Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Jun Koizumi

Kazuyoshi Irioka

Shigeyoshi Hasegawa

Eiichi Ookawa

Takashi Suzuki

Minoru Kobayashi

Michiyo Hirayama

Eiichi Okawa

Masao Onozuka

In an ultrasonic probe including an element partfor transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, a relay cableconnected to the element partand an oscillation mechanism part for oscillating the element part, a cross section of the relay cable, which is taken perpendicularly to a rotation axisof the oscillation that is provided to the element partby the oscillation mechanism part, has at least two arc-shaped parts smoothly connected each other, more specifically, S-shape arc-shaped parts or reversed S-shaped parts. In addition, the relay cableis drawn from the surface of the element partfacing the rotation axis. In this manner, the stress applied to the relay cableduring the oscillation of the element partcan be dispersed, thereby improving durability of the relay cable

Ultrasonic probe

An ultrasonic probe, including an ultrasonic element for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves; a sound window enclosing the ultrasonic element; and a sound propagation liquid charged in the sound window. A barrier layer capable of inhibiting the permeation of liquids and gases is provided on a wall surface of the sound window. As the barrier layer, at least one selected from a polyparaxylylene layer and a metal layer can be used.

The ultrasonic probe of the present invention includes an ultrasonic element unit for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, an oscillation mechanism for causing oscillation to the ultrasonic element unit and a detector for detecting the oscillation of the ultrasonic element unit. The detector detects the oscillation angle and the oscillation origin of the ultrasonic element unit, and when the oscillation range of the ultrasonic element unit is divided at its oscillation origin into two regions of a positive region and a negative region, the detector detects in which area the ultrasonic element unit is located. In use of the ultrasonic probe, a control of origin return for returning the ultrasonic element unit to its oscillation origin is performed on the basis of the result of the detection by the detector.

An ultrasonic motor drive device capable of prolong the service life of an ultrasonic motor by preventing the motor from being unstably operated when the motor is driven at a lower speed of at least two speeds. When the ultrasonic motor (3) is driven at a rather low speed in normal driving, the motor can be prevented from being unstably operated by its driving at a rather low speed by driving the motor at a rather high speed for each specified interval. Thus, the service life of the ultrasonic motor can be increased.

Ultrasonic motor driving device and ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus

An ultrasonic probe is provided which may be employed in medical applications to radiate an ultrasonic wave for inspecting the interior of a patient's body noninvasively. The ultrasonic probe includes a scan mechanism which consists of a rotating mechanism and a swinging mechanism. The rotating mechanism is designed to rotate a cylindrical holder having installed thereon a piezoelectric element which emits an ultrasonic wave and receives the echo. The swinging mechanism is designed to swing a rotary base which supports the rotating mechanism to swing the cylindrical holder about an axis of rotation extending perpendicular to that of the piezoelectric element.

Herein disclosed is an ultrasonic probe comprising a housing, a driven shaft rotatably supported by the housing, a transducer supported by the driven shaft to be swingable on one side of the driven shaft and operative to transduce an electric signal to and from an ultrasound, a drive shaft rotatably supported by the housing spaced apart from and in parallel relationship with the driven shaft in the predetermined direction; a drive motor supported on the housing and drivably connected to the drive shaft; and a drive belt passed on the driven shaft and the drive shaft to transmit the rotation from the drive motor to the transducer. The transducer has the ultrasound emitted therefrom and reflected thereto through the housing in a predetermined direction. The ultrasonic probe thus constructed makes it possible to reduce the rotation radius of the transducer independently of the size of the electric motor by spacing the rotation axes of the drive motor and the transducer in order to provide an ultrasonic probe smaller in size. The rotation of the drive motor transferred into the rotational motion of the transducer without causing a backlash prevents the accuracy of the ultrasonic probe from deteriorating.

Ultrasonic probe and method of producing same

An audio playback system wherein upon selection of a music genre there is made an automatic setting to an optimum frequency characteristic and at the same time a constant sound volume characteristic is obtained irrespective of the selected music genre. The audio playback system includes a memory which stores optimum equalizer characteristics and sound volume characteristics for plural music genre respectively, a mode setting device for setting a mode for each music genre by operation from the exterior, an equalizer characteristic selector for selecting a corresponding equalizer characteristic from the memory on the basis of the mode set by the mode setting device, and a sound volume characteristic selector for selecting a corresponding sound volume characteristic from the memory on the basis of the mode set by the mode setting device, wherein a sound is reproduced in accordance with the equalizer characteristic and sound volume characteristic selected by the equalizer characteristic selector and the sound volume characteristic selector, respectively.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Jun Koizumi