This method for determining a mechanical property of a layered soft material, includes steps of a) generating an ultrasound wave (W1) focused towards a first point (P1) of the material, said wave, upon interacting with a layer of said material, generating in turn a Lamb (L1) wave propagating into said layer of the material, b) measuring, at a second point (P2) of the material belonging to said layer, a physical parameter of the generated Lamb wave, c) automatically determining the mechanical property of the layered soft material, based on the measured physical parameter. Step a) is performed by exciting a first ultrasonic transducer (401) with a first excitation signal (S401) during at most 50 ms, step b) is performed by exciting a second ultrasonic transducer (402) with a second excitation signal (S402) during at most 0.5 ms, to generate multiple excitation ultrasound waves (W2) focused towards said second point (P2) and, then, collecting multiple reflected waves (W2) emitted in response, said first and second ultrasonic transducers each comprises an oscillator having a quality factor equal to or superior to 100, preferably equal or superior to 1000.

A probe device is disclosed. The probe device comprises: a matrix array analog front end (AFE) comprising a plurality of cells and outputting an electrical signal corresponding to each of the plurality of cells; a transducer unit for transducing, into an ultrasound signal, the electrical signal outputted from each of the plurality of cells; and a processor for grouping the plurality of cells into at least one group corresponding to at least one diagnosis mode, and performing control such that cells corresponding to each group outputs, through the transducer unit, an ultrasound signal having a characteristic differing according to a corresponding diagnosis mode. Therefore, various functions can be supported while using one probe device.

Systems and methods for performing shear wave elastography using push and/or detection ultrasound beams that are generated by subsets of the available number of transducer elements in an ultrasound transducer. These techniques provide several advantages over currently available approaches to shear wave elastography, including the ability to use a standard, low frame rate ultrasound imaging system and the ability to measure shear wave speed throughout the entire field-of-view rather than only those regions where the push beams are not generated.

The disclosed technology relates to imaging catheters. A method is provided that includes: receiving, from a plurality of transducers disposed on a catheter probe, a corresponding plurality of analog signals; selectively sampling the plurality of analog signals; multiplexing to produce a sequence of samples; and transmitting the sequence of samples to a receiver circuit. The receiver circuit includes a clock; an analog to digital converter (ADC) in communication with the clock; and a sampling phase correction circuit in communication with the clock and the ADC. The method further includes: determining optimum sampling times based on measured signal delays associated with the system; adjusting a phase of the clock based on the measured signal delays; and communicating the phase-adjusted clock to the transmitter circuit for the selective sampling of the analog signals. Certain embodiments of the disclosed technology may further be utilized in conjunction with beamforming.

In shear wave imaging with an ultrasound scanner, multiple frames of shear wave data representing the same region of interest are acquired in response to a respective multiple ARFI transmissions. Instead of a fixed or same combination of focal locations for the ARFI transmissions, the focal locations of the ARFI transmissions are varied (e.g., randomly selected) between different frames of shear wave information. By combining the frames, a shear wave image may be generated with less missing data and/or shadowing effects.

An ultrasonic diagnostic device including a push pulse generator 104 that sets a specific site in a subject and causes a plurality of transducers 101a to transmit a push pulse pp; a detection pulse generator 105 that causes multiple transmissions of a detection pulse pwi that converges outside and passes through a region of interest roi in the subject; a displacement detector 109 that generates an acoustic line signal for each observation point Pij in the region of interest roi in order to detect displacement of tissue in the region of interest roi from an acoustic line signal frame data dsi sequence; and an elastic modulus calculator 110 that generates a wavefront frame data wfi sequence representing shear wave wavefront position, and calculates shear wave propagation speed and/or elastic modulus frame data emk in the region of interest roi based on the wavefront frame data wfi sequence.

Methods, systems and computer program products for determining a mechanical parameter for a sample having a target region using shear wave displacement are provided. The method includes a) generating at least one shear wave with an excitation pulse in the target region at an excitation position; b) transmitting tracking pulses in a tracking region, at least a portion of which is outside the target region; c) receiving corresponding echo signals for the tracking pulses in the tracking region; d) repeating steps A through C for one or more additional excitation positions within the target region, wherein at least two of the excitation pulses overlap and the tracking region associated with each excitation position overlaps with the tracking region associated with at least one other excitation position; and e) determining at least one mechanical parameter of the target region based on at least one parameter of a shear wave displacement.

For estimating attenuation, diffraction effects are corrected by transmitting at different frequencies using apertures sized to match the on-axis intensity profile and/or resolution cell size between the transmissions where there is no attenuation. Attenuation causes a variance in return. A rate of change is estimated from a ratio of the magnitude of the signals or displacements responsive to the transmissions. The attenuation is calculated from the rate of change over depth of the ratio.

A method of imaging a blood vessel includes delivering a bubble-based contrast agent within the vessel and positioning at least one ultrasound device in the vicinity of the bubble-based contrast agent within the vessel. A first burst of low-frequency ultrasound energy can be delivered to excite the bubble-based contrast agent into oscillation within the vessel, and a second burst of high-frequency ultrasound energy can be delivered at the excited bubble-based contrast agent. A return signal from the burst of high-frequency ultrasound energy can be received and processed to obtain one or more images.

Described herein are Compressive Sensing algorithms developed for automated reduction of NDE/SHM data from pitch-catch ultrasonic guided waves as well as a methodology using Compressive Sensing at two stages in the data acquisition and analysis process to detect damage: (1) temporally undersampled sensor signals from (2) spatially undersampled sensor arrays, resulting in faster data acquisition and reduced data sets without any loss in damage detection ability.