Medical ultrasonic imaging pulse transmission method
First Claim
1. A medical ultrasonic imaging pulse transmission method comprising:
- (a) transmitting with an ultrasonic imaging system a set of at least three ultrasonic pulses with a transducer array comprising N transducer elements, said set of pulses comprising K subsets of pulses, each subset characterized by a respective transmit phase, at least two of the transmit phases differing from one another, each of the pulses of the set comprising a respective aperture, the apertures of at least two of the pulses differing in number of active transducer elements;
(b) selecting the apertures used in (a) such that each transducer element n is active for a total of A(n) pulses in each of the subsets.
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Abstract
A medical ultrasound imaging pulse transmission method transmits at least three pulses, including at least two pulses of different amplitude and at least two pulses of differing phase. The larger-amplitude pulse is transmitted with a larger aperture and the smaller-amplitude pulses are transmitted with respective smaller subapertures. The subapertures are arranged such that the sum of the subapertures used for the smaller-amplitude pulses is equal to the aperture used for the larger-amplitude pulse. In this way, pulses of differing amplitudes are obtained without varying the power level of individual transducer elements, and precise control over pulse amplitude is provided.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A medical ultrasonic imaging pulse transmission method comprising:
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(a) transmitting with an ultrasonic imaging system a set of at least three ultrasonic pulses with a transducer array comprising N transducer elements, said set of pulses comprising K subsets of pulses, each subset characterized by a respective transmit phase, at least two of the transmit phases differing from one another, each of the pulses of the set comprising a respective aperture, the apertures of at least two of the pulses differing in number of active transducer elements;
(b) selecting the apertures used in (a) such that each transducer element n is active for a total of A(n) pulses in each of the subsets. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
(c) receiving echo signals from the pulses in the set; and
(d) combining the echo signals.
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8. The method of claim 7 wherein (d) substantially cancels a fundamental component of the echo signals.
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9. The method of claim 1 or 2 wherein all of the pulses of the set are steered along a single acoustic line in (a).
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10. The method of claim 1 or 2 wherein at least one of the pulses of the set is steered along a first acoustic line in (a), and wherein at least another one of the pulses of the set is steered along a second acoustic line in (a), spatially distinct from the first acoustic line.
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2. A medical ultrasonic imaging pulse transmission method comprising:
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(a) transmitting with an ultrasonic imaging system a set of at least three ultrasonic pulses with a transducer array comprising N transducer elements, said set of pulses comprising K subsets of pulses, each subset characterized by a respective transmit phase, at least two of the transmit phases differing from one another, each of the pulses of the set comprising a respective aperture, the apertures of at least two of the pulses differing in number of active transducer elements;
(b) during (a), activating each transducer element n for a total of A(n) times during each of the K subsets.
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Specification