Adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound imaging
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Abstract
Adaptive grating lobe suppression is provided. Received ultrasound data is measured, compared or otherwise processed to determine the presence of grating lobe energy. A further process is then altered as a function of the level of grating lobe energy. In one embodiment, the adaptive grating lobe suppression is implemented in the receive beamformer. Data representing a virtual element is formed as a normalized sum of data from adjacent sparse elements. The data from the adjacent elements is correlated to determine the presence of grating lobe energy as a function of the amount of shift associated with the peak correlation. A phase shift is applied to the data representing the virtual element where sufficient grating lobe energy is determined. In another embodiment, an amount of grating lobe energy is measured by comparing data from prior to a filter with filtered data. The filter is selected to isolate main lobe energy from grating lobe energy. A gain is modulated as a function of any detected grating lobe energy or filtered or unfiltered data is selected for further processing.
22 Citations
31 Claims
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1-14. -14. (canceled)
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15. A method for adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound processing, the method comprising:
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(a) acquiring ultrasound data;
(b) determining a grating lobe level as a function of the ultrasound data; and
(c) altering processing in response to the grating lobe level, further wherein (b) comprises determining similarity of signals from two different transducer elements and (c) comprises altering a phase of a sum of the signals from the two different transducer elements, the altering being a function of an amount of correlation. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30, 31)
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21-23. -23. (canceled)
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24. A system for adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound processing the system comprising:
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an ultrasound transducer; and
a processor connected with the ultrasound transducer, the processor operable to determine a level of grating lobe clutter in ultrasound data from the ultrasound transducer and operable to alter processing in response to the level of grating lobe clutter, further wherein the ultrasound transducer comprises a sparsely sampled array of elements; and
wherein the processor is operable to correlate signals from two different transducer elements and altering a phase of a sum of the signals from the two different transducer elements, the altering being a function of an amount of correlation.
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25-26. -26. (canceled)
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27. A method for adaptive grating lobe suppression in ultrasound processing, the method comprising:
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(a) measuring a level of grating lobe energy from received ultrasound data; and
(b) adapting data processes to reduce the level of grating lobe energy in the received ultrasound data, further wherein (a) comprises correlating signals from two different transducer elements and (b) comprises adapting a phase shift as a function of a temporal shift maximizing the correlation of (a).
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28. (canceled)
Specification