US 2022/0022847 A1Published application

Ultrasound imaging apparatus

AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.

InventorsMisaki HIROSHIMA, Hiroshi KURIBARA, Kazuaki KAMATA

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Abstract

A pitch of transducers is extended, while preventing occurrence of grating lobes. A receive beamformer sets synthetic apertures on an array of transducers that have received echoes of transmission of one transmit beam, and performs processing on received signals of transducers within the receive apertures to form receive beams, followed by performing synthetic aperture processing on the receive beams obtained by the transmission of transmit beams. The positions of the transmit aperture and the receive aperture in the transducer array direction are shifted for every transmission of the transmit beam. A motion vector of the receive aperture along the array direction of the transducers is made different from a motion vector of the transmit aperture so that a distance between phase centers in the successive transmission events is smaller than the case where the transmit aperture and the receive aperture are shifted with a constant vector for each transmission.

Claims12

Dependent claims

An ultrasound imaging apparatus comprising,

a transmission element configured to transmit an ultrasonic wave to a subject,
a plurality of receiving elements in an array for receiving echoes of the ultrasonic wave, generated in the subject for each transmission event of the ultrasonic wave,
a shift controller configured to shift positions of the transmission element and the plurality of receiving elements for each transmission event in a direction of the array, and
a receive beamformer configured to synthesize received signals obtained in the plurality of receiving elements for each transmission event, between the plurality of receiving elements and between the transmission events, wherein
the shift controller shifts the positions of the transmission element and the receiving elements such that a difference in motion vectors is made different between successive two transmission events, the difference in motion vectors is a difference between a first motion vector representing a shift of the position of the transmission element and a second motion vector representing a shift of the positions of the receiving elements, and the shift of the positions occurring between the transmission event and a previous transmission event.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 17/352,696Filed 21 Jun 2021
Published: 27 Jan 2022
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification12 codes

A61B 8/4494
Characterised by features of the ultrasound transducer: characterised by the arrangement of the transducer elements
A61B 8/5207
Devices using data or image processing specially adapted for diagnosis using ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves: involving processing of raw…
A61B 8/4488
Characterised by features of the ultrasound transducer: the transducer being a phased array
G01S 7/52085
Particularly adapted to short-range imaging: details related to the ultrasound signal acquisition, e.g. scan sequences