasonic image.

A method for mapping fibrous media by propagation of ultrasound from a set transducers, wherein: a number of unfocused incident ultrasonic waves having different wavefronts are emitted; the signals reverberated by the medium toward each transducer are captured; coherent signals respectively corresponding, for each transducer, to contributions coming from different fictitious focal points in the medium are determined; and then the orientation of the fibers is determined by comparing a spatial coherence between said coherent signals, in a plurality of directions.

An ultrasound system includes an ultrasound probe and an image display device. The ultrasound probe includes a transducer array, a transmitting and receiving unit that transmits and receives ultrasonic waves using the transducer array to generate a sound ray signal; a frame image information data generation unit that generates frame image information data from the sound ray signal; and a wireless communication unit that transmits a plurality of frame image information data items to the image display device. The image display device includes a frame type determination unit that determines frame types of the plurality of frame image information data items, a combination determination unit that determines whether or not to combine the frame image information data items on the basis of the frame types, a compound image data generation unit that combines the plurality of frame image information data items, and a display unit that displays a compound image.