Method and apparatus to produce ultrasonic images using multiple apertures
First Claim
1. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising:
- a transmit transducer array for insonifying selected object and/or area of living tissue with a directional ultrasound pulse;
at least one receive transducer for detecting and recording ultrasound echo returns, wherein said at least one receive transducer is relatively non-directional in a plane of scan, is angled differently from said transmit transducer array, and is separated from said transmit transducer array;
a computer in electronic communication with said transmit transducer array and said at least one receive transducer, said computer having hardware and software for digitizing and storing each ultrasound echo in a line of computer memory, determining the location of said transmit transducer in relation to said at least one receive transducer, reconstructing scan lines as lines on a reconstructed image based on the determination of the location of the at least one receive transducer relative to that of the transmit transducer array and the average speed of ultrasound in the tissue object, and image processing to fill in gaps between scan lines.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A combination of an ultrasonic scanner and an omnidirectional receive transducer for producing a two-dimensional image from the echoes received by the single omnidirectional transducer is described. Two-dimensional images with different noise components can be constructed from the echoes received by additional transducers. These can be combined to produce images with better signal to noise ratios and lateral resolution. Also disclosed is a method based on information content to compensate for the different delays for different paths through intervening tissue is described. Specular reflections are attenuated by using even a single omnidirectional receiver displaced from the insonifying probe. The disclosed techniques have broad application in medical imaging but are ideally suited to multi-aperture cardiac imaging using two or more intercostal spaces. Since lateral resolution is determined primarily by the aperture defined by the end elements, it is not necessary to fill the entire aperture with equally spaced elements. In fact, gaps can be left to accommodate spanning a patient'"'"'s ribs, or simply to reduce the cost of the large aperture array. Multiple slices using these methods can be combined to form three-dimensional images.
-
Citations
19 Claims
-
1. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising:
-
a transmit transducer array for insonifying selected object and/or area of living tissue with a directional ultrasound pulse; at least one receive transducer for detecting and recording ultrasound echo returns, wherein said at least one receive transducer is relatively non-directional in a plane of scan, is angled differently from said transmit transducer array, and is separated from said transmit transducer array; a computer in electronic communication with said transmit transducer array and said at least one receive transducer, said computer having hardware and software for digitizing and storing each ultrasound echo in a line of computer memory, determining the location of said transmit transducer in relation to said at least one receive transducer, reconstructing scan lines as lines on a reconstructed image based on the determination of the location of the at least one receive transducer relative to that of the transmit transducer array and the average speed of ultrasound in the tissue object, and image processing to fill in gaps between scan lines. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
-
10. A method of reconstructing an image, comprising the steps of:
-
(a) insonifying an object one scan line at a time with a directional ultrasound pulse generated from a transmit transducer; (b) recording at least one echo received by one or more relatively non-directional receive transducer elements angled differently than the transmit transducer, including at least one receive transducer element that is separated from the transmit transducer; (c) storing the at least one echo in a line of computer memory; (d) reconstructing scan lines as lines on a reconstructed image based on knowledge of a location of the receive transducer elements relative to that of the transmit transducer and the average speed of ultrasound in the object; and (e) image processing to fill in gaps between scan lines, to combine overlapping scan lines. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
Specification