Portable 3D ultrasound system
First Claim
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1. A portable 3D ultrasound device, comprising:
- A. an ultrasound transducer, comprising;
a transducer array comprising a plurality of transducer elements arranged in a plurality of dimensions, the transducer array including an emitter to emit ultrasound energy and a receiver to receive responses generated in accordance with the emitted ultrasound energy; and
a plurality of sub-array beamformers, comprising;
a static receive delay to delay a plurality of the generated responses; and
a first summer electrically coupled to the static receive delay to sum the plurality of the delayed generated responses to generate a summed acoustic signal;
B. a signal processor electrically coupled to the first summer to convert the generated summed acoustic signal into a 3D ultrasound image; and
C. a display unit to display the 3D ultrasound image.
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Abstract
A portable 3D ultrasound device having an ultrasound transducer. The ultrasound transducer includes a transducer array with a plurality of transducer elements arranged in a plurality of dimensions, the transducer array including an emitter to emit ultrasound energy, a receiver to receive responses generated in accordance with the ultrasound energy, a plurality of sub-array beamformers, a signal processor to convert the generated responses into a 3D ultrasound image and a display unit to display the 3D ultrasound image.
92 Citations
19 Claims
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1. A portable 3D ultrasound device, comprising:
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A. an ultrasound transducer, comprising; a transducer array comprising a plurality of transducer elements arranged in a plurality of dimensions, the transducer array including an emitter to emit ultrasound energy and a receiver to receive responses generated in accordance with the emitted ultrasound energy; and a plurality of sub-array beamformers, comprising; a static receive delay to delay a plurality of the generated responses; and a first summer electrically coupled to the static receive delay to sum the plurality of the delayed generated responses to generate a summed acoustic signal; B. a signal processor electrically coupled to the first summer to convert the generated summed acoustic signal into a 3D ultrasound image; and C. a display unit to display the 3D ultrasound image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A portable 3D ultrasound device, comprising:
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A. a transducer, comprising; a plurality of acoustic elements in a form of a matrix array constructed from a plurality of transducer elements arranged in a plurality of dimensions, the matrix array included to transmit ultrasound energy and receive responses generated in accordance with the ultrasound energy, and a plurality of sub-array beamformers to generate a plurality of sub-array summed acoustic signals from the generated responses; B. a dynamic beamformer, comprising; a plurality of dynamic receive delays to delay the sub-array summed acoustic signals, and a full-array summer to sum the delayed sub-array summed acoustic signals to generate a full set of beamformed data; C. an image detector to generate 3D detected data from the full set of beamformed data; D. a scan converter to convert the 3D detected data into a 3D ultrasound image; and E. a display unit to display the 3D ultrasound image. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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18. A 3D ultrasound imaging method, comprising the steps of:
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scanning a body with a portable or hand-held device by transmitting ultrasound energy from the portable or hand-held device and receiving responses generated in accordance with the transmitted ultrasound energy with the portable or hand-held device; generating a plurality of sub-array summed RF acoustic signals using static beamforming techniques; generating a full array of beamformed RF data using dynamic beamforming; generating image detected data by image detecting the full array of generated beamformed RF data; converting the image detected data to a 3D ultrasound image with the portable or hand-held device; and displaying the 3D ultrasound image on the portable or hand-held device. - View Dependent Claims (19)
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Specification