System and Method for Unattended Monitoring of Blood Flow

A system for unattended monitoring of blood flow in a blood vessel comprising:

• an array of transmitter elements configured to transmit acoustic signals along a transmission direction;
• an array of receiver elements configured to receive acoustic signals originating from the array of transmitter elements,
• wherein the array of transmitter elements is arranged approximately orthogonal to the array of receiver elements, and
• wherein each receiver element is configured to provide an output signal in response to received acoustic signals;
• an electronics system comprising:
• a transmitter control subsystem configured to adjust the transmission direction,
• a receiver control subsystem configured to selectively activate and deactivate receiver elements, thus defining an acoustic aperture characterized by activated receiver elements,
• signal processing circuitry configured to condition at least one output signal;
• and
• a processor in communication with the electronics system and configured to:
• provide feedback to the electronics system to enable self-alignment of transmitted acoustic signals based on received acoustic signals, thereby providing unattended monitoring of blood flow, and
• determine a blood flow parameter based on an acoustic parameter extracted from the received acoustic signals.