Abstract:
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.
Abstract:
A variable current trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) for an ultrasound device is described. The TIA may be coupled to an ultrasonic transducer to amplify an output signal of the ultrasonic transducer representing an ultrasound signal received by the ultrasonic transducer. During acquisition of the ultrasound signal by the ultrasonic transducer, one or more current sources in the TIA may be varied.
Abstract:
An ultrasound probe is provided for multi- faceted exams, such as for triage and emergency. The probe can include different transducer arrays, such as a linear, a curved linear, and a sector array that are combined into a single hand held unit with a wireless display. Related methods are provided, such as a method for automatically selecting the appropriate array for the user to scan with based on the intended exam and/or location of the probe on the body of a patient.
Abstract:
An ultrasonic imaging system is described in which a column-row-parallel architecture is provided at the circuit level of an ultrasonic transceiver. The ultrasonic imaging system can include a NxM array of transducer elements and a plurality of transceiver circuits where each transceiver circuit is connected to a corresponding one transducer element of the NxM array of transducer elements. A shared pulser gate driver and a shared VGA is provided for each row and column. Selection logic includes row select, column select, and per-element bit select. Through the column-row-parallel architecture, a variety of aperture configurations can be achieved.
Abstract:
Receive beamformers (10) for receive beamforming ultrasound information include a plurality of channels. The received signals for each channel are oversampled (72) for conversion to digital form, such as sampling with a sigma-delta converter (14). The reconstruction of the samples into data at the Nyquist or other rate is performed in stages (18, 26). Partial reconstruction (76) to a rate less than the oversampling rate, but greater than the Nyquist rate, occurs prior to summation (80) across channels. Delays (74) are implemented by selecting data from the sample stream. After summation (80), the samples are reconstructed (82) at a Nyquist or other rate
Abstract:
A hand-held ultrasound system includes integrated electronics within an ergonomic housing. The electronics includes control circuitry, beamforming and circuitry transducer drive circuitry. The electronics communicate with a host computer using an industry standard high speed serial bus. The ultrasonic imaging system is operable on a standard, commercially available, user computing device without specific hardware modifications, and is adapted to interface with an external application without modification to the ultrasonic imaging system to allow a user to gather ultrasonic data on a standard user computing device such as a PC, and employ the data so gathered via an independent external application without requiring a custom system, expensive hardware modifications, or system rebuilds. An integrated interface program allows such ultrasonic data to be invoked by a variety of such external applications having access to the integrated interface program via a standard, predetermined platform such as visual basic or c++.
Abstract:
A hand-held ultrasound system includes integrated electronics within an ergonomic housing. The electronics includes control circuitry, beamforming and circuitry transducer drive circuitry. The electronics communicate with a host computer using an industry standard high speed serial bus. The ultrasonic imaging system is operable on a standard, commercially available, user computing device without specific hardware modifications, and is adapted to interface with an external application without modification to the ultrasonic imaging system to allow a user to gather ultrasonic data on a standard user computing device such as a PC, and employ the data so gathered via an independent external application without requiring a custom system, expensive hardware modifications, or system rebuilds. An integrated interface program allows such ultrasonic data to be invoked by a variety of such external applications having access to the integrated interface program via a standard, predetermined platform such as visual basic or c++.
Abstract:
A system and method for detecting surface points on an object in a body, such as a bone surface, are directed to obtaining an ultrasound image of the object surface, and then applying a series of image processing filters to refine the ultrasound image. In one embodiment, the image processing filters include a median filter, a normalization filter, an edge detection filter, and an erosion filter. In preferred embodiments, each of the image processing filters is implemented through a computer program algorithm.