Advanced Technology Laboratories, Inc.

Sonosite, Inc.

Atl Ultrasound, Inc.

Atlantis Diagnostics International, LLC

Jacques Souquet

Lauren S Pflugrath

Pascal Roncalez

Michael A Wood

Blake W Little

Juin-Jet Hwang

Justin M Coughlin

William R Ogle

Steven G Danielson

Larry Greisel

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, 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.

Ultrasonic signal processor for a hand held ultrasonic diagnostic

A medical ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system is provided which is capable of being accessed over data communication networks such as the Internet, making the ultrasonic images, diagnostic reports, and ultrasound system diagnostics information and operation accessible to a conventional personal computer using commercially available software at virtually any remote location. In one embodiment, the ultrasound system can be remotely operated from the personal computer. The inventive apparatus and techniques make it possible for physicians to remotely access, control, and perform diagnoses using their ultrasound systems over a network such as the World Wide Web with no special hardware requirements.

Ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system with universal access to diagnostic

A hand held ultrasonic instrument is provided in a portable unit which performs both B mode and Doppler imaging. In a preferred embodiment an array transducer, digital beamformer, digital filter, and image processor are packaged in one or more enclosures weighing ten pounds (4.5 kilograms) or less.

Hand held ultrasonic diagnostic instrument

A remotely upgradeable medical diagnostic ultrasound system is described which is upgradeable with a new transducer probe by means of air shipment of the upgrade hardware and remote transmission of upgrade data which controls operation of the probe. The ultrasound system includes a data communicator such as a network link or modem for receiving upgrade data from a remote location. A process for upgrading the system is provided whereby a communications link is established over a common carrier communications medium between the ultrasound system and a remote terminal, which transmits upgrade program data to the ultrasound system. The program data portion of an upgrade is provided via the communications link while the hardware portion of the upgrade is shipped by air freight to the user. In this way, an ultrasound upgrade can be provided to a user from a remote location in a matter of hours.

Medical ultrasonic diagnostic system with upgradeable transducer probes

An ultrasonic diagnostic transducer array is provided for providing electronic focusing in the longitudinal plane and elevational focusing. Elements of the array are subdiced in the elevational direction to provide subelements with aspect ratios varying in proportion to their distance to the central longitudinal axis of the array. Such variation affords varying electro-mechanical coupling coefficients to the subelements such that the intensity of the transmitted energy is centered about the central longitudinal axis. In a second embodiment elements exhibit extensions in the elevational direction which vary in proportion to their displacement from the longitudinal center of the array. The extended elements are acoustically separated into subelements in the elevational direction to provide elevational focusing or spatial compounding of the transmitted acoustic energy.

Growing community of inventors

Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Jacques Souquet