SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING PROGRESSIVE BEAMFORMING

• US 20150071031A1
• Filed: 11/17/2014
• Published: 03/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: FUJIFILM SonoSite, Inc. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: FUJIFILM SonoSite, Inc. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Siedenburg, Clinton T., Hwang, Juin-Jet, Pagoulatos, Nikolaos, Nenninger, Garet
• Application Number:
  US14/543,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20150071031A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 367/11
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/02 using reflection of acoustic waves G01S15/66 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/89 for mapping or imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8915 using a transducer array
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52047 for elimination of side lobes or of grating lobes; for increasing resolving power
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/5208 with integration of processing functions inside probe or scanhead
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/346 using phase variation
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 2200/10 Beamforming, e.g. time reversal, phase conjugation or similar

Abstract

A progressive beamformer in an imaging system includes a number of stages. A first stage delays and combines a number of received data streams to align the streams to a point of interest on a first beamline. The first stage feeds a number of subsequent stages that operate to buffer and re-delay at least a portion of the data streams received from a previous stage in order to align the data streams to a point of interest on a new beamline. In one embodiment, each stage operates to reduce the number of data streams that are passed to a subsequent stage without suffering from grating lobes. A beam reclamation process includes a number of stages that receive data streams from end elements in order to produce reclaimed beams that are added to beamline produced in a mainline beamforming process in order to produce output beamlines.

Claims

1. An imaging system, comprising:

memory for buffering a number of data streams of signals produced by transducer elements; and

a number of stages, each including processor electronics operable to delay and combine at least a portion of data in the buffered data streams to align data to a point on a beamline within a field of view, wherein the processor electronics for stages after a first stage are operable to buffer and re-delay at least a portion of the data streams from a previous stage to align the data to a point on a new beamline, reduce the number of data streams that are aligned to a point on a beamline in a subsequent stage and increase an effective size of the transducer elements.

2. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein the number of data streams is reduced in each stage by combining data streams using a weighted sum of neighboring data streams.

3. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein the number of data streams is reduced by combining data streams with a non-linear combination of beams.

4. The imaging system of claim 3, wherein the non-linear combination is selected from one or more of a maximum, a minimum and a median.

5. The imaging system of claim 2, wherein alternating data streams are weighted with a 1-2-1 weighting of adjacent data streams.

7. The imaging system of claim 2, wherein the combining is performed in the analog domain.

8. The imaging system of claim 2, wherein the combining is performed in the digital domain.

9. The imaging system of claim 2, wherein the reduction of the number of data streams for a subsequent stage results in fewer streams than every other stream.

10. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein each stage calculates data points for an increasing number of beamlines.

11. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein each stage calculates data points for increasingly larger element spacings.

12. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein each stage uses one or more delay tables to align the data streams on a beamline, wherein at least some of the delay tables are reused in later stages of the progressive beamformer.

13. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein the signals in the data streams are acoustic signals.

14. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein the signals in the data stream are electromagnetic signals.

6. (canceled)

15. A progressive beamforming system, including:

a series of stages including a first stage and a number of subsequent stages, wherein the first stage includes processor electronics that are configured to receive a number of data streams from transducer elements that represent signals from a field of view, wherein the processor electronics are configured to delay the data streams to align the data streams to a point of interest on a first beamline and to reduce the number of data streams;

wherein subsequent stages include processor electronics that are configured to receive data streams from a previous stage and to re-delay the received data streams to align the data streams to a point of interest on a new beamline and to reduce the number of data streams that are aligned to a point on a beamline in a subsequent stage.

16. The progressive beamforming system of claim 15, wherein each stage reduces the number of data streams by weighting selected data streams with a weight that is greater amount than a weight applied to adjacent data streams and summing the data stream with its adjacent data streams.

17. The progressive beamforming system of claim 15, wherein selected data stream are weighted with a weight that is twice the weight of its adjacent data streams.

18. The progressive beamforming system of claim 15, wherein the beamlines produced are part of a mainline beamforming process and the system further includes a number of beam reclamation stages that receive data streams from a previous stage, buffer and re-delay the data streams to a new beam line and to add streams from end elements of a corresponding stage in the mainline beamforming process in order to produce a reclaimed beamline that is added back to a beamline produced in the mainline beamforming process in order to produce an output beamline.

19. A beamformer comprising:

a mainline progressive beamformer that is configured to delay digital signals from a transducer to focus the signals on a point of interest on a number of beamlines, wherein the mainline beamformer operates to re-delay stored signals that are focused on one beamline in order to focus the digital signals on a new beamline; and

an aperture reclamation beamformer that is configured to delay signals from end elements of a transducer and combine them with delayed signals from the mainline progressive beamformer in order to produce data for a point on a beamline.

20. The beamformer of claim 19, wherein the mainline progressive beamformer is arranged in a number of stages, wherein each stage adds data for new beamlines.

21. The beamformer of claim 20, wherein each stage after a 2nd stage is configured to add data for beamlines that are interleaved with data for previously computed beamlines.

22-24. -24. (canceled)