US 4,395,909 AGranted

Body imaging technique

AssigneeImaging Associates

InventorsBernard D. Steinberg, Earl N. Powers

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Abstract

An array of acoustic receiving transducers is placed next to the body to be imaged. Acoustic energy is initially projected through the body, picked up by these receiving transducers, and processed to determine any time domain deviations which exist in the paths actually followed by that energy from those paths which would have been followed if the body were substantially homogeneous and the transducer array substantially fixed. Further acoustic energy is also picked-up by the transducers, after reflection within the body to be imaged. The image of any given point within the body is then formed by selecting from each transducer output signal that portion which corresponds to the image forming energy emanating from that point, as corrected in accordance with the previously determined deviations.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A system for producing signals, which can be used to form images of selected points within a body, comprising:

means for initially projecting acoustic wave energy upon said body;
means for further projecting acoustic wave energy upon said body;
means for receiving said initially projected energy and said further projected energy after passage through the body at a plurality of transducers;
means for firstly processing the signals produced by said transducers in response to said initially projected energy to determine deviations from reference conditions in the paths followed within the body by said initially projected energy to said transducers and for secondly
processing the signals produced by said transducers in response to said further projected energy to form a signal representative of the image of at least one selected point within the body;
and
means for utilizing said deviation determinations to control the second signal processing so as to compensate for said deviations in the forming of the selected point image.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.