Bk Medical Aps

B-K Medical A/s

Jorgen Arendt Jensen

Erik Vilain Thomsen

Matthias Bo Stuart

Thomas Lehrmann Christiansen

Morten Fischer Rasmussen

Hamed Bouzari

Jacob Bjerring Olesen

Carlos Armando Villagomez-Hoyos

Simon Holbek

Martin Hemmsen

Mathias Engholm

Svetoslav Ivanov Nikolov

Bo Martins

Ramin Moshavegh

Borislav G Tomov

Jonas Jensen

Michael Johannes Pihl

Iman Taghavi

Tommaso Di Ianni

Martin C Hemmsen

A transducer array () includes at least one 1D array of transducing elements (). The at least one 1D array of transducing elements includes a plurality of transducing elements (). A first of the plurality of transducing elements has a first apodization and a second of the plurality of transducing elements has a second apodization. The first apodization and the second apodization are different. The transducer array further includes at least one electrically conductive element () in electrical communication with each of the plurality of transducing elements. The transducer array further includes at least one electrical contact () in electrical communication with the at least one electrically conductive element. The at least one electrical contact concurrently addresses the plurality of transducing elements through the at least one electrically conductive element.

Ultrasound imaging transducer array with integrated apodization

An ultrasound imaging system includes a transducer array () with a plurality of transducer elements () configured to transmit an ultrasound signal, receive echo signals produced in response to the ultrasound signal interacting with stationary structure and flowing structure, and generate electrical signals indicative of the echo signals. The system further includes a beamformer () configured to process the electrical signals and generate sequences, in time, of beamformed data. The system further includes a filter () configured to process the beamformed data, and remove or replace a set of frequency components based on a threshold, producing corrected beamformed data. The system further includes a flow processor () configured to estimate a velocity of flowing structure from the corrected beamformed data. The system further includes a rendering engine () configured to display the flow velocity estimate on a display ().

Ultrasound flow imaging

An ultrasound imaging system () includes a 2-D transducer array () with a first 1-D array () of one or more rows of transducing elements () configured to produce first ultrasound data and a second 1-D array () of one or more columns of transducing elements () configured to produce second ultrasound data. The first and second 1-D arrays are configured for row-column addressing. The ultrasound imaging system further includes a controller () configured to control transmission and reception of the first and second 1-D arrays, and a beamformer () configured to beamform the received first and second echoes to produce ultrasound data, and an image processor () configured to process the ultrasound data to generate an image, which is displayed via a display ().

3-D imaging and/or flow estimation with a row-column addressed 2-D transducer array

An apparatus includes a processor and a display. The processor includes a combiner configured to combine contrast data acquired with a same sub-aperture, for each of a plurality of sub-apertures, to create a contrast frame for each of the sub-apertures. The processor includes a microbubble detector configured to determine positions of microbubbles in the contrast frames. The processor includes a motion estimator configured to estimate a motion field based on frames of B-mode data for each of the plurality of sub-apertures. The processor includes a motion corrector configured to motion correct the positions of the microbubbles in the contrast frames based on the motion field and time delays between emissions for the sets of contrast data and the emission for B-mode data, for each of the plurality of sub-apertures, to produce motion corrected contrast frames. The display is configured to display the motion corrected contrast frames as super resolution images.

Ultrasound super resolution imaging

An ultrasound imaging system () includes a transducer array () with plurality of transducer elements () configured to transmit an ultrasound signal and receive echoes. Transmit circuitry () is configured to excite the transducer elements to transmit the ultrasound signal along a propagation direction. Receive circuitry () is configured to receive an echo signal produced in response to the ultrasound signal traversing flowing structure in the field of view. A beamformer () is configured to beamform the echo signal and produce a single directional signal at a depth. The directional signal is transverse to the propagation direction of the ultrasound signal. A velocity processor () is configured to transform the directional signal to produce a corresponding quadrature signal, estimate a depth velocity component and a transverse velocity component at the depth based on the directional signal and the quadrature signal, and generate a signal indicative of the estimate.

Ultrasound imaging flow vector velocity estimation with directional transverse oscillation

A method for determining a flow acceleration directly from beamformed ultrasound data includes extracting a sub-set of data from the beamformed ultrasound data, wherein the sub-set of data corresponds to predetermined times and predetermined positions of interest, determining the flow acceleration directly from the extracted sub-set of data, and generating a signal indicative of the determined flow acceleration. An apparatus includes a beamformer () configured to processes electrical signals indicative of received echoes produced in response to an interaction of a transmitted ultrasound signal with tissue and generate RF data, and an acceleration flow processor () configured to directly process the RF data and generate a flow acceleration therefrom.

Flow acceleration estimation directly from beamformed ultrasound data

A method for determining pressure gradients with ultrasound data includes acquiring ultrasound data of a vessel and generating a velocity vector profile for flow in the vessel with the ultrasound data. The method further includes computing an acceleration with the velocity vector profile. The acceleration includes at least a temporal acceleration, and computing the temporal acceleration includes reducing noise from the velocity vector profile and determining the temporal acceleration from the noise-reduced velocity data. The method further includes determining the pressure gradients with the computed acceleration. The method further includes displaying an ultrasound image of the vessel with indicia indicative of the pressure gradients superimposed thereover.

Non-invasive estimation of intravascular pressure changes using vector velocity ultrasound (US)

A transducer array () for an ultrasound imaging system () includes a row-column addressed 2-D array of transducer elements (). The row-column addressed 2-D includes a first array of 1-D arrays of elements, a second array of 1-D arrays of elements, which is orthogonal to the first array, and a double-curved surface (). In another aspect, an apparatus includes a transducer array with an array-wise addressable 2-D array with a curved surface. The 2-D array includes a set of 1-D column array elements and a set of 1-D row array elements. The apparatus further includes transmit circuitry () that conveys an excitation pulse to the transducer array, receive circuitry () that receives a signal indicative of an ultrasound echo from the transducer array, and a beamformer () that processes the received signal, generating ultrasound image data.

Row-column addressed 2-D array with a double curved surface

An ultrasound imaging system includes a transducer array. The array is configured for row-column addressing. The array of transducer elements includes a plurality of first 1-D arrays and a plurality of second 1-D arrays, which is orthogonal to the plurality of first 1-D arrays. The array of transducer elements further includes a plurality of front-end circuits. A single front-end circuit of the front-end circuits is in electrical communication with a single pair of 1-D arrays, which consists of a first 1-D array of the plurality of first 1-D arrays and a second 1-D array of the plurality of second 1-D arrays. The first and second 1-D arrays are either separate sets of 1-D arrays or part of a same 2-D array. In one instance, for N rows and N columns, a number of electrical connections between the elements and front-end electronics are less than 2N.

Row-column addressed array with N rows and N columns and with less than 2N electrical connections

An ultrasound imaging system includes a probe and a console. The probe includes a row-column addressed transducer array, first beamformer configured to beamform echo signals received by the row-column addressed transducer array and produce a set of image planes for each emission with a single focus in both transmit and receive, and a first communication interface. The console includes a second complementary communication interface and a second beamformer configured to beamform the focused set of image planes and produce a three-dimensional volume of ultrasound data.

Three-dimensional (3-D) imaging with a row-column addressed (RCA) transducer array using synthetic aperture sequential beamforming (SASB)

An ultrasound imaging system includes an image processor and a velocity processor configured to process beamformed ultrasound data representing structure flowing through a tubular object and generate, respectively, an image indicative of the tubular object and vector flow imaging data indicative of the structure flowing through the tubular object. The system further includes a segmentation processor configured to segment the tubular object from the image based on a combination of both the vector flow imaging data and the image, wherein a resulting segmentation extends from wall-to-wall of the tubular object. The system further includes a display configured to display the image with the segmentation and the vector flow imaging data superimposed thereover, with the vector flow imaging data extending from wall-to-wall within the tubular object. The system further includes the automatic computation of largest vessel diameter (Dmax), and/or quantitative flow measures such as Peak systolic velocity (PSV) and/or volume flow.

Wall-to-wall vessel segmentation in US imaging using a combination of VFI data and US imaging data

Continuously transmitting, with a transducer array, an ultrasound signal in one direction beamforming, with a beamformer, an echo signal received by the transducer array using on a predetermined apodization function, wherein the echo signal is generated in response to an interaction of the ultrasound signal with flowing structure estimating, with a velocity processor, a vector velocity of the flow, including velocity components, as a function of depth and time from the beamformed echo signals using transverse oscillation vector velocity estimation, generating, with a measurement processor, a quantitative measurement from the velocity components, and visually displaying, with a display monitor, the quantitative measurement.

Transverse oscillation vector estimation in ultrasound imaging

An ultrasound imaging system () includes a transducer array () that emits an ultrasound beam and produces at least one transverse pulse-echo field that oscillates in a direction transverse to the emitted ultrasound beam and that receive echoes produced in response thereto and a spectral velocity estimator () that determines a velocity spectrum for flowing structure, which flows at an angle of 90 degrees and flows at angles less than 90 degrees with respect to the emitted ultrasound beam, based on the received echoes.

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Horsholm, Denmark

Jorgen Arendt Jensen