Ultrasonic beam scanning

A method of ultrasonic examination of an object comprising the steps of:

• directing pulses of ultrasonic energy along a plurality of beams into said object;
• and
• receiving echoes of said pulses reflected along said beams by acoustic impedance discontinuities within said object, each of said pulses being directed and echoes received by one of a plurality of non-exclusive groups of adjacent transducer elements within a linear transducer array which includes a plurality of transducer elements, said pulses being directed in turn by each group along beams in a plurality of angular directions in a single plane by sequentially activating the elements in a group to cooperatively produce a single directed pulse.

A method of ultrasonic examination of an object comprising the steps of:

• directing pulses of ultrasonic energy along a plurality of beams into said object;
• and
• receiving echoes of said pulses reflected along said beams by acoustic impedance discontinuities within said object, each of said pulses being directed and echoes received by one of a plurality of non-exclusive groups of adjacent transducer elements within a linear transducer array which includes a plurality of transducer elements, said pulses being sequentially directed by said groups in each of a plurality of angular directions in a single plane by sequentially activating the elements in a group to cooperatively produce a single directed pulse.