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US 12,745,990 B2Granted
Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and operation method of ultrasound diagnostic apparatus
AssigneeFUJIFILM Corporation
InventorsKatsuya Yamamoto, Yasuhiko Morimoto, Satoru Okada
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An operation method of an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus includes executing one or more imaging series of steps with an ultrasound transducer; and applying a polarization processing to the ultrasound transducer one or more of before, after, and interleaved between the one or more imaging series of steps, where the polarization processing is separate from the one or more imaging series of steps.
Claims26
An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus acquiring an ultrasound image and an endoscope image, comprising:
- an ultrasound endoscope comprising an ultrasound observation portion that transmits ultrasound waves using an ultrasound transducer array, in which a plurality of ultrasound transducers are arranged, and receives reflected waves of the ultrasound waves;
- and
- an ultrasound processor apparatus comprising a transmission circuit that transmits a transmission signal to the plurality of ultrasound transducers in order to generate the ultrasound waves from the plurality of ultrasound transducers, a reception circuit that outputs a reception signal based on the reflected waves received by the plurality of ultrasound transducers, and an ultrasound image generation unit that generates the ultrasound image by converting the reception signal into an image in order to acquire the ultrasound image,
- wherein the plurality of ultrasound transducers are single crystal transducers,
- the ultrasound processor apparatus further comprises a control circuit that performs transmission of the ultrasound waves and reception of the reflected waves and that performs polarization processing on the plurality of ultrasound transducers using the transmission circuit, and
- the control circuit controls the transmission circuit to generate the transmission signal, which includes a diagnostic driving pulse applied to each of the plurality of ultrasound transducers in a case of acquiring the ultrasound image, controls the transmission circuit to generate a polarization driving pulse in a case of performing the polarization processing, and applies the polarization driving pulse to the plurality of ultrasound transducers to perform the polarization processing of the plurality of ultrasound transducers with the polarization driving pulse,
- wherein a voltage of the polarization driving pulse is different in magnitude from the voltage of the diagnostic driving pulse, and a frequency band of a main lobe of a driving waveform of the polarization driving pulse is different from a probe frequency band of the diagnostic driving pulse, and
- wherein the frequency band of the main lobe of the driving waveform of the polarization driving pulse is lower than the probe frequency band.
5 more elements
An operation method of an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus acquiring an ultrasound image and an endoscope image,
- wherein the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus comprises:
- an ultrasound endoscope comprising an ultrasound observation portion having an ultrasound transducer array in which a plurality of ultrasound transducers are arranged;
- and
- an ultrasound processor apparatus having a transmission circuit that transmits a transmission signal to the plurality of ultrasound transducers, a reception circuit that outputs a reception signal based on reflected waves received by the plurality of ultrasound transducers, and an ultrasound image generation unit that generates the ultrasound image by converting the reception signal into an image,
- wherein the plurality of ultrasound transducers are single crystal transducers, and
- the method comprises:
- a step in which the transmission circuit is controlled so as to generate the transmission signal, which includes a diagnostic driving pulse applied to each of the plurality of ultrasound transducers that generate ultrasound waves for acquiring the ultrasound image;
- a step in which the transmission signal generated from the transmission circuit is transmitted to the plurality of ultrasound transducers and the diagnostic driving pulse is applied to the plurality of ultrasound transducers to generate the ultrasound waves;
- a step in which the reflected waves of the ultrasound waves are received by the plurality of ultrasound transducers;
- a step of outputting a reception signal based on the reflected waves received from the reception circuit by the plurality of ultrasound transducers;
- and
- a step in which the ultrasound image generation unit receives the reception signal and converts the reception signal into an image to generate the ultrasound image, and
- a step in which the transmission circuit is controlled so as to generate a polarization driving pulse that has a polarization driving voltage different from voltage of the diagnostic driving pulse within the same settable voltage range as the diagnostic driving pulse and has a frequency band different from a probe frequency band of the diagnostic driving pulse for acquiring the ultrasound image in order to perform polarization processing of the plurality of ultrasound transducers;
- and
- a step of applying the polarization driving pulse to the plurality of ultrasound transducers to perform the polarization processing of the plurality of ultrasound transducers with the polarization driving pulse,
- wherein a frequency band of a main lobe of a driving waveform of the polarization driving pulse is lower than the probe frequency band.
13 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.