Hitachi, Ltd.

Fujifilm Healthcare Corporation

Chizue Ishihara

Teiichiro Ikeda

Mayumi Suzuki

Kunio Hashiba

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Hiroki Tanaka

Shinta Takano

Hiroshi Kuribara

Akifumi Sako

Misaki Hiroshima

Masanori Hisatsu

Tomoko Takenaka

In performing aperture synthesis according to an ultrasound imaging apparatus, the amount of spatial change of amplification factors of phasing signals at respective receive phasing points are reduced, and a high-quality image is obtained. In a receive beamformer that generates an inter-transmission weight in accordance with a phasing range, and performs aperture synthesis processing, the inter-transmission weight being generated is applied to the receive phasing points within the phasing range obtained through transmission and reception, and the inter-transmission synthesis is performed. The inter-transmission weight is generated in such a manner that a variation form of the amplification factor between adjacent receive phasing points is smoothed and a difference of the amplification factor is reduced, as to each receive phasing point after the inter-transmission synthesis is performed.

Ultrasonic imaging device, method for adjusting inter-transmission weight, and ultrasonic imaging method

Without using any approximated wave front propagation model, appropriate delay times are set for received signals to obtain phased signals for both the inside and outside of irradiation area of transmission beam. A reception beamformer comprises a wave front propagation calculatorthat obtains times until ultrasonic waves transmitted from a plurality of ultrasonic transducers arrive at a reception focus by calculation, and a delay time extractorthat calculates delay times for the reception focus on the basis of distribution of the arrival times of the ultrasonic waves for each of the plurality of the ultrasonic transducers obtained by the wave front propagation calculator. Therefore, even if the wave front that arrives at the reception focus has a complicated shape, it is not necessary to approximate the wave front, and phasing addition can be performed with appropriate delay times obtained from times until the ultrasonic waves arrive at the reception focus.

Ultrasound image capturing device and method of processing ultrasound signal

A clutter reduction effect using adaptive beam forming is uniformly obtained with respect to the entire image even in an imaging condition in which the number of bundled signals is greatly distributed in an ultrasonic image. A received signal processing unit includes a summing unit that bundles the plurality of received signals for a predetermined imaging point or a plurality of signals obtained by processing the received signals, and a weighting unit that obtains a coherence value among the plurality of signals summed in the summing unit, and weights the plurality of signals before being summed in the summing unit or a signal obtained through summing in the summing unit, with a weight corresponding to the coherence value. The weighting unit weights the coherence value nonlinearly in a predetermined direction in the subject, and weights the plurality of signals before being summed in the summing unit or the signal obtained through summing in the summing unit by using the nonlinearly weighted coherence value.

Ultrasonic imaging device

Reception beamforming that does not generate discontinuity in the vicinity of the depth of a transmit focus is executed even if reception scanning lines are disposed outside of the irradiation area of a focusing-type transmission beam. The degree of discontinuity showing the discontinuity of reception signals detected by plural ultrasound elementsor the degree of discontinuity regarding the discontinuity of the wave fronts of phased signals is detected by a discontinuity extracting unit. If there is an area where the degree of discontinuity is larger than a predefined value, a delay time generating unitfor discontinuity elimination changes the delay times in the area where the discontinuity is generated.

Ultrasound imaging pickup apparatus

Reception beamforming is executed using delay times that complexly vary in accordance with differences between transmission conditions. An irradiation areaof a transmission beam is calculated, and the lengths of segments, using which delay times are calculated, are set in accordance with the positional relationships between the calculated irradiation areaand reception scanning lines. For example, the reception scanning linesare divided into areas A to C, and the lengths of segmentsb in the outer area B located outside of the irradiation areaare set shorter than the lengths of segmentsa andc in the inner areas A and C.

There is provided a technique for obtaining a high-quality image by extracting only a nonlinear component with high accuracy in ultrasonic imaging using an amplitude modulation method of THI. By removing a fundamental wave component with high accuracy by making the influence of electrical distortion due to analog amplification on the echo signals of ultrasonic waves having different sound pressure levels approximately the same, only the nonlinear component is extracted with high accuracy. For example, the above influence is made to be the same by controlling the amplification factor of an amplification section. In addition, the above influence is made to be the same by restoring the digital data with a filter.

Ultrasound imaging device and ultrasound imaging method

Provided is a technique that implements harmonic imaging in an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, being unaffected by the voltage-dependent distortion and nonlinear characteristics of the transmit system in the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus that incorporates the transmit amplifier, the ultrasound probe, and the like, facilitating adjustment of the transmit voltage, and achieving a frame rate substantially equivalent to that of the conventional PI method. In the amplitude modulation method that synthesizes the transmit acoustic fields, thereby eliminating a basic wave component of an acoustic wave and creating an image from nonlinear component echoes being extracted, one transmit and receive out of plural transmits and receptions to obtain one scanning line also serves as the transmit and receive for obtaining other scanning line. The echo signals obtained by the shared transmit and receive are used to form the receive beams respectively on both the scanning lines that share the transmit and receive.

Ultrasonic diagnosis device and ultrasonic image acquisition method

Even when electroacoustic conversion elements with high nonlinearity are employed, a nonlinear imaging is carried out with extracting more nonlinear components. An ultrasonic wave beam is transmitted twice from the transmitter to an identical position on the imaging target, and the signal processor performs computation on the reception signals obtained in every transmission performed twice, thereby extracting a nonlinear component included in the reception signals. In one transmission out of the transmission performed twice, the transmitter delivers the transmission signal to all of multiple electroacoustic conversion elements for driving the electroacoustic conversion elements, and in the other transmission, the transmission signal is delivered selectively only to a part of the multiple electroacoustic conversion elements for driving the electroacoustic conversion elements.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Chizue Ishihara