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US 11,883,240 B2Granted
Sparse convolutional beamforming for ultrasound imaging
OwnerYonina C. Eldar, Regev Coheninventors
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Abstract
A method including receiving from multiple transducers respective signals comprising reflections of a transmitted signal from a target; processing the received signals to derive a beamformed signal, based, at least in part, on: (i) computing a specified value associated with each of the received signals, (ii) performing a convolution on all of the specified values, (iii) calculating a weighted sum of the results of the convolution, to derive the beamformed signal; and reconstructing an image of the target, based on the beamformed signal.
Claims16
A method of producing an image by at least one processor, the method comprising:
- receiving from a transducer array, having a plurality of transducer elements, a respective plurality of signals comprising reflections of a transmitted signal from a target;
- computing a sub-array U of transducer elements of the transducer array;
- computing a signal vector comprising delayed versions of the plurality of signals of the transducer elements of sub-array U;
- performing a convolution of the signal vector with itself;
- calculating a weighted sum of the results of said convolution, to derive a beamformed signal;
- and
- reconstructing an image of said target, based on said beamformed signal in real-time,
- wherein the transducer array is a Uniform Linear Array (ULA), and wherein sub-array U is computed such that a sum co-array of sub-array U comprises all transducer elements of the ULA, and
- wherein the transducer array comprises a plurality (2N−1) of transducer elements, wherein N is a product of integers A and B, and wherein the method further comprises:
- calculating a subset UA of the (2N−1) transducer elements, based on A;
- calculating a subset UB of the (2N−1) transducer elements, based on A and B;
- and
- calculating sub-array U as a unification of subsets UA and UB, having less than (2N−1) transducer elements.
10 more elements
A system comprising:
- at least one hardware processor, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon program instructions, the program instructions executable by the at least one hardware processor to:
- receive from a transducer array, having a plurality of transducer elements, a respective plurality of signals comprising reflections of a transmitted signal from a target;
- compute a sub-array U of transducer elements of the transducer array;
- compute a signal vector comprising delayed versions of the plurality of signals of the transducer elements of sub-array U;
- perform a convolution of the signal vector with itself;
- calculating a weighted sum of the results of said convolution, to derive a beamformed signal;
- and
- reconstruct an image of said target, based on said beamformed signal, in real-time,
- wherein the transducer array is a Uniform Linear Array (ULA), and wherein sub-array U is computed such that a sum co-array of sub-array U comprises all transducer elements of the ULA,
- wherein the transducer array comprises a plurality (2N−1) of transducer elements, wherein N is a product of integers A and B, and wherein the hardware processor is further configured to:
- calculate a subset UA of the (2N−1) transducer elements, based on A;
- calculate a subset UB of the (2N−1) transducer elements, based on A and B;
- and
- calculate sub-array U as a unification of subsets UA and UB, having less than (2N−1) transducer elements.
11 more elements
A method of producing an image by at least one processor, the method comprising:
- receiving from a transducer array, having a plurality of transducer elements, a respective plurality of signals comprising reflections of a transmitted signal from a target;
- computing a sub-array U of transducer elements of the transducer array;
- computing a signal vector comprising delayed versions of the plurality of signals of the transducer elements of sub-array U;
- performing a convolution of the signal vector with itself;
- calculating a weighted sum of the results of said convolution, to derive a beamformed signal;
- and
- reconstructing an image of said target, based on said beamformed signal in real-time, wherein the transducer array is a Uniform Linear Array (ULA), and wherein sub-array U is computed such that a sum co-array of sub-array U comprises all transducer elements of the ULA, and
- wherein the transducer array comprises a plurality (2N) of transducer elements, wherein N is a product of integers A and B, and wherein selecting sub array U comprises:
- calculating a subset UA of the (2N) transducer elements, based on A;
- calculating a subset UB of the (2N) transducer elements, based on A and B;
- and
- calculating sub-array U as a unification of subsets UA and UB, having less than (2N) transducer elements.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.