Color flow imaging system utilizing a frequency domain wall filter

US5349525A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• General Electric Company · US

Inventors

• Robert J. Dunki-Jacobs · Mason, US
• Anne Lindsay Hall · New Berlin, US
• Richard B. Bernardi · Strafford, US
• Matthew O'Donnell · Ann Arbor, US
• Lewis J. Thomas, III · Palo Alto, US
• Kenneth Brakeley Welles, II · Scotia, US
• William E. Engeler · Scotia, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 8, 1993
• Grant date: Sep 20, 1994
• Expiry date: Jan 8, 2013

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01S15/8981
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

An ultrasonic imaging system for displaying color flow images includes a receiver which demodulates ultrasonic echo signals received by a transducer array and dynamically focuses the baseband echo signals. A color flow processor includes a frequency domain adaptive wall filter which automatically adjusts to changes in Doppler-shifted frequency and bandwidth of the wall signal components in the focused baseband echo signals after the echo signals have undergone Fourier transformation into the frequency domain. The mean Doppler-shifted frequency of the resulting filtered baseband echo signals is used to indicate velocity of moving scatterers and to control color in the displayed image.