Ultrasonic transmission instrument and ultrasonic imaging device
AssigneeFUJIFILM Corporation
InventorsRyo Imai, Tomohiko Tanaka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
To provide an ultrasonic transmission instrument that can uniformly transmit ultrasonic waves in each direction around the instrument, even when the instrument is made of a material through which the ultrasonic waves cannot be transmitted. In an ultrasonic transmission instrument according to the invention, a light transmission member is disposed at an emission end of an optical waveguide, and an outer peripheral member covers an outer periphery of the light transmission member and is made of a light absorbing material.
Claims14
An ultrasonic transmission instrument configured to transmit an ultrasonic wave, the ultrasonic transmission instrument comprising:
- an optical waveguide that is disposed inside the ultrasonic transmission instrument;
- a light transmission member that surrounds a wire member, wherein the light transmission member is configured to transmit at least a part of light emitted from the optical waveguide;
- an outer peripheral member that covers at least a part of an outer periphery of the light transmission member, wherein the outer peripheral member is made of a light absorbing material that is configured to generate the ultrasonic wave by absorbing the light and the light absorbing material has a shape that is not symmetric with respect to a rotation operation of at least one angle.
An ultrasonic imaging device configured to generate an image of a subject using an ultrasonic wave, the ultrasonic imaging device comprising:
- an ultrasonic transmission instrument configured to transmit the ultrasonic wave, wherein the ultrasonic transmission instrument includes:
- an optical waveguide that is disposed inside the ultrasonic transmission instrument;
- a light transmission member configured to transmit at least a part of light emitted from the optical waveguide;
- and
- an outer peripheral member that covers at least a part of an outer periphery of the light transmission member;
- an ultrasonic probe configured to receive a reflected ultrasonic wave that is generated by the ultrasonic wave reflecting from the subject, wherein the ultrasonic probe includes a plurality of elements;
- an image generation unit configured to generate an ultrasonic image of the subject using the reflected ultrasonic wave received by the ultrasonic probe;
- a position estimation unit configured to estimate a position of the ultrasonic transmission instrument using a difference between time points when respective elements among the plurality of elements receive the reflected ultrasonic wave;
- and
- an angle estimation unit configured to estimate an inclination of the ultrasonic transmission instrument based on a shape of the image of the outer peripheral member in the ultrasonic image generated by the image generation unit,
- wherein the outer peripheral member is made of a light absorbing material that generates the ultrasonic wave by absorbing the light and the outer peripheral member has a shape that is not symmetric with respect to a rotation operation of at least one angle.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.