METHOD OF DETERMINING BEAMFORMING COEFFICIENT, BEAMFORMING METHOD AND ULTRASONIC IMAGING APPARATUS

• US 20140121516A1
• Filed: 10/30/2013
• Published: 05/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: KIM, Kyu Hong, KANG, Joo Young, KIM, Jung Ho, PARK, Sung Chan, PARK, Su Hyun
• Granted Patent: US 9,629,613 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/437
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4405 Device being mounted on a trolley
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4483 characterised by features of the ultrasound transducer
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/5207 involving processing of raw data to produce diagnostic data, e.g. for generating an image reconstruction G06T11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8915 using a transducer array
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8995 Combining images from different aspect angles, e.g. spatial compounding
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8997 using synthetic aperture techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52047 for elimination of side lobes or of grating lobes; for increasing resolving power
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/346 using phase variation

Abstract

Disclosed herein are a beamforming method, a method of determining a beamforming coefficient, and an ultrasonic imaging apparatus. The beamforming method includes radiating a target object with ultrasonic waves and receiving a plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from the target object, acquiring beamforming computation results of some of the plurality of received ultrasonic signals and determining a beamforming coefficient candidate group based on a beamforming computation result of the some of the received ultrasonic signals, acquiring beamforming computation results of the plurality of received ultrasonic signals or the some of the received ultrasonic signals by applying beamforming coefficients of the beamforming coefficient candidate group and selecting at least one beamforming coefficient from the beamforming coefficient candidate group based on the beamforming computation results of the plurality of ultrasonic signals, and beamforming the plurality of ultrasonic signals using the selected at least one beamforming coefficient as a weight.

Claims

1. A beamforming method comprising:

radiating a target object with ultrasonic waves and receiving a plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from the target object;

acquiring beamforming computation results corresponding to a first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals and determining a beamforming coefficient candidate group based on the beamforming computation results corresponding to the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals;

acquiring beamforming computation results corresponding to the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or to the first group of received plurality of ultrasonic signals by applying beamforming coefficients of the beamforming coefficient candidate group and selecting at least one beamforming coefficient from the beamforming coefficient candidate group based on the beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals; and

beamforming the received plurality of ultrasonic signals using the selected at least one beamforming coefficient as a weight.

2. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein the determination of the beamforming coefficient candidate group comprises:

extracting a plurality of beamforming coefficients from a beamforming coefficient database; and

determining a beamforming coefficient candidate group by using the extracted plurality of beamforming coefficients.

3. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein determining the beamforming coefficient candidate group comprises:

selecting a plurality of beamforming coefficients from a database;

determining beamforming computation results corresponding to each of the selected beamforming coefficients;

comparing with each other the determined beamforming computation results;

selecting the beamforming coefficient candidate group from the plurality of beamforming coefficients such that;

the beamforming coefficients selected in the beamforming coefficient candidate group have a variance which is smaller than a variance of the beamforming coefficeints not selected in the candidate group.

4. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein the beamforming computation results of the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals are beamforming computation results corresponding to the first group of received plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from a partial region of the target object.

5. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein the beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals are beamforming computation results obtained by performing axial smoothing on the plurality of received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals.

6. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein a beamforming coefficient included in the beamforming coefficient candidate group is calculated according to Expression 1 or Expression 2 below:

7. The beamforming method according to claim 6, wherein the first channel index i belongs to the subset A1 (iε

A1) and;

A1={n;

n is an odd integer number and 1≦

n≦

M};

or

A1={n;

n is an even integer number and 1≦

n≦

M}.

8. The beamforming method according to claim 6, wherein the selection of the at least one beamforming coefficient from the beamforming coefficient candidate group based on the beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals comprises selecting a beamforming coefficient according to Expression 3 or Expression 4 below:

9. The beamforming method according to claim 8, wherein the beamforming computation result S_c(w⁽ⁿ⁾_c) is determined as a result value S_c of Expression 5 or Expression 6 below regarding an n_th coefficient w⁽ⁿ⁾_c among determined beamforming coefficients W_c:

10. The beamforming method according to claim 8, wherein the second channel index j belongs to the subset A2 (jε

A2) and;

A2={n;

n is an even integer number and 1≦

n≦

M};

or

A2={n;

n is an odd integer number and 1≦

n≦

M}.

11. The beamforming method according to claim 1, wherein the received plurality of ultrasonic signals have a corrected time difference.

12. A beamforming method comprising:

radiating a target object with ultrasonic waves and receiving a plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from the target object;

acquiring beamforming computation results corresponding to a first group of the plurality of received plurality of ultrasonic signals and acquiring a beamforming coefficient candidate group and a plurality of beamforming computation results of the plurality of beamforming coefficients based on the beamforming computation result of the first group of the received plurality ultrasonic signals;

applying beamforming coefficients of the beamforming coefficient candidate group to acquire beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals, selecting at least one beamforming coefficient from the beamforming coefficient candidate group based on beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals, and acquiring a beamforming computation result of at least one final beamforming coefficient using a plurality of beamforming computation results of the plurality of beamforming coefficients; and

beamforming the received plurality of ultrasonic signals using the selected at least one final beamforming coefficient as a weight.

13. The beamforming method according to claim 12, wherein the determination of the beamforming coefficient candidate group comprises:

extracting a plurality of beamforming coefficients from a beamforming coefficient database; and

determining a beamforming coefficient candidate group by using the extracted plurality of beamforming coefficients.

14. The beamforming method according to claim 12, wherein beamforming computation results of the plurality of beamforming coefficients are acquired as a computation result S_c of Expression 5 or Expression 6 below with respect to the determined beamforming coefficient W_p:

15. The beamforming method according to claim 12, wherein a beamforming computation result of the at least one final beamforming coefficient is determined as a computation result S_c of Expression 7 or Expression 8 below with respect to an n_th beamforming coefficient w⁽ⁿ⁾_c of the determined beamforming coefficient W_c:

16. A method of determining a beamforming coefficient, the method comprising:

selecting a first group of a received plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from a target object, acquiring a plurality of beamforming computation results of the selected first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals by applying a plurality of beamforming coefficients, and determining a beamforming coefficient candidate group based on the plurality of beamforming computation results; and

acquiring beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals by applying a beamforming coefficient of the beamforming coefficient candidate group and selecting at least one beamforming coefficient from the beamforming coefficient candidate group based on beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the determination of the beamforming coefficient candidate group comprises reading a beamforming coefficient database, acquiring beamforming computation results of the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals by applying a plurality of beamforming coefficients stored in the beamforming coefficient database, and selecting at least one beamforming coefficient from the plurality of beamforming coefficients stored in the beamforming coefficient database based on the beamforming computation results of the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals to determine a beamforming coefficient candidate group.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the determination of the beamforming coefficient candidate group comprises:

selecting a plurality of beamforming coefficients out of all beamforming coefficients received from a database such that;

the selected beamforming coefficients have a relatively small variance compared with the non-selected beamforming coefficients;

or

the selected beamforming coefficients have beamforming computation results which are smaller than the beamforming computation results of the beamforming coefficeints not selected in the candidate group; and

determining the beamforming coefficient candidate group using the plurality of selected beamforming coefficients.

19. The method according to claim 16, wherein beamforming computation results of the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals are beamforming computation results corresponding to the first group of received plurality of ultrasonic signals reflected from a partial region of the target object.

20. The method according to claim 16, wherein the beamforming computation results of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals are beamforming computation results obtained by performing axial smoothing on the received plurality of ultrasonic signals or the first group of the received plurality of ultrasonic signals.