ULTRASONIC MEASUREMENT APPARATUS, ULTRASONIC DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS, AND ULTRASONIC MEASUREMENT METHOD

• US 20160124082A1
• Filed: 10/29/2015
• Published: 05/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: MASUDA, Hiroyuki
• Granted Patent: US 10,197,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8913 using separate transducers for transmission and reception
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8915 using a transducer array
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52046 Techniques for image enhancement involving transmitter or receiver image enhancement by image data processing G06T5/00

Abstract

An ultrasonic measurement apparatus includes a transmission processing unit that performs processing for transmitting an ultrasonic wave at a given transmission angle, a reception processing unit that performs reception processing of an ultrasonic echo with respect to a transmitted ultrasonic wave, and a processing unit that performs processing with respect to a reception signal from the reception processing unit. The processing unit obtains a plurality of first resolution signals by synthesizing a plurality of the reception signals based on a first beamforming coefficient, and obtains a second beamforming coefficient for synthesizing a second resolution signal from the plurality of first resolution signals based on whether a signal processing target point belongs to a plane wave propagation region or belongs to a spherical wave propagation region.

Claims

1. An ultrasonic measurement apparatus comprising:

a transmission processing unit that performs processing for transmitting an ultrasonic wave at a given transmission angle;

a reception processing unit that performs reception processing of an ultrasonic echo with respect to a transmitted ultrasonic wave; and

a processing unit that performs processing with respect to a reception signal from the reception processing unit,

wherein the processing unit obtains a plurality of first resolution signals by synthesizing a plurality of the reception signals based on a first beamforming coefficient, and obtains a second beamforming coefficient for synthesizing a second resolution signal having high resolution compared to the first resolution signal from the plurality of first resolution signals based on whether a signal processing target point belongs to a plane wave propagation region in which the ultrasonic wave is propagated as a plane wave or belongs to a spherical wave propagation region in which the ultrasonic wave is propagated as a spherical wave.

2. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the processing unit selects a coefficient computation first resolution signal from the plurality of first resolution signals based on a result of region discrimination processing regarding whether the signal processing target point belongs to the plane wave propagation region or belongs to the spherical wave propagation region, and obtains the second beamforming coefficient based on the selected coefficient computation first resolution signal.

3. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the processing unit synthesizes the selected coefficient computation first resolution signal and generates the second resolution signal based on the obtained second beamforming coefficient.

4. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the plane wave propagation region and the spherical wave propagation region are regions different from each other in accordance with the transmission angle of the ultrasonic wave in the transmission processing unit.

5. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the processing unit performs region discrimination processing regarding where the signal processing target point exists in any one of the plane wave propagation region and the spherical wave propagation region.

6. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising:

a storage unit that stores table data in which information indicating where the signal processing target point exists in any one of the plane wave propagation region and the spherical wave propagation region is caused to correspond to the given signal processing target point for each transmission angle of a plurality of the transmission angles of the ultrasonic wave from the transmission processing unit,

wherein the processing unit performs the region discrimination processing based on the table data.

7. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the processing unit performs the region discrimination processing based on a first direction in which a first aperture end among apertures respectively provided with a plurality of ultrasonic transducers transmitting the ultrasonic wave leads to the signal processing target point, a second direction in which a second aperture end different from the first aperture end among the apertures leads to the signal processing target point, and the transmission angle of the ultrasonic wave.

8. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the transmission processing unit performs processing for transmitting first to Kth (K is an integer equal to or greater than 2) ultrasonic waves at first to Kth transmission angles, and

wherein the processing unit performs the region discrimination processing for discriminating where the signal processing target point exists in any one of an ith (i is an integer of 1≦

i≦

K) plane wave propagation region and an ith spherical wave propagation region corresponding to an ith ultrasonic wave based on an ith transmission angle and a position of the signal processing target point.

9. The ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the reception processing unit performs reception processing of the ultrasonic echo with respect to a transmitted ultrasonic wave in first to Nth ultrasonic transducers, and

wherein the processing unit performs phasing processing with respect to first to Nth reception signals respectively corresponding to the first to Nth ultrasonic transducers, synthesizes the first to Nth reception signals after phasing processing based on the first beamforming coefficient, and generates the first resolution signal.

10. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 1.

11. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 2.

12. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 3.

13. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 4.

14. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 5.

15. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 6.

16. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 7.

17. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 8.

18. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising:

the ultrasonic measurement apparatus according to claim 9.

19. An ultrasonic measurement method comprising:

processing for transmitting an ultrasonic wave to a target object;

performing reception processing of an ultrasonic echo with respect to a transmitted ultrasonic wave;

obtaining a plurality of first resolution signals by synthesizing a plurality of reception signals received through the reception processing based on a first beamforming coefficient; and

obtaining a second beamforming coefficient for synthesizing a second resolution signal having high resolution compared to the first resolution signal from the plurality of first resolution signals based on whether a signal processing target point belongs to a plane wave propagation region in which the ultrasonic wave is propagated as a plane wave or belongs to spherical wave propagation region in which the ultrasonic wave is propagated as a spherical wave.