G01S7/52077

Artifact removing method and diagnostic apparatus using the same

An ultrasound imaging apparatus includes an ultrasound transceiver configured to transmit an ultrasound signal to an object and receive an ultrasound echo signal reflected from the object, based on a beamforming parameter of the ultrasound imaging apparatus; and an image processor configured to generate scanning lines forming a frame based on the received ultrasound echo signal, generate sub-frames by sorting the scanning lines into respective groups having the scanning lines with similar properties, based on the beamforming parameter, perform image-processing of the generated sub-frames, and recombine the scanning lines from the image-processed sub-frames to generate an ultrasound medical image corresponding to the frame.

Method and system for coherent compounding motion detection using channel coherency and transmit coherency
11521335 · 2022-12-06 · ·

The disclosure provides for a method for generating an ultrasound image that includes transmitting, by a plurality of transmitters in a transducer, at least two transmit beams at different angles, where at least parts of the transmit beams cover an overlapping region, and receiving, by a plurality of sensors of the transducer, reflected signals of the transmit beams. The method further comprises calculating channel coherence for the received signals to produce one or more channel coherence images, and calculating transmit coherence for the received signals to produce one or more transmit coherence images. The information from at least one of the channel coherence images and at least one of the transmit coherence images are combined to identify moving objects. The received signals from different transmits in overlapping regions are then processed to produce a final image that is compensated for the moving objects.

AN ULTRASOUND IMAGING CATHETER

An ultrasound imaging catheter comprises an ultrasound transducer array provided at a distal end of an ultrasound imaging catheter. The ultrasound transducer array comprises a plurality of ultrasound transducers and is adapted to transmit and receive ultrasound signals. The ultrasound imaging catheter includes a local memory provided at the distal end of the ultrasound imaging catheter. The local memory is adapted to store a plurality of activation patterns, each activation pattern corresponding to a number of transducer elements of the plurality of transducer elements to be activated and a number of transducer elements of the plurality of transducer elements to be deactivated. The ultrasound imaging catheter includes a control unit provided at the distal end of the ultrasound imaging catheter adapted to: access the local memory; select any one of the plurality of activation patterns; and generate a control signal to activate or deactivate the plurality of transducer elements of the transducer array according to the selected activation pattern during an imaging phase of the ultrasound imaging catheter.

Ultrasound imaging system probe and system, and an imaging method
11506770 · 2022-11-22 · ·

An ultrasound imaging system probe comprises an imaging transducer head and a reception circuit for processing received reflected ultrasound signals. The reception circuit comprises an analogue to digital sigma delta converter which comprises a closed loop which comprises a tunable band pass filter. This enables the analog to digital converter to process only the desired frequency band. The ADC conversion bandwidth and ENOB are in this way programmable giving a more efficient probe design, and also enabling analog to digital conversion early in the signal processing chain.

System and methods for flash suppression in ultrasound imaging
11506771 · 2022-11-22 · ·

Methods and systems are provided for color flow ultrasound imaging. In one embodiment, a method comprises acquiring color flow data, detecting, with a neural network, a flash artifact in the color flow data, adjusting an adaptive filter cutoff of a clutter filter based on a classification result of the neural network, filtering, with the clutter filter, the flash artifact from the color flow data, and displaying a color flow image generated from the filtered color flow data. In this way, strong flash artifacts caused by strong tissue movement or probe movement may be dynamically suppressed during color flow ultrasound imaging.

Ultrasound diagnosis apparatus, medical image processing apparatus, and medical image processing method
11583241 · 2023-02-21 · ·

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.

CLUTTER REDUCTION FOR ULTRASOUND IMAGES AND ASSOCIATED DEVICES, SYSTEMS, AND METHODS

Ultrasound imaging systems and methods for generated clutter-reduced images are provided. For example, an ultrasound imaging system can include an array of acoustic elements in communication with a processor. The processor is configured to activate the array to perform a scan sequence to obtain a plurality of signals, identify off-axis signals from the plurality of signals by comparing the right subaperture and the left subaperture, and create a clutter-reduced image based on the comparison. Because off-axis signals are more likely to create image clutter, reducing the influence of off-axis signals on the image can therefore improve the quality of the image. Accordingly, embodiments of the present disclosure provide systems, methods, and devices for generating ultrasound images that have reduced or minimized clutter, even for images obtained using arrays that do not satisfy the Nyquist criterion.

ELECTRONIC ENDOSCOPE SYSTEM
20230097283 · 2023-03-30 · ·

An electronic endoscope system includes: an electronic endoscope including, at a distal end portion, an image sensor that captures an image of a living tissue, and an ultrasound probe that applies ultrasonic waves to the living tissue to obtain an echo signal; a captured image processor including an image processing unit that processes an imaging signal output from the image sensor and generates a captured image; and an ultrasonic image processor including an ultrasonic image processing unit that processes the echo signal output from the ultrasound probe and generates an ultrasonic image, a noise detection unit that detects a periodic noise component included in the echo signal and generated at a level equal to or higher than a preset threshold level, and a noise suppression unit that performs processing of suppressing the detected noise component.

Radar and method of updating background components of echo signal of radar
11573287 · 2023-02-07 · ·

A method of updating background components of an echo signal for radar includes: transforming M sets of N pieces of time domain data to frequency domain to generate M sets of P magnitudes corresponding to P frequency bins, wherein the M sets of N pieces of time domain data include spatial information of an object; and updating P background components corresponding to the P frequency bins according to the M sets of P magnitudes corresponding to the P frequency bins.

Imaging method, an apparatus implementing said method, a computer program and a computer-readable storage medium
11487006 · 2022-11-01 · ·

Disclosed is an imaging method for producing an image of a region inside a medium by an array of transducers, including the a transmission step of a plurality of waves inside the medium, a reception step for acquiring a set of data, a beamforming step providing a plurality beamformed pixel values depending on various transmit weighting vectors, and a combining step for combining the beamformed pixel values into a pixel value of each pixel in the image. The transmit weighting vectors are different and orthogonal one to another one.