An ultrasound system, probe and method are provided. The ultrasound system includes a transducer with piezoelectric transducer elements polarized in a poling direction. A bipolar transmit circuit is configured to generate a transmit signal having first and second polarity segments. The first and second polarity segments have corresponding first and second peak amplitudes. A bias generator is configured to generate a bias signal in a direction of the poling direction. The bias signal is combined with the transmit signal to form a biased transmit signal that is shifted in the direction of the poling direction and still includes both of positive and negative voltages over a transmit cycle.

There are provided an acoustic wave image generating apparatus for generating a B-mode image having a fixed brightness and a control method thereof. First brightness information (81) indicating the brightness of a first B-mode image in the depth direction of the subject is generated. Positional deviation correction is performed on an acoustic wave echo signal having a positional deviation between the focusing position of acoustic waves and the observation target position, and second brightness information (82) indicating the brightness in the depth direction of the subject is generated from a superposition signal obtained by superimposing an acoustic wave echo signal for which the positional deviation has been corrected and an acoustic wave echo signal without positional deviation. The brightness of the first B-mode image is corrected based on the first brightness information and the second brightness information.

A method for ultrasound imaging a target region including: (a) transmitting a tracking beam from at least a subset of the elements of the array to the region, each of the subset of the elements emitting a signal of the tracking beam with a respective transmission time shift; (b) receiving echo signals at at least some of the subset of the elements of the array, each echo signal being responsive to the tracking beam; (c) applying the time shift to at least some of the subset of the respective elements to the echo signals received at corresponding elements; (d) modifying the time shift and repeating (a)-(c) to provide an ultrasound dataset representing a recovered source element domain; (e) focusing and beamforming the dataset to map time signals of the dataset and combine channel signals to provide spatial pixel data; and (f) forming an ultrasound image from the spatial pixel data.

A dual frequency transducer array includes one or more low frequency transducer arrays and a high frequency transducer array. Unfocused ultrasound such as plane waves are transmitted by the one or more low frequency transducer arrays in a number of different directions into an imaging region of the high frequency transducer array. High frequency echo signals produced by excited contrast agent in the imaging region are received by the high frequency transducer array to produce a contrast agent image. In another embodiment, the high frequency transducer produces unfocused ultrasound to excite the contrast agent in the imaging region and the low frequency transducer(s) receives low frequency echo signals from the excited contrast agent. A tissue image is created from echo signals received by the high or low frequency transducer. Echo data from the tissue image and the contrast agent image are combined to produce a combined tissue/contrast agent image.

An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to an embodiment includes processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is configured: to generate a piece of reflected-wave data by performing a phased addition process while using reflected-wave signals generated by transmitting an ultrasound wave with respect to mutually the same scanning line; to speculate a degree of saturation of the reflected-wave signals observed before the phased addition process on the basis of a relationship between signals and noise in a data sequence represented by a set made up of pieces of the reflected-wave data; and to output a result of the speculation. The processing circuitry is configured to cause a display to display data based on the result of the speculation.

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including a hardware processor that: calculates a plurality of eigenvectors by performing principal component analysis on a time-series reflection wave data group; calculates a principal frequency component of a time direction represented by the plurality of eigenvectors; determines a reduction rate of each of the plurality of eigenvectors on a basis of the principal frequency component of each of the plurality of eigenvectors and a clutter component reduction condition that defines a reference frequency for reduction of a clutter component; calculates a filter coefficient for reduction of the clutter component on a basis of the plurality of eigenvectors, and the reduction rate corresponding to each of the plurality of eigenvectors; and generates blood flow image data by applying the filter coefficient to the time-series reflection wave data group.

An ultrasound probe including a probe body having a mounting area and a flexible lip around said mounting area for sealing a space between the mounting area and a subject contacted by the ultrasound probe; and a number of ultrasound transducer elements mounted in the mounting area. The probe body further includes an inlet to said space and an outlet from said space for facilitating a fluid flow through said space when sealed. Also included are an ultrasound system including such an ultrasound probe and a method of subjecting a subject to ultrasound waves generated with such an ultrasound probe.

Functional ultrasound imaging (“fUS”) is used to facilitate the placement of electrodes for spinal cord stimulation and to optimize and update stimulation parameters for spinal cord stimulation devices.

The wave number and phase velocity (shear wave speed) of ultrasound energy within an organ of interest are calculated using a herein-disclosed phase gradient calculation method. This calculation method is less sensitive to imperfections in the reverberant field distribution and requires a smaller support window, relative to earlier calculation methods based on autocorrelation. Applications are shown in simulations, phantoms, and in vivo liver.

Systems and techniques are provided for an event-based ultrasound system. An event-based ultrasound system may include a transducer array, a computing and imaging device, and a connection. The transducer array may include transducer elements and a timing system. The transducer elements may be connected to event-detection circuits. The event-detection circuits may generate events based on the electrical signals of the transducer elements. Data for an event may include an up-down value, a timestamp based on the timing system, and an address of a transducer element. The connection may connect the transducer array to the computing and imaging device. Data for the events generated by the event-detection circuits may be transmitted to the computing and imaging device across the connection.