System and method for dynamic filtering
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips N.V.
InventorSTEVEN RUSSELL FREEMAN
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Abstract
Systems and methods for filtering an analog waveform before it is sampled by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in an ultrasound system are provided. The waveform can be filtered by delaying the same waveform by two different time delays and combining the delayed waveforms to effectively cancel out the fundamental components, thereby providing more sensitive detection of harmonic components in received echo signals. This filtering approach leverages an architecture that can also be used for multiline beamforming to perform the temporal filtering, in which a single acoustic signal can be read out of the ARAM twice, separated by time, taking advantage of the fact that the ARAM allows for non-destructive read operations.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- receiving an input analog electrical waveform generated from an acoustic signal received by a transducer;
- performing a first non-destructive read operation and a second read operation to generate a pair of substantially identical intermediate analog electrical waveforms based on the input analog electrical waveform;
- delaying one of the intermediate analog electrical waveforms relative to the other, an amount of the delaying being based at least in part on a sampling rate of an analog memory and on a fundamental frequency of the input analog electrical waveform;
- and
- summing the delayed intermediate analog electrical waveform with the other intermediate analog electrical waveform to produce a filtered analog electrical waveform.
The method of claim 11, wherein the converting comprises using an analog to digital converter having a dynamic range, and wherein a gain applied to the filtered analog electrical waveform does not saturate the dynamic range of the analog to digital converter, and wherein the same gain, if applied to the input analog electrical waveform would saturate the dynamic range of the analog to digital converter.
A receive beamformer for ultrasound imaging, comprising:
- an input line configured to receive an input analog electrical waveform generated from a received acoustic signal from at least one transducer element;
- an analog memory, the memory being configured and arranged to:
- allow a first non-destructive read operation to be performed and a second read operation to be performed to generate a pair of substantially identical intermediate analog electrical waveforms based on the input analog electrical waveform;
- and
- delay one of the intermediate analog electrical waveforms relative to the other, wherein an amount of the delay is based at least in part on a sampling rate of the analog memory and on a fundamental frequency of the input analog electrical waveform;
- and
- a summing element, the summing element being configured and arranged to sum the delayed intermediate analog electrical waveform with the other intermediate analog electrical waveform to produce a filtered analog electrical waveform.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.