MOBILE ULTRASOUND DIAGNOSIS PROBE APPARATUS FOR USING TWO-DIMENSIONAL ARRAY DATA, MOBILE ULTRASOUND DIAGNOSIS SYSTEM USING THE SAME

• US 20150087987A1
• Filed: 04/23/2013
• Published: 03/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Healcerion Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Healcerion Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Ryu, Jeong Won, Choung, You Chan
• Application Number:
  US14/394,229
• Publication Number:
  US 20150087987A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/447
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/14 Echo-tomography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4427 Device being portable or laptop-like
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4472 Wireless probes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4488 the transducer being a phased array
• 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: A61B 8/5269 involving detection or reduction of artifacts for image enhancement algorithms G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/56 Details of data transmission or power supply
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/0645 Display representation or displayed parameters, e.g. A-, B- or C-Scan
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/0654 Imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/226 Handheld or portable devices
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/003 Transmission of data between radar, sonar or lidar systems and remote stations
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52034 Data rate converters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/5205 Means for monitoring or calibrating
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/5208 with integration of processing functions inside probe or scanhead

Abstract

Provided is a mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus including a transmission signal forming unit forming a transmission signal for obtaining a frame of an ultrasound image, an ultrasound probe transducing the transmission signal of the transmission signal forming unit into an ultrasound signal, transmitting the ultrasound signal to an object, and obtaining analog ultrasound data reflected from the object, a two-dimensional array processor adjacently arranging the obtained analog ultrasound data compensated with respect to time gains thereof and adjusted with respect to intensity and contrast thereof for each ultrasound vector to be processed into two-dimensional array ultrasound data, a compressor compressing the two-dimensional array ultrasound data adjacently arranged for each ultrasound vector, and a wireless communication unit wirelessly transmitting the compressed two-dimensional array ultrasound data to an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus.

Claims

1. A mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus comprising:

a transmission signal forming unit forming a transmission signal for obtaining a frame of an ultrasound image;

an ultrasound probe transducing the transmission signal of the transmission signal forming unit into an ultrasound signal, transmitting the ultrasound signal to an object, and obtaining analog ultrasound data reflected from the object;

a two-dimensional array processor adjacently arranging the obtained analog ultrasound data compensated with respect to time gains thereof and adjusted with respect to intensity and contrast thereof for each ultrasound vector to be processed into two-dimensional array ultrasound data;

a compressor compressing the two-dimensional array ultrasound data adjacently arranged for each ultrasound vector; and

a wireless communication unit wirelessly transmitting the compressed two-dimensional array ultrasound data to an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional array processor arranges received ultrasound vectors in a serial stream to be adjacent for each ultrasound vector unit lengthwise to be processed into the two-dimensional array ultrasound data.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a beam former generating digitalized ultrasound data by using the analog ultrasound data obtained from the ultrasound probe;

a time gain compensation (TGC) unit compensating the digitalized ultrasound data with time gains; and

an intensity and contrast adjuster adjusting intensity and contrast of the ultrasound image.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a TGC unit compensating the analog ultrasound data obtained from the ultrasound probe with time gains;

a beam former generating digitalized ultrasound data by using the ultrasound data compensated with time gains; and

an intensity and contrast adjuster adjusting intensity and contrast of the ultrasound image.

5. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the beam former generates ultrasound data comprising M number of arrays whose size is N when using M number of ultrasounds for one ultrasound image frame and performing N times of sampling each ultrasound that is reflected from the object and returns.

6. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the TGC unit compensates the ultrasound data according to a TGC table.

7. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the intensity and contrast adjuster adjusts an intensity value of a certain value or less to 0 and adjusts an intensity value of a certain value or more to a maximum value.

8. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the intensity and contrast adjuster adjusts a contrast value of a certain value or less to 0 and adjusts a contrast value of a certain value or more to a maximum value.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional array processor generates two-dimensional ultrasound data comprising N×

M arrays when using M number of ultrasounds for one ultrasound image frame and performing N times of sampling each ultrasound that is reflected from the object and returns.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication unit comprises short-distance wireless communication by using one of Bluetooth, a wireless universal serial bus (USB), a wireless local area network (LAN), wireless fidelity (WiFi), Zigbee, and infrared data association (IrDA).

15. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the beam former generates ultrasound data comprising M number of arrays whose size is N when using M number of ultrasounds for one ultrasound image frame and performing N times of sampling each ultrasound that is reflected from the object and returns.

16. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the TGC unit compensates the ultrasound data according to a TGC table.

17. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the intensity and contrast adjuster adjusts an intensity value of a certain value or less to 0 and adjusts an intensity value of a certain value or more to a maximum value.

18. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the intensity and contrast adjuster adjusts a contrast value of a certain value or less to 0 and adjusts a contrast value of a certain value or more to a maximum value.

11. A mobile ultrasound diagnostic system comprising:

a mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus, which is portable, digital-processes ultrasound data obtained from an object, compensates the digitalized ultrasound data with time gains, adjusts intensity and contrast of the ultrasound data, processes the ultrasound data into two-dimensional array ultrasound data by adjacently arranging for each ultrasound vector, compresses the two-dimensional array ultrasound data, and wirelessly transmits the two-dimensional array ultrasound data, and

an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, which receives the two-dimensional array ultrasound data from the mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus and generates ultrasound image data for diagnosis by releasing compression of the two-dimensional array ultrasound data.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus arranges received ultrasound vectors in a serial stream to be adjacent for each ultrasound vector unit lengthwise to be processed into the two-dimensional array ultrasound data.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus determines an ultrasound measurement depth according to an input of a user and transmits a parameter for adjusting time gains and a parameter for adjusting the intensity and the contrast to the mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus transmits dummy data for automatically measuring a wireless communication environment and for determining the size of transmission data to the mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus, and

wherein the mobile ultrasound diagnosis probe apparatus receives the dummy data from the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, calculates an available band of wireless communication currently used by measuring an amount of time used to receive the dummy data, and determines the size of data to be wirelessly transmitted, according to the available band.