Synthetic-focusing strategies for real-time annular-array imaging
AssigneeRiverside Research Institute
InventorsJeffrey A. Ketterling, Erwan Filoux
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Abstract
A method to increase the image formation speed in a digital ultrasound system including annular array of N elements with a plurality of transmit and receive channels. Selectively dropping one or more transmit or receive channels during image formation reduces the amount of data needed to form an image and thus increases the image formation frame rate. The improved frame rate does result in some reduction in resolution, SNR and potentially DOF, but image quality remains at an acceptable level.
Claims11
A method of increasing the image formation speed in a an annular array of N elements with a plurality of transmit and receive channels, the method comprising steps of;
- providing excitation of the array elements in a predetermined sequence such that a round trip acoustic path of consecutive elements does not overlap;
- digitizing the acoustic echo received by the array elements with a digitizer for each channel;
- selectively dropping a number of receive or transmit channels to achieve a reduction in the amount of data that is required to be digitized by the digitizer;
- and
- processing the reduced amount of data digitized by the digitizer to form an image, the image being formed at a frame rate in excess of the frame rate that would have been achieved without the selective dropping of a number of receive or transmit channels.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.