This invention provides a signal-processing method that makes it possible to acquire, relatively easily and surely, a highly reliable normalized impulse-response signal without relying on the signal-correction processing after normalization. The signal-processing method of this invention includes a low-frequency extraction step, a high-frequency extraction step and a synthesizing step. In the low-frequency extraction step, only the low-frequency component is extracted from the spectrum of the first normalized signal NS1 obtained by normalizing the target signal S.sub.tgt in the time domain. In the high-frequency extraction step, only the high-frequency component is extracted from the spectrum of the second normalized signal NS2 obtained by normalizing the target signal S.sub.tgt in the frequency domain using the reference signal S.sub.ref. In the synthesizing step, the low-frequency component, derived from the first normalized signal NS1, and the high-frequency component, derived from the second normalized signal NS2, are synthesized to obtain a normalized impulse-response signal NS.

Ultrasound signal processing device including: transmitter performing transmission events while varying a focal point; receiver generating, for each transmission event, receive signal sequences for transducer elements; delay-and-sum calculator generating, for each transmission event, a sub-frame acoustic line signal including an acoustic line signal for each measurement point located on target lines passing through the focal point and composing a target line group; and synthesizer combining sub-frame acoustic line signals to generate a frame acoustic line signal. The target lines are straight lines, and any measurement point, on any target line, that is spaced away from the focal point by a predetermined distance or more satisfies a condition that distance between the measurement point and a most nearby measurement point on the same target line is smaller than distance between the measurement point and a most nearby one among measurement points on an adjacent target line.

An ultrasound imaging system for acquiring ultrasound images of an anatomical feature of interest in a subject, comprising a controller operable by a user and configured to: process input ultrasound images to extract anatomical data; determine a set of constraints to be applied to the ultrasound images, the constraints being spatial, temporal and/or of image quality, derived from the extracted anatomical data and/or on user input; monitor the ultrasound images, as they are received, for determining their compliance with the determined constraints; and output an indication based on the determined compliance. The user can adapt the imaging process using the feedback of these indications, and can decide to stop the process based on satisfactory indications.

An acoustic, preferably ultrasonic, wave emission and/or reception device, including a wave emitter configured to transmit waves at an emission frequency, and a receiver of preferably ultrasonic waves, separate from the emitter, having a resonance frequency, and configured to receive waves generated by the emitter and including direct waves and reflected waves, wherein the device includes a resonance frequency modulator of the receiver and a control unit configured to control the resonance frequency modulator during a predetermined time period, so as to reduce the sensitivity of the receiver during the predetermined time period by moving the resonance frequency of the receiver away from the emission frequency of the emitter. The acoustic device relates to the field of ultrasonic sensors, particularly PMUTs or CMUTs, having a high quality factor.

An ultrasound imaging system may acquire short and/or undersampled radiofrequency ensembles for generating color Doppler images. The ultrasound imaging system may process the short and/or undersampled ensembles to simulate color Doppler images acquired from long radiofrequency ensembles. In some examples, the ultrasound imaging system may include a neural networks to process the ensembles. In some examples, the neural network may include two serial neural networks. In some examples, during training of the neural network, a power Doppler-based flow mask may be used on the output of the neural network. In some examples, during training of the neural network, an adversarial loss may be used on the output of the neural network.

An imaging system includes transmit circuitry, a transducer array with an array of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer elements, a beamformer, a decoder and a display. The transmit circuitry includes a signal generator and at least one excitation coding scheme. The transmit circuitry combines an excitation signal generated by the signal generator with an excitation coding scheme of the at least one excitation coding scheme, generating a coded excitation signal. The array of transducer elements is excited with the coded excitation signal to emit ultrasound signals. The coding scheme does not introduce heating on the capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer elements. The array of ultrasonic transducer elements receives echo signals produced in response to the ultrasound signals interacting with structure and generates electrical signals indicative thereof. The beamformer beamforms the electrical signals, the decoder removes the coding from the beamformed signals, and the display displays an image with the decoded signals.

Techniques for operating an ultrasonic sensor array, the ultrasonic sensor array disposed under a platen, include making a determination whether or not to recalibrate the ultrasonic sensor array based on whether a first screen protector disposed above the platen has been removed or replaced by a second screen protector; and recalibrating the ultrasonic sensor array, when the determination is to recalibrate the ultrasonic sensor array. In some cases, the techniques include prompting a user to indicate whether or not the screen protector has been changed or removed, and recalibrating the ultrasonic sensor array only after confirmation from the user.

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to a vessel-wall-monitoring device (100) and a method for identifying the walls of blood vessel in a body. The method includes receiving, by the vessel-wall-monitoring device (100), a plurality of ultrasound echo signals from a transducer, wherein the plurality of ultrasound echo signals are transmitted to the transducer from locations of the blood vessel, extracting at least two consecutive ultrasound frames from the plurality of ultrasound echo signals, determining a shift between the at least two consecutive ultrasound frames by comparing samples of the at least two consecutive ultrasound frames, and identifying, a proximal wall and a distal wall of the blood vessel based on the shift between the at least two consecutive ultrasound frames.

Multifunctional ultrasound systems and methods for body section registration and mapping of microbubble dynamics. A system is provided that includes one or more micromachined ultrasonic transducer arrays (MUTAs) configured to capture a high-resolution image of at least a portion of a body section using ultrasound and monitor microbubble activity during ultrasound treatment. The system includes an image registration module configured to spatially register the high-resolution image with a reference image. The system includes electronics configured to control one or more of drive signal amplitude, frequency filtering, multiplexing, and DC bias voltage. The system can be configured to control ultrasound treatment based on the monitoring of the microbubble activity during treatment.

To provide a mechanism for selectively taking an external sound from an appropriate sound source into an internal space of a moving object. An information processing apparatus including an acquisition unit configured to acquire an audio signal from a sound source existing outside a moving object, a generation unit configured to generate an audio signal from a target sound source at a distance from the moving object, the distance being a distance according to a speed of the moving object, of the sound sources, on the basis of the audio signal acquired by the acquisition unit, and an output control unit configured to output the audio signal generated by the generation unit toward an internal space of the moving object.