Signal processing apparatus for an ultrasound transducer, ultrasound receiver and method for operating an ultrasound receiver

• US 7,586,813 B2
• Filed: 07/25/2005
• Issued: 09/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Betriebsforschungsinstitut Vdeh-Institute Fr Angewandte Forschung
• Original Assignee: Betriebsforschungsinstitut Vdeh-Institute Fr Angewandte Forschung
• Inventors: Flohr, Guido, Coen, Gunther, Oberhoff, Dietmar
• Primary Examiner(s): PIHULIC, DANIEL T
• Application Number:
  US11/189,110
• Publication Number:
  US 20060036171A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,506 Days
• Field of Search: 367/135, 367/178, 600/437, 341/155
• US Class Current: 367/135
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/2412 using the magnetostrictive properties of the material to be examined, e.g. electromagnetic acoustic transducers [EMAT]; investigating the presence of flaws using eddy currents G01N27/90, magnetostrictive transducers B06B1/08, measuring magnetostrictive properties G01R33/18
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 29/36 Detecting the response signal , e.g. electronic circuits specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H03D 3/007 by converting the oscillations into two quadrature related signals H03D3/245 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 11/00 Transmission systems employing sonic, ultrasonic or infrasonic waves

Abstract

To reduce signal interference and improve the signal-to-noise ratio in the transmitted signal, the analog signals produced by an ultrasound transducer are promptly digitized. In accordance with the invention, the demodulator is already shielded from the ultrasound transducers, immediately after the preamplifier, which is itself shielded from the ultrasound transducers, by an analog to digital converter, for example.

Claims

1. A signal processing apparatus for an ultrasound transducer, comprising:

a first preamplifier for amplifying an analog signal produced by an ultrasound transducer to generate an amplified analog signal;

a first analog-to-digital converter directly connected to the preamplifier for producing a sequence of first digital signals from the amplified analog signal; and

a median filter for filtering the sequence of first digital signals, each of said first digital signals having a respective row of values in which each subsequent value in the row represents the value of the signal at the next sampling point of m sampling points that are recorded in a sampling window for each first digital signal, said first analog-to-digital converter being connected to a first median filter for filtering the sequence of first digital signals recorded in n sampling windows to produce a sequence of first filtered digital signals, said median filter being adapted to transfer a sequence of n rows having m values in each row to respective columns in an input matrix, sort the values in each row of the input matrix by size and output the value in each respective row that has the median size in the respective row of the input matrix to a result array, the values output to the result array providing a first median digital signal used to produce an output signal for the ultrasound transducer.

2. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a demodulator for producing a sequence of demodulated digital signals from the sequence of first digital signals.

3. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the analog-to-digital converter has at least a 14-bit resolution and at least a 50 MHz clock frequency.

4. The signal processing apparatus of claim 2, wherein the demodulator carries out a Hilbert transformation of the sequence of first digital signals.

5. The signal processing apparatus of claim 2, wherein the demodulator has an NOC, an I/Q mixer and CIC filter, and an FIR filter and Cartesian-to-polar coordinate converter.

6. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the preamplifier is a constant preamplifier.

7. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a switch-controlled bypass for the median filter.

8. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an Ethernet connection for connecting digital signals in the ultrasound receiver to a network.

9. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a second ultrasound transducer generating a second analog signal;

a second preamplifier amplifying the second analog signal to produce an amplified analog signal; and

a second analog-to-digital converter directly connected to the second preamplifier for producing a second digital signal from the amplified analog signal produced by the second preamplifier.

10. The signal processing apparatus of claim 9, further comprising a multiplier for adjusting the first digital signal to produce a multiplied signal;

a delay element for adjusting the second digital signal to produce a delayed signal; and

an adder for adding the multiplied signal and the delayed signal to produce an addition signal.

11. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the multiplier has an adjustable multiplication factor.

12. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the delay element has an adjustable delay.

13. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, further comprising an analyzer for observing the first and the second digital signal.

14. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the multiplier has an adjustable multiplication factor, further comprising an analyzer for observing the first and the second digital signal, which analyzer determines the multiplication factor.

15. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the multiplier has an adjustable multiplication factor, further comprising an analyzer for observing the first and the second digital signal, which analyzer controls the multiplication factor.

16. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the delay has an adjustable delay further comprising an analyzer for observing the first and the second digital signal, which analyzer determines the delay.

17. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the delay has an adjustable delay, further comprising an analyzer for observing the first and the second digital signal, which analyzer controls the delay.

18. The signal processing apparatus of claim 10, further comprising means for manually controlling at least one of said adjustments to the first and second digital signals for observing the addition signal.

19. The signal processing apparatus of claim 18, wherein at least one of said adjustments to the first and second digital signals has a predetermined value.

20. The signal processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein a 400 μ

s window is used to provide 32,000 sampling points when signals sent at 6 millisecond intervals.

21. A signal processing apparatus for an ultrasound transducer, comprising:

a first analog-to-digital converter directly connected to the ultrasound transducer for producing a sequence of first digital signals from a sequence of first analog signals produced by the ultrasound transducer; and

a demodulator for producing a sequence of demodulated digital signals from the sequence of first digital signals, said demodulator being spatially separated from said first analog-to-digital converter, wherein the demodulator includes an NOC, an I/Q mixer and CIC filter, and an FIR filter and a Cartesian-to-polar coordinate converter.

22. The signal processing apparatus of claim 21, wherein the demodulator carries out a Hilbert transformation of the sequence of first digital signals.

23. The signal processing apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a median filter for filtering a sequence of the digital signals to produce a filtered digital signal.

24. The signal processing apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a switch-controlled bypass for the median filter.

25. The signal processing apparatus of claim 21, further comprising an Ethernet connection for connecting digital signals in the ultrasound receiver to a network.

26. The signal processing apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a second analog-to-digital converter producing a second digital signal from an analog signal produced by a second ultrasound transducer.

27. A signal processing method, comprising the steps of:

producing a sequence of analog signals from an ultrasound transducer;

amplifying in the sequence of analog signals in a preamplifier to a sequence of amplified analog signals;

providing the sequence of amplified analog signals to an analog-to-digital converter directly connected to the preamplifier to produce a sequence of first digital signals from the sequence of amplified analog signals wherein each of said first digital signals in the sequence of first digital signals has a respective row of values in which each subsequent value in the row represents the value of the respective first digital signal at the next sampling point of m sampling points that are recorded in a sampling window,

providing the rows of values for the sequence of first digital signals to a median filter for filtering the sequence of first digital signals recorded in n sampling windows to produce a sequence of first filtered digital signals;

transferring a sequence of n rows having m values in each row to an respective columns in an input matrix;

sorting the values in each row of the input matrix by size;

providing the value that has the median size in each row of the input matrix to a result array; and

using the values in the result array to produce a first output digital signal for the ultrasound transducer.

28. The signal processing method of claim 27, further comprising the step of supplying the sequence of first digital signals to a demodulator to produce a sequence of first demodulated digital signals.

29. The signal processing method of claim 27, wherein the preamplifier is a constant preamplifier.

30. The signal processing method of claim 27, wherein a 400 μ

s window is used to provide 32,000 sampling points when signals sent at 6 millisecond intervals.