A portable ultrasound system having a thumb controller is disclosed herein. A portable ultrasound system configured in accordance with one embodiment of the disclosure includes a transducer device and a hand-held base unit removably coupled to the transducer device. The base unit is configured to perform an ultrasound scan and to produce a split screen display. The split screen display includes an active image area at which images of a patient obtained from ultrasound signals received by the transducer device are displayed. The split screen display also includes a thumb control area that is accessible by a user's thumb when holding the portable ultrasound system. For example, the thumb control area can include a thumbwheel having one or more controls that can be selectively activated by the user's thumb when holding the portable ultrasound system and are rotatable on and off of the thumb control area.

Systems and methods for dynamically managing power consumption in an ultrasound device are provided herein. A transducer in an ultrasound device may have transmit and receive elements for respectively transmitting and receiving ultrasound signals. In at least one embodiment, the method includes sensing a motion of the transducer by a motion sensor that is coupled to the transducer. An amount of power consumed by the ultrasound device is then reduced, based on the sensed motion of the transducer. Reducing an amount of power consumption may include adjusting one or more operational parameters of the ultrasound device, such as but not limited to reducing the display frame rate, the receive aperture, or the transmit amplitude, or by decoupling power to one or more components of the ultrasound device. Alternatively or in addition, power consumption may be reduced based on signals received from a capacitive sensor and/or a patient contact sensor.

An ultrasound probe includes a receiving section to receive ultrasound waves from an object and to acquire a receiving signal of each of multiple channels; a beam forming section to adjust a phase of the receiving signal of each of multiple channels and to sum the receiving signals; an image producing section to produce image data to display an ultrasound diagnostic image based on the receiving signals summed by the beam forming section; a transmission target selecting section to select one from at least two of the receiving signal for each of multiple channels, the receiving signals summed by the beam forming section, and the image data as a transmission target; and a transmitting section to transmit the transmission target selected by the transmission target selecting section.

A device is provided for automatically assessing functional hemodynamic properties of a patient is provided, the device comprising: a housing; an ultrasound unit coupled to the housing and adapted for adducing ultrasonic waves into the patient at a vessel; a detector adapted to sense signals obtained as a result of adducing ultrasonic waves into the patient at the vessel and to record the ; and a processor adapted for receiving the recorded signals as data and transforming the data for output at an interface. Other devices, systems, methods, and/or computer-readable media may be provided in relation to assessing functional hemodynamics of a patient.

Apparatus and methods are described that include ultrasound imaging devices, which may operate in a transmissive ultrasound imaging modality, and which may be used to detect properties of interest of a subject such as index of refraction, density and/or speed of sound. Devices suitable for performing high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), as well as HIFU and ultrasound imaging, are also described.

The invention generally relates to intravascular imaging system and particularly to processing in multimodal systems. The invention provides an imaging system that splits incoming image data into two signals and performs the same processing step on each of the split signals. The system can then send the two signals down two processing pathways. Methods include receiving an analog image signal, transmitting the received signal to a processing system, splitting the signal to produce a first image signal and a second image signal, and performing a processing operation on the first image signal and the second image signal. The first and second signal include substantially the same information as one another.

Provided is a wireless ultrasound probe configured to detect a state in which the wireless ultrasound probe is detached from a charging terminal of an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, causing supply of the charging power to the wireless ultrasound probe to be discontinued, and the wireless ultrasound probe is paired with the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus by using a wireless communication scheme when supply of the charging power is discontinued. Also provided are an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and an operating method of the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus configured to be automatically paired with a wireless ultrasound probe in a state in which the wireless ultrasound probe is detached from a charging terminal of the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, causing supply of the charging power to the wireless ultrasound probe to be discontinued.

An automated three dimensional mapping and display system for a diagnostic ultrasound system is presented. According to the invention, ultrasound probe position registration is automated, the position of each pixel in the ultrasound image in reference to selected anatomical references is calculated, and specified information is stored on command. The system, during real time ultrasound scanning, enables the ultrasound probe position and orientation to be continuously displayed over a body or body part diagram, thereby facilitating scanning and images interpretation of stored information. The system can then record single or multiple ultrasound free hand two-dimensional (also “2D”) frames in a video sequence (clip) or cine loop wherein multiple 2D frames of one or more video sequences corresponding to a scanned volume can be reconstructed in three-dimensional (also “3D”) volume images corresponding to the scanned region, using known 3D reconstruction algorithms. In later examinations, the exact location and position of the transducer can be recreated along three dimensional or two dimensional axis points enabling known targets to be viewed from an exact, known position.

The present disclosure is generally directed to a method for driving an ultrasonic transducer. The method includes coupling a driving electrode and a ground electrode of the ultrasonic transducer to a power supply and a ground, respectively, during a first time period based on a received drive signal. The method further includes decoupling the driving electrode and the ground electrode of the ultrasonic transducer from the power supply and the ground, respectively, to float the driving electrode and the ground electrode of the ultrasonic transducer during a second time period based on the received drive signal to store a charge between the driving electrode to the ground electrode.

Circuitry for ultrasound devices is described. A multi-level pulser is described, which can support time-domain and spatial apodization. The multi-level pulser may be controlled through a software-defined waveform generator. In response to the execution of a computer code, the waveform generator may access master segments from a memory, and generate a stream of packets directed to pulsing circuits. The stream of packets may be serialized. A plurality of decoding circuits may modulate the streams of packets to obtain spatial apodization.