G01S15/8963

AUTONOMOUS ULTRASOUND PROBE AND RELATED APPARATUS AND METHODS

An ultrasound apparatus comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers, a non-acoustic sensor, a memory circuitry to store control data for operating the ultrasound apparatus to perform an acquisition task, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive an indication to perform the acquisition task, receive non-acoustic data obtained by the non-acoustic sensor, and control, based on the control data and the non-acoustic data, the plurality of ultrasonic transducers to obtain acoustic data for the acquisition task.

DELAY-ENCODED HARMONIC IMAGING WITH AN ULTRASOUND SYSTEM
20200183004 · 2020-06-11 ·

Systems and methods for ultrasound imaging using a delay-encoded harmonic imaging (DE-HI) technique is provided. An ultrasound pulse sequence is coded using temporal delays between ultrasound emissions within a single transmission event. This coded scheme allows for harmonic imaging to be implemented. The temporal time delay-codes are applied temporally to multiple different ultrasound emissions within a single transmission event, rather than spatially across different transmitting elements. The received radio frequency (RF) signals undergo a decoding process in the frequency domain to recover the signals, as they would be obtained from standard single emissions, for subsequent compounding. As one specific example, a one-quarter period time delay can be used to encode second harmonic signals from each angle emission during a single multiplane wave (MW) transmission event, rather than inverting the polarity of the pulses as in conventional MW imaging.

ULTRASOUND DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS AND ULTRASOUND IMAGE GENERATING METHOD
20200163653 · 2020-05-28 ·

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus of the present invention includes: a transmitter that generates and outputs a plurality of drive signals to a transducer of an ultrasound probe, the drive signals causing the transducer to transmit a plurality of transmission ultrasound waves that have different waveforms in a temporally shifted manner, the drive signals being compensated for asymmetry of the transmission sound pressure waveforms of the plurality of transmission ultrasound waves transmitted from the transducer; and a hardware processor configured to extract a harmonic component according to a plurality of reception signals, and generating an ultrasound image based on the extracted harmonic component.

Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and ultrasound imaging method

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment includes a transmitter/receiver, an adder/subtractor and an image generating unit. The transmitter/receiver performs a first set of ultrasound transmission/reception and a second set of ultrasound transmission/reception, on a same scanning line of an imaging region of a subject administered with a contrast agent, for a plurality of sets, to output reflected wave data for the plurality of the sets, the first set of the ultrasound transmission/reception performing amplitude-modulated or amplitude- and phase-modulated ultrasound transmission transmitted a plurality of times and receiving reflected waves, and the second set of the ultrasound transmission/reception being transmission/reception whose phase modulation being different from phase modulation of the first set of the ultrasound transmission/reception. The adder/subtractor adds or subtracts the reflected wave data for the plurality of the sets. The image generating unit generates contrast image data based on the data output from the adder/subtractor.

Ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic imaging apparatus including the same, and method for controlling the ultrasonic imaging apparatus
10527592 · 2020-01-07 · ·

An ultrasonic probe, an ultrasonic imaging apparatus including the same, and a method for controlling the same are disclosed, which relate to a method for changing a pulse signal received by an ultrasonic probe by controlling a switching element mounted to an ultrasonic probe during pulse inversion harmonic imaging. The ultrasonic probe includes: a transducer array configured to transmit and receive an ultrasonic signal; a printed circuit board (PCB) electrically connected to the transducer array so as to transmit a pulse signal received from a main body of an ultrasonic imaging apparatus to the transducer array; and a switching circuit configured to change a waveform of the pulse signal received by the PCB and transmitted to the transducer array.

ULTRASOUND MACHINE HAVING SCALABLE RECEIVE BEAMFORMER ARCHITECTURE COMPRISING MULTIPLE BEAMFORMERS WITH COMMON COEFFICIENT GENERATOR AND RELATED METHODS

An apparatus and method for generating high quality, high frame rate images in a handheld or hand-carried ultrasound imaging machine. The apparatus includes a time-multiplexed beamformer coefficient generator that supplies the necessary delay and weight coefficients to process multiple beams in parallel via a beamforming coefficient bus. This approach reduces the required hardware and power consumption to satisfy the physical space and power requirements of a handheld probe. The ultrasound machine may optionally turn off or operate beamformers in a standby mode. The ultrasound machine may also use pulse inversion harmonics to improve image quality by improving signal-to-noise ratio.

Crosstalk-free source encoding for ultrasound tomography

This disclosure describes systems and methods for crosstalk-free source encoding for ultrasound tomography. This disclosed systems and methods feature real data acquisition acceleration and/or numerical simulation acceleration (or image processing acceleration).

Architecture of single substrate ultrasonic imaging devices, related apparatuses, and methods

Aspects of the technology described herein relate to ultrasound device circuitry as may form part of a single substrate ultrasound device having integrated ultrasonic transducers. The ultrasound device circuitry may facilitate the generation of ultrasound waveforms in a manner that is power- and data-efficient.

ULTRASOUND DIAGNOSIS APPARATUS, IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT

An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to an embodiment includes processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is configured to detect a saturation region of a signal based on an ultrasound wave received by an ultrasound probe; and to correct a first signal including an odd-numbered order harmonic component of the saturation region, on a basis of a second signal including an even-numbered order harmonic component of the saturation region.

Ultrasound system and method, and ultrasound probe
10499885 · 2019-12-10 · ·

An objective of the present invention is to provide an ultrasound system which can correct a positive-negative asymmetry in pulse inversion (PI) and obtain a high-image quality ultrasound image. To carryout an asymmetry correction of a transmission assembly circuit comprising an oscillation adjustment amplifier (10) and an ultrasound oscillator array (90), correction data obtained in a calibration mode is stored in a correction memory (46), and positive-negative asymmetry of an overall receiving assembly circuit comprising a computation unit (45) is corrected in a diagnostic mode of the device using the correction data.