A portable ultrasound imaging system includes a probe and a personal computer. The personal computer is connected to the probe by way of a THUNDERBOLT I/O interface. The probe includes a transducer that alternately transmits positive and negative ultrasound pulses to a target being imaged, which is a human body. Echoes of the ultrasound pulses reflected from internal structures of the human body are sampled from the transducer, digitized into echo data, and streamed to the personal computer over the THUNDERBOLT I/O interface. In the personal computer, scanlines are generated from the echo data. Overlapping scanlines are coherently compounded and positioned together to form an ultrasound image.

A portable ultrasound imaging system includes a probe and a personal computer. The personal computer is connected to the probe by way of a THUNDERBOLT I/O interface. The probe includes a transducer that alternately transmits positive and negative ultrasound pulses to a target being imaged, which is a human body. Echoes of the ultrasound pulses reflected from internal structures of the human body are sampled from the transducer, digitized into echo data, and streamed to the personal computer over the THUNDERBOLT I/O interface. In the personal computer, scanlines are generated from the echo data. Overlapping scanlines are coherently compounded and positioned together to form an ultrasound image.

A method for performing acoustic imaging and measurements may include generating a nonlinear frequency modulation (NLFM) chirp waveform based on a frequency response of at least one transducer. The method may further include generating an apodized signal by applying a window function to the NLFM chirp waveform. The method may further include exciting the at least one transducer with the apodized signal. The method may further include compressing received signals by using one or more matched filters.

An ultrasound imaging system can include an array of transducer elements, a plurality of receive circuits configured to provide one or more output signals, a plurality of delay circuits configured to output one or more delayed signals, and at least one multi-channel beamformer. The beamformer can receive representations of a plurality of microbeamformed signals and output at least one representation of a beamformed signal. The plurality of microbeamformed signals may represent a combination of delayed signals from the plurality of delay circuits. The plurality of delay circuits may be characterized by a plurality of time delay values. The plurality of time delay values may be controllable or adjustable such that one or more points-of-focus characterizing the microbeamformed signals can move along a line of sight.