Ultrasound probe with integrated electronics

• US 6,783,493 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2001
• Issued: 08/31/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Teratech Corporation
• Original Assignee: Teratech Corporation
• Inventors: Brodsky, Michael, Kischell, Eric R., Litchfield, Michael P., Chiang, Alice M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jaworski, Francis J.
• Application Number:
  US09/791,491
• Publication Number:
  US 20020120193A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,286 Days
• Field of Search: 600/437, 600/443, 600/447, 128/916, 700/300, 700/713, 700/705, 702/183, 702/188, 705/2, 707/100-102, 709/200-202, 709/219
• US Class Current: 600/437
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/56 Details of data transmission or power supply
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8915 using a transducer array
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/892 the array being curvilinear
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8927 using simultaneously or sequentially two or more subarrays or subapertures
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/8979 Combined Doppler and pulse-echo imaging systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/899 Combination of imaging systems with ancillary equipment
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52025 for pulse systems G01S7/52034 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52034 Data rate converters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52055 in association with ancillary recording equipment
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52063 Sector scan display
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52073 Production of cursor lines, markers or indicia by electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52074 Composite displays, e.g. split-screen displays; Combination of multiple images or of images and alphanumeric tabular information
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52079 Constructional features constructional features of transducers B06B; mounting transducers G10K11/00; constructional features of ultrasonic medical diagnostic devices A61B8/44
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/5208 with integration of processing functions inside probe or scanhead
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52085 Details related to the ultrasound signal acquisition, e.g. scan sequences control of medical diagnostic ultrasound devices A61B8/54
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/52095 using multiline receive beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/346 using phase variation
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 25/00 Antennas or antenna systems providing at least two radiating patterns arrangements for changing or varying the orientation or the shape of the directional pattern H01Q3/00
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/26 varying the relative phase or relative amplitude of energisation between two or more active radiating elements; varying the distribution of energy across a radiating aperture H01Q3/12, H01Q3/22, H01Q3/24 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/2682 Time delay steered arrays

Abstract

A hand-held ultrasound system includes integrated electronics within an ergonomic housing. The electronics includes control circuitry, beamforming and circuitry transducer drive circuitry. The electronics communicate with a host computer using an industry standard high speed serial bus. The ultrasonic imaging system is operable on a standard, commercially available, user computing device without specific hardware modifications, and is adapted to interface with an external application without modification to the ultrasonic imaging system to allow a user to gather ultrasonic data on a standard user computing device such as a PC, and employ the data so gathered via an independent external application without requiring a custom system, expensive hardware modifications, or system rebuilds. An integrated interface program allows such ultrasonic data to be invoked by a variety of such external applications having access to the integrated interface program via a standard, predetermined platform such as visual basic or c++.

Claims

1. A method of external application integration in an ultrasonic imaging system comprising:

providing an ultrasonic application server in a standard computing device to process at least one ultrasonic operation, the ultrasonic application server receiving a beamformed representation of a region of interest from a digital communication control circuit;

sending, from the external application, a command indicative of at least one of the ultrasonic operations to be performed on at least a portion of the beamformed representation; and

executing, in the ultrasonic application server, a result corresponding to the command.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

defining an integrated interface program in the standard computing device having a plurality of entry points into the ultrasonic application server, the entry points operable to access each of the at least one ultrasonic operations;

transmitting, via the integrated interface program, the command to the ultrasonic application server;

receiving, over a predetermined communication interface, ultrasonic data indicative of ultrasonic image information; and

transmitting, via the integrated interface program the result to the external application.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the integrated interface program is adapted to transmit information pertinent to data selected from the group consisting of radiation therapy, fetal images, cardiac images, and image guided surgery.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the result is image data and transformation parameters.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the external application is on a remote computer.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the remote computer is connected to the ultrasonic application server by a public access network.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the public access network is the Internet.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the external application is on the same computer.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the command includes an instruction and at least one parameter.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the command conforms to a predetermined interprocess communication interface.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the command includes operations selected from the group consisting of freeze live data, fetch live data, export image, exit, initialize, and get status.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmitting via the integrated interface program employs sockets.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the transmitting via the integrated interface program conforms to a predetermined protocol.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the protocol is TCP/IP.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving of ultrasonic data further comprises receiving according to a standardized interface.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the standardized interface is IEEE 1394.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the ultrasonic application server includes a graphical user interface (GUI).

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the GUI includes image control presets.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the image control presets are operable to store image settings.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the image settings include settings selected from the group consisting of size, depth, focus, time gain compensation (TGC) and TGC lock.

21. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a probe housing having a transducer array that is connected to a processing circuit having a beamforming circuit, a memory, a system controller integrated circuit and a digital communication control circuit;

connecting the digital communication control circuit to a personal computer with a standard communication interface; and

transmitting data along the communication interface.

22. The method of claim 21 further comprising providing an interface housing in which the first circuit board assembly and the second board assembly are mounted.

23. The method of claim 21 further comprising providing an interface housing in which a first circuit board assembly having the beamforming circuit and a second circuit board assembly having the memory, controller and communication control circuit are mounted.

24. The method of claim 21 further comprising providing a body mounted personal computer.

25. The method of claim 21 further comprising providing a body mounted interface housing.

26. The system of claim 21 further comprising a standardized interface, wherein the ultrasonic data is received via the standardized interface.

27. The system of claim 21 wherein the ultrasonic application server includes a graphical user interface (GUI).

28. A system for external application integration in an ultrasonic imaging system comprising:

a user computing device having an ultrasonic application server operable to receive and process ultrasonic data via a predetermined interface;

an integrated interface program in the user computing device, the integrated interface program in communication with the ultrasonic application server and operable to invoke operations in the ultrasonic application server;

an external application operable to generate a command corresponding to the operations, and further operable to transmit the commands to the integrated interface program, wherein the integrated interface program invokes the ultrasonic application server to compute a result in response to the command, and transmits the result back to the external application.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein the integrated interface program is adapted to transmit information pertaining to data selected from the group consisting of radiation therapy data, fetal images, cardiac images, and image guided surgery.

30. The system of claim 28 wherein the result further comprises image data and transformation parameters.

31. The system of claim 28 further comprising a remote computer wherein the external application is on a remote computer.

32. The system of claim 28 further comprising a public access network, wherein the remote computer is connected to the ultrasonic application via the public access network.

33. The system of claim 32 wherein the public access network is the Internet.

34. The system of claim 33 wherein the transmitting via the integrated interface program further includes sockets.

35. The system of claim 34 wherein the GUI includes image control presets.

36. The system of claim 33 wherein the transmitting via the integrated interface program conforms to a predetermined protocol.

37. The system of claim 36 wherein the image control presets are operable to store image settings.

38. The system of claim 28 wherein the external application is on a remote computer.

39. The system of claim 38 wherein the predetermined protocol is TCP/IP.

40. The system of claim 39 wherein the image settings include settings selected from the group consisting of size, depth, focus, time gain compensation (TGC) and TGC lock.

41. The system of claim 28 wherein the command further comprises an instruction and at least one parameter.

42. The system of claim 41 wherein the command conforms to a predetermined interprocess communication interface.

43. The system of claim 42 wherein the command includes operations selected from the group consisting of freeze live data, fetch live data, export image, exit, initialize, and get status.

44. The system of claim 42 wherein the standardized interface is IEEE 1394.

45. The system of claim 28 further comprising:

a probe housing having a transducer array;

an interface system communicating with the probe housing, the interface system having a beamforming circuit, a memory, a system controller integrated circuit and a communication control circuit connected to the computing device with a standard communication interface.

46. The system of claim 45 wherein the interface system has a first circuit board assembly and a second circuit board assembly are mounted in an interface housing.

47. The system of claim 46 wherein the first circuit board assembly and the second circuit board assembly are electrically connected by a connector.

48. The system of claim 45 wherein the computing device comprises a body mounted system.

49. The system of claim 45 wherein the memory further comprises a video random access memory (VRAM).

50. The system of claim 45 wherein the standard communication interface comprises an IEEE 1394 interface.

51. The system of claim 45 wherein the standard communication interface comprises a universal serial bus (USB) interface.

52. A computer program product for external application integration in an ultrasonic imaging system, the computer program product including a computer usably medium having computer readable code therein and having computer program code, comprising:

a first computer program code for defining an ultrasonic application server having at least one untrasonic operation, the ultrasonic application server receiving a beamformed representation of a region of interest;

a second computer program code for defining an integrated interface program having a plurality of entry points into the ultrasonic application server, the entry points operable to access each of the at least one ultrasonic operations;

a third computer program code for sending, from the external application, a command indicative of at least one of the ultrasonic operations; and

a fourth computer program code for executing, in the ultrasonic application server, a result corresponding to the command.

53. A computer data signal for transmitting computer information for external application integration in an ultrasonic imaging system, the computer data signal resident on a computer usable medium having computer readable code therein including program code comprising:

a first program code for defining an ultrasonic application server having at least one ultrasonic operation in a computing device;

a second program code in the computing device for defining an integrated interface program having a plurality of entry points into the ultrasonic application server, the entry points operable to access each of the at least one ultrasonic operations;

a third program code for sending, from the external application, a command indicative of at least one of the ultrasonic operations; and

a fourth program code for computing, in the ultrasonic application server, a result corresponding to the command.