A method comprises: generating a shear wave in a target tissue; selecting an ultrasound transducer group in an ultrasound probe, and determining a focus position and a transmitting aperture corresponding to the ultrasound transducer group, such that a sound field boundary range formed by the ultrasound transducer group completely covers a region of interest in the target tissue; controlling the array elements to transmit ultrasound waves according to the corresponding relative time delays, so as to cause a transmitting focusing effect; receiving ultrasound echoes returned from the region of interest, obtaining echo information of different positions in the region of interest, and obtaining, according to the echo information, shear wave information corresponding to the region of interest.

Ultrasound imaging methods are provided. The method includes: determining a region of interest in a target tissue; determining at least one ultrasound transducer group in an ultrasound probe and a focus position according to the region of interest in the target tissue; controlling, according to the determined focus position and the at least one ultrasound transducer group, transducers in the at least one ultrasound transducer group to transmit, to the target tissue, ultrasound waves that arrive at the corresponding focus point simultaneously, to form a sound field that completely covers the region of interest in the target tissue; and receiving ultrasound echoes of the ultrasound waves from the region of interest to obtain echo information in the region of interest.

An ultrasound system is disclosed comprising an ultrasound transducer array (100) comprising a plurality of ultrasound transducer cells (130), each of said cell having an independently adjustable position and/or orientation such as to conform an ultrasound transmitting surface of the cell to a region of a body and a controller (140). The controller is configured to register the respective ultrasound transducer cells by simultaneously operating at least two ultrasound transducer cells in a transmit mode in which the cells transmit distinguishable ultrasound signals and operating the remaining ultrasound transducer cells in a receive mode. The controller extracts time-of-flight information of the respective ultrasound signals between transmitter and receiver and by systematically selecting different ultrasound transducer cells as transmitters, the controller collects sufficient time-of-flight information from which the respective position and/or relative orientation of the ultrasound transducer cells within the ultrasound transducer array may be derived. A method for operating the ultrasound system in this manner as well as a computer program product is also disclosed.

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system scans a plurality of planar slices in a volumetric region which are parallel to each other. Following detection of the image data of the slices the slice data is combined by projecting the data in the elevation dimension to produce a “thick slice” image. Combining may be by means of an averaging or maximum intensity detection or weighting process or by raycasting in the elevation dimension in a volumetric rendering process. Thick slice images are displayed at a high frame rate of display by combining a newly acquired slice with slices previously acquired from different elevational planes which were used in a previous combination. A new thick slice image may be produced each time at least one of the slice images is updated by a newly acquired slice. Frame rate is further improved by multiline acquisition of the slices.

An ultrasound imaging system (1) comprises an ultrasound transducer array (100) comprising a plurality of ultrasound transducer tiles (101a-d), each of said tiles having an independently adjustable orientation such as to conform an ultrasound transmitting surface to a region of a body (50) including a foreign object such as a pacemaker, a stent, or an interventional tool (200). Using a known spatial arrangement of a plurality of features (201-204) of the foreign object (200), the respective ultrasound images generated by the ultrasound transducer tiles are registered in order to generate a composite image, in which the position and orientation of the foreign object in the individual images is superimposed. The position and orientation of an interventional tool may be determined for each image using object recognition algorithms or using acoustic feedback information provided by at least three ultrasound sensors (201-204) arranged in a known spatial arrangement on the interventional tool.

Provided is an ultrasonic probe having a buffer structure capable of preventing internal components from being damaged by an external impact. The ultrasonic probe includes a transducer module transmitting and receiving an ultrasonic wave, a case which has an opened one side and is configured to accommodate the transducer module, a lens provided at the one side of the case, and a protective member accommodated in the case and positioned to face at least one surface of the transducer module, wherein the protective member protrudes further forward compared to the piezoelectric layer.

Provided is an ultrasonic CT device capable of shortening a transmission interval of ultrasonic waves while suppressing influence of a reception signal of reverberation waves of the ultrasonic waves on an original reception signal. when transmission and reception are repeated, a timing of current transmission is controlled such that a timing at which reverberation waves, which are ultrasonic waves transmitted in previous transmission and are reflected by a transducer array at least once, reach transducers used for current reception deviates from a timing at which ultrasonic waves transmitted in current transmission reach the transducers used for the current reception.

An interlaced data acquisition scheme is employed in an ultrasound imaging device to reduce the amount of electrical power consumed by the device's transmit firings when collecting video data. Reducing electrical consumption according to the present disclosure reduces battery size, weight and cost; reduces heat generation; reduces need for heat-dissipating materials in the probe and prolongs probe uptime. A reconstruction algorithm is employed to produce images from the interlaced data that are comparable in quality to videos that would be obtained by a conventional (non-interlaced) image acquisition.

The present disclosure relates to a system and method for actively detecting an ingress of a medical probe. In accordance with certain embodiments, a method includes monitoring, with a sensor within a medical probe, an internal environment of the medical probe, detecting, with the sensor, at least one of a temperature, pressure, humidity, or concentration of a gas within the medical probe, determining, with a processor that is in communication with the sensor, whether a seal that hermetically seals the medical probe has failed as a function of at least one of the temperature, pressure, humidity, or concentration of the gas, and outputting, with the processor, a notification that indicates whether the seal has failed.

The invention relates to the field of ultrasonic imaging detection, and more particularly, to an ultrasonic system of a contact type flexible conformal ultrasonic probe and a method for the same. The ultrasonic system comprises: a flexible probe, comprising a flexible detection surface, a plurality of probe units, and a soft film sensing surface; a switch module; a control module, comprising: a transmitting control unit for sequentially controlling the probe units in the probe array to transmit the ultrasonic signal; a receiving control unit for sequentially controlling the probe units in the probe array to receive the ultrasonic signal, and for processing the ultrasonic signal to obtain a ultrasonic image. The present invention has the following beneficial effects: the use of a flexible probe for acquiring an ultrasonic image allows to solve the problem that the operation process and imaging steps are complicated when using a rigid probe.