Ultrasound imaging system

A method for Doppler processing of an ultrasound image on a portable ultrasound system comprising:

• processing ultrasound image data with a battery powered, handheld display device that includes a beamformer device, a system controller to control beamformer device operation, a flat panel display, and a programmable data processing system having a processor configured to perform a down conversion operation, a scan conversion operation and a Doppler processing operation, the portable ultrasound system including a memory that is electrically connected to the programmable data processing system, the memory having stored therein a sequence of instructions executed with the processor to use a pulse repetition frequency, to apply a programmable wall filter to image data and to execute further instructions for a calculation of an autocorrelation function and calculation of an autocorrelation phase to perform Doppler processing of the image data;
• using a graphical user interface operating to select a pulse repetition frequency with a first control window shown on the display and select a wall filter value with a second control window shown on the display;
• and
• performing a Doppler processing operation using the processor of the programmable data processing system to form an image of the region of interest.

A portable ultrasound imaging apparatus comprising:

• a battery powered, handheld display device including a touchscreen display and a data processing module that is configured to perform a down conversion operation, a scan conversion operation and a Doppler processing operation, the display device being connected to a transducer array;
• a memory operably coupled to the data processing module, wherein the memory stores executable instructions that cause the data processing module to:
• select a pulse repetition frequency using a first control window of a graphical user interface that is displayed on the touchscreen display;
• calculate a power level along a sample line with the data processing module and compare the power level to a threshold;
• apply a programmable filter to ultrasound image data including a wall filter value selected from a plurality of wall filter values displayed with a second control window of the graphical user interface, the selected wall filter value being a function of the pulse repetition rate to generate filtered Doppler image data;
• calculate, in response to executing instructions with the data processing module, a plurality of autocorrelation values using the filtered Doppler image data;
• calculate, in response to executing instructions with the data processing module, a phase shift of an autocorrelation phase to generate a monotonic function for all values of the phase shift corresponding to a range of Doppler velocities;
• convert, in response to executing instructions, the calculated phase shift to an index with the data processing module;
• and
• display a plurality of images including at least one of color Doppler, directional power Doppler, power Doppler and pulsed wave Doppler on the touchscreen display of the handheld display device.