Ultrasonic method and apparatus for imaging and characterization of bodies
First Claim
1. In a method for the non-invasive examination of body parts through the selective ensonification of at least a portion of a body part with acoustical energy pulses to produce acoustical energy echo pulses, and the detection and processing of said echo pulses to indicate the relative specific acoustic impedance of the thusly ensonified body part, the steps of, transforming said echo pulses from the time domain to the frequency domain throughout a predetermined frequency range, deconvolving said echo pulses in the frequency domain to determine the impulse responses in the frequency domain of the ensonified body part at a plurality of frequencies within said frequency range, and determining the impulse responses of the ensonified body part in the time domain by transformation of said impulse responses from the frequency domain to the time domain.
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Abstract
Method and apparatus are provided for the determination of the Raylographic information of a body part which is ensonified by acoustical energy pulses by a particularly precisely focused acoustical focusing system to produce acoustical energy echo pulses which are detected in coherent manner. Fourier transformation of the pulses from the time to the frequency domain enables frequency domain deconvolution to provide the impulse response with minimization of mathematical instabilities and distortion of the frequency domain impulse response. Noise extraction and spatial deconvolution filtering are included to respectively maximize signal to noise ratio and minimize distortive effects of body part surface non-orthogonality and combine with the above to provide for particular stability in the overall results and attendant increase in the axial resolution of Raylographic display and in the overall resolution of body part image displays.
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Citations
35 Claims
- 1. In a method for the non-invasive examination of body parts through the selective ensonification of at least a portion of a body part with acoustical energy pulses to produce acoustical energy echo pulses, and the detection and processing of said echo pulses to indicate the relative specific acoustic impedance of the thusly ensonified body part, the steps of, transforming said echo pulses from the time domain to the frequency domain throughout a predetermined frequency range, deconvolving said echo pulses in the frequency domain to determine the impulse responses in the frequency domain of the ensonified body part at a plurality of frequencies within said frequency range, and determining the impulse responses of the ensonified body part in the time domain by transformation of said impulse responses from the frequency domain to the time domain.
- 19. In apparatus for the non-invasive examination of body parts through the selective ensonification of at least a portion of a body part with acoustical energy pulses to produce acoustical energy echo pulses, and the detection and processing of said echo pulses to indicate the relative specific acoustic impendance of the thusly ensonified body part, the improvements comprising, means for transforming said echo pulses from the time domain to the frequency domain throughout a predetermined frequency range, means for deconvolving said echo pulses in the frequency domain to determine the impulse responses in the frequency domain of the ensonified body part at a plurality of frequencies within said frequency range, and means for determining the impulse response of the ensonified body part in the time domain by transformation of said impulse responses from the frequency domain to the time domain.
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