Ultrasonic signal processor for power doppler imaging in a hand held ultrasonic diagnostic instrument
US6383139B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 22, 1999 |
| Grant date | May 7, 2002 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 22, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01S7/52034
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
A hand held ultrasonic instrument is provided in a portable unit which performs both B mode and Doppler imaging. The instrument includes a transducer array mounted in a hand-held enclosure, with an integrated circuit transceiver connected to the elements of the array for the reception of echo signals. A digital signal processing circuit performs both B mode and Doppler signal processing such as filtering including wall filtering matrix and Hartley transform matrix functions, detection and Doppler estimation, as well as advanced functions such as assembly of multiple zone focused scanlines, synthetic aperture formation, depth dependent filtering, speckle reduction, flash suppression, and frame averaging. The advent of color flow imaging based on Doppler frequency estimation in medical ultrasound addresses a need for rapid assessment of overall flow characteristics in cardiac care. Typical prior art implementation utilize a high degree of temporal filtering in order to enhance the flow signal, but makes the image slow to respond to changes in flow. This is true of both directional and non-directional implementations, and is necessitated by the instability of traditional estimation te…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.