Medical ultrasonic imaging system with adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping

US6579238B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• ACUSON · US

Inventors

• Constantine Simopoulos · Menlo Park, US
• Kutay F. Ustuner · Mountain View, US
• Anming He Cai · San Jose, US
• Jeffrey T. Rahn · Mountain View, US
• John I. Jackson · Menlo Park, US
• Matthew O'Donnell · Ann Arbor, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 23, 2001
• Grant date: Jun 17, 2003
• Expiry date: Feb 23, 2021

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01S7/52036
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A medical ultrasonic imaging system uses an adaptive multi-dimensional back-end mapping stage to eliminate loss of information in the back-end, minimize any back-end quantization noise, reduce or eliminate electronic noise, and map the local average of soft tissue to a target display value throughout the image. The system uses spatial variance to identify regions of the image corresponding substantially to soft tissue and a noise frame acquired with the transmitters turned off to determine the mean system noise level. The system then uses the mean noise level and the identified regions of soft tissue to both locally and adaptively set various back-end mapping stages, including the gain and dynamic range.