Systems and methods for synthetic aperture ultrasound imaging of an object

A synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system, comprising:

• an array of transducer elements operable to transmit, receive, and/or transmit and receive acoustic signals at an object to effectuate a synthetic aperture of the synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system with the object, wherein the acoustic signals include transmitted acoustic signals and received acoustic echoes returned from the object;
• one or more computers, comprising one or more processors and one or more memories, including a signal processing unit, an object beamformer unit, and a data processing unit, wherein:
• the signal processing unit in communication with the array of transducer elements and configured to:
• convert the received acoustic echoes that are received at one or more selected receive transducer elements of the array into digital signals representative of acoustic return echo waveforms, and
• generate complex-valued signals comprising in-phase and quadrature components from the digital signals;
• the object beamformer unit is in communication with the signal processing unit and configured to:
• receive the complex-valued signals as inputs,
• beamform the object for one or more regions of the object as a function of position, orientation, and/or geometry of the array of transducer elements with respect to a model of the object, the model of the object comprising information representative of the object, by combining at least some of the complex-valued signals corresponding to the received acoustic echoes, and
• produce one or more beamformed output signals in digital format that includes spatial information about the one or more regions of object derived from beamforming the complex-valued signals;
• and
• the data processing unit is in communication with the object beamformer unit and the array of transducer elements, and configured to optimize one or more beamformed output signals to determine one or more of a position, an orientation, a geometry, or a set of physical properties,
• wherein the synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system is operable to produce an image of the object based on a rendition of one or more of the position, the orientation, the geometry, or the set of physical properties, relative to a coordinate system of the array of transducer elements, as determined by the data processing unit.

A synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system, comprising:

• an array of transducer elements operable to transmit, receive, and/or transmit and receive acoustic signals at an object to effectuate a synthetic aperture of the synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system with the object, wherein the acoustic signals include transmitted acoustic signals and received acoustic echoes returned from the object;
• one or more computers, comprising one or more processors and one or more memories, including a signal processing unit, an object beamformer unit, and a data processing unit, wherein:
• the signal processing unit in communication with the array of transducer elements and configured to:
• convert the received acoustic echoes into digital signals representative of acoustic return echo waveforms, and
• generate analytic signals from the digital signals by applying a Hilbert transform to produce complex-valued signals comprising in-phase and quadrature components, wherein an in-phase component comprises an original digital signal and a quadrature component comprises a Hilbert-transformed digital signal;
• the object beamformer unit is in communication with the signal processing unit and configured to:
• receive the analytic signals as inputs,
• beamform the object for one or more regions of the object as a function of position, orientation, and/or geometry of the array of transducer elements with respect to a model of the object by combining the analytic signals, and
• produce one or more beamformed output signals in digital format;
• and
• the data processing unit is in communication with the object beamformer unit, and configured to:
• optimize one or more beamformed output signals to determine one or more of a position, an orientation, a geometry, or a set of physical properties of the object, and
• instruct the object beamformer unit to re-beamform the object using same stored analytic signals with updated optimized parameters,
• wherein the synthetic aperture acoustic imaging system is operable to produce an image of the object based on a rendition of one or more of the position, the orientation, the geometry, or the set of physical properties, relative to a coordinate system of the array of transducer elements.

A method for synthetic aperture acoustic imaging, comprising:

• transmitting one or more acoustic waveforms from an array of transducer elements toward an object;
• receiving acoustic echoes returned from the object at one or more receive transducer elements of the array;
• converting the received acoustic echoes into digital signals representative of acoustic return echo waveforms;
• generating complex-valued signals comprising in-phase components and quadrature components from the digital signals;
• beamforming the object by combining the complex-valued signals for one or more regions of the object as a function of position, orientation, and/or geometry of the array of transducer elements with respect to a model of the object, wherein the model includes a plurality of vertices and a plurality of faces approximating the object, or a plurality of points and a plurality of surface normal vectors corresponding to each point;
• producing one or more beamformed output signals that includes spatial information about the one or more regions of object derived from beamforming the complex-valued signals;
• optimizing the one or more beamformed output signals to determine one or more of a position, an orientation, a geometry, or a set of physical properties of the object;
• and
• producing an image of the object based on a rendition of one or more of the position, the orientation, the geometry, or the set of physical properties relative to a coordinate system of the array of transducer elements.