Systems and methods for ultrasonic guided needle insertion

An ultrasound probe for ultrasound-guided cannulation of a target blood vessel, comprising:

• a probe body having a longitudinal axis extending along a patient-facing surface of the probe body;
• a longitudinal linear transducer array disposed in the probe body and extending along the longitudinal axis, the longitudinal linear transducer array being configured to generate real-time longitudinal ultrasound images in a longitudinal plane;
• a plurality of transverse phased arrays disposed in the probe body on along the longitudinal linear transducer array, each transverse phased array having a respective transverse imaging plane oriented substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis and being configured to generate real-time transverse ultrasound images in the transverse imaging plane;
• wherein the plurality of transverse phased array comprises at least three transverse phased arrays, each positioned at a different location along the longitudinal axis;
• wherein an axial spacing between the transverse phased arrays is selected such that, for a set of different depths of a target blood vessel within a predefined access region, a needle introduced toward the target blood vessel can be imaged within a predetermined maximum insertion angle relative to the longitudinal axis while remaining within a steering range of at least one of the transverse phased arrays;
• an acoustic pad comprising an acoustic coupling material arranged as a boot on the probe body, the acoustic pad having a thickness selected to reduce a superficial blind spot for the transverse phased arrays when imaging tissue superficial to the target blood vessel;
• and
• adaptive probe electronics disposed within the probe body and electrically coupled to the longitudinal linear transducer array and to the transverse phased array, the probe electronics configured to adaptively adjust operation of the transducer arrays based on target depth and/or inserted needle progression.