Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Bfly Operations, Inc.

Hewlett-packard Company

Butterfly Network, Inc.

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Georgia Tech Research Corporation

Karl E Thiele

Abraham Neben

Matthew De Jonge

Bernard Joseph Savord

David Elgena

Jonathan Marc Rothberg

Michal Sofka

Tomer Gafner

Alex Rothberg

Robert Schneider

Sheng-Wen Huang

Nevada J Sanchez

Ajit P Yoganathan

Earl M Canfield

David W Rust

Ramon Quido Erkamp

David W Clark

Emil George Radulescu

Shougang Wang

David Prater

Rodney J Solomon

Mckee Dunn Poland

George Anthony Brock-Fisher

Patrick G Rafter

Brent Stephen Robinson

Paul A Magnin

Jaime Scott Zahorian

David Lipschutz

Jean-Luc Robert

Clifford R Cooley

Darwin Philip Adams

Benjamin M Herrick

Jason Z Fischman

Steven C Leavitt

Thomas J Hunt

Michael R Burcher

Neil Ferrier

Adam Mekeel Mack

Timothy A Hyde

Janice Frisa

Qifeng Wei

Kevin Bradley

Brenda Gonyeau

Choon-Hwai Yap

Jerome F Witt

Richard A Hager

George Adleman

J Mark Ziel

Richard B Smith

Ryan Silvestri

Kevin Coss

Alexander Tykulsky

Hamid Soleimani

Michael Burcher

Leung Kin Chiu

Leslie I Halberg

Elizabeth Lauer

Larry Lingnan Liu

Tomohiro Hasegawa

James R Mniece

Robert L Burnham

Showna Hsu-Hwa Chang

Samuel Cherna

Gianfranco Bocchio

Murad Omar

Mona Shrestha

Jonathan Mark Ziel

Atul Ingle

Abhay Vijay Patil

Stephen E Lincoln

Paul R Kranz

Kimberly K Robertson

Ann Brauch

Clifford Cooley

A system for coherence imaging may receive ultrasound signals each having a respective delay associated with a respective ultrasonic transducer element in an ultrasonic transducer array. The system may obtain an approximation of the auto-correlation of ultrasound signals without any auto-correlation calculation, and determine the output image based on the approximation. In approximating the auto-correlation, the system may group the ultrasound signals into multiple portions, each corresponding to a respective sub-aperture of a plurality of sub-apertures of the ultrasonic transducer array. The system may determine a coherent sum of signals for each sub-aperture, perform a square operation or magnitude square operation over the coherent sum to obtain resulting data, normalize the resulting data, and sum the resulting data for all of the sub-apertures to generate the output image. A sub-aperture in the plurality of sub-apertures may overlap with another sub-aperture.

Methods and systems for coherence imaging in obtaining ultrasound images

An apparatus includes a processing device in operative communication with an ultrasound device. The processing device is configured to: receive a user selection of a lung imaging preset option and a user-selected imaging depth for the ultrasound device; define a threshold imaging depth based on a shallow lung imaging mode and a deep lung imaging mode (the threshold imaging depth is between approximately 4 cm and 8 cm); after receiving the user selection of the user-selected imaging depth, compare the user-selected imaging depth with the threshold imaging depth; and automatically configure the ultrasound device to switch between the shallow lung imaging mode and deep lung imaging mode, depending upon a result of the comparison of the user-selected imaging depth with the threshold imaging depth.

Methods and apparatuses for ultrasound imaging of lungs

Beamforming circuitry for an ultrasound device is disclosed, that may directly calculate the position in receive line space for an incoming ultrasound data sample given the time of flight (ToF) of that ultrasound data sample. In some embodiments, this may be done without initially buffering the ultrasound data sample received from the particular receive datapath multiplexed to the beamforming circuitry. The beamforming circuitry may then associate the ultrasound data sample with that position in receive line space, and in particular, with a memory address corresponding to that location. Thus, when the beamforming circuitry multiplexes between different receive datapaths, it may not need to buffer ultrasound data samples from different receive datapaths prior to saving the data to memory.

Methods and apparatuses for beamforming in ultrasound systems using unbuffered data samples

An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system scans a plurality of planar slices in a volumetric region which are parallel to each other. Following detection of the image data of the slices the slice data is combined by projecting the data in the elevation dimension to produce a 'thick slice' image. Combining may be by means of an averaging or maximum intensity detection or weighting process or by raycasting in the elevation dimension in a volumetric rendering process. Thick slice images are displayed at a high frame rate of display by combining a newly acquired slice with slices previously acquired from different elevational planes which were used in a previous combination. A new thick slice image may be produced each time at least one of the slice images is updated by a newly acquired slice. Frame rate is further improved by multiline acquisition of the slices.

High speed ultrasonic thick slice imaging by combining slice images with microbeamformer provided in the probe to control steering

Aspects of the technology described herein relate to techniques for guiding an operator to use an ultrasound device. Thereby, operators with little or no experience operating ultrasound devices may capture medically relevant ultrasound images and/or interpret the contents of the obtained ultrasound images. For example, some of the techniques disclosed herein may be used to identify a particular anatomical view of a subject to image with an ultrasound device, guide an operator of the ultrasound device to capture an ultrasound image of the subject that contains the particular anatomical view, and/or analyze the captured ultrasound image to identify medical information about the subject.

Augmented reality interface for assisting a user to operate an ultrasound device

A graphical user interface displayed by a processing device in operative communication with an ultrasound device may include a preset filter option that provides an easy way to switch between different presets which belong to a preset family. The user uses the preset filter feature to cycle through the different presets in the family while remaining on the same screen that is showing ultrasound images collected in real time. The imaging depth remains the same while the user is using the preset filter feature to select the preset within a family. Other settings such as time-gain compensation may not remain the same when cycling between presets. The preset filter feature allows a user to continuously view and assess the ultrasound images being collected in real time while cycling through the presets in the family.

System and method for graphical user interface with filter for ultrasound image presets

Real time strain imaging is provided by acquiring a sequence of cardiac image frames and estimating tissue displacement in the myocardium over a heart cycle. The displacements are used to calculate strain over the myocardium and a color map is formed of the strain values. During the next heart cycle the color map is warped to fit the myocardium in each image frame and the warped color map is displayed as a color overlay over the myocardium of each image of the new heart cycle as they are displayed in real time. A new color map is also produced over the new heart cycle for use with the following heart cycle. An ultrasound system which performs real time strain imaging is also described.

Evaluation of cardiac infarction by real time ultrasonic strain imaging

Aspects of the technology described herein relate to ultrasound imaging of lungs. An ultrasound device may be configured with a set of parameter values associated with a shallow lung imaging mode. A selection of a change in imaging depth may be received. If the selected imaging depth is greater than or equal to a threshold imaging depth, the ultrasound device may be configured with a set of parameter values associated with a deep lung imaging mode. The set of parameter values associated with the shallow lung imaging mode may be optimized for imaging lung sliding and the set of parameter values associated with the deep lung imaging mode may be optimized for imaging A lines and B lines.

A method for using an interactive visual guidance tool for an imaging acquisition and display configured for user navigation with respect to a blockage of a field of view detects, and spatially defines, the blockage. It also integrates, with the image for joint visualization, an indicium that visually represents the definition. The indicium is moved dynamically according to movement, relative to the blockage, of the field of view. The indicium can be shaped like a line segment, or two indicia can be joined in a 'V' shape to frame a region of non-blockage. The defining may be based on determining whether ultrasound beams in respective directions are blocked.

Rib blockage delineation in anatomically intelligent echocardiography

Ultrasound devices and methods are described for collecting ultrasound data. An ultrasound device may include an ultrasound transducer array. The ultrasound device may collect ultrasound data along multiple elevational steering angles with respective apertures of different sizes. The ultrasound data may be used to perform a measurement or generate a visualization.

Methods and apparatuses for collection of ultrasound data along different elevational steering angles

Ultrasound apparatus and methods of processing signals are described. The ultrasound apparatus may include multiple channels. In some embodiments, signal processing techniques are described, which in some embodiments are performed on a per-channel basis. The signal processing techniques may involve using down-conversion and filtering of signals on multiple channels. The down-conversion and filtering may be done prior to beamforming.

Methods and apparatuses for processing ultrasound signals

Generating high speed ultrasonic thick slice imaging by combining data in elevation direction via volumetric rendering process

Ultrasound probe

Growing community of inventors

Andover, MA, United States of America

Karl E Thiele