General Electric Company

Kenneth Wayne Rigby

Lowell Scott Smith

Bruno Hans Haider

Kai Erik Thomenius

Christopher Robert Hazard

Robert Gideon Wodnicki

Anne Lindsay Hall

Warren Lee

Moayyed A Hussain

Christopher Michael Puleo

Michael J Washburn

Richard Yung Chiao

Glenn Scott Claydon

Paul Michael Smigelski, Jr

Kjell Kristoffersen

Naresh Kesavan Rao

Erik Leeming Kvam

Steven Charles Miller

David Martin Mills

Lewis Jones Thomas, Iii

Victoria Eugenia Cotero

Rayette Ann Fisher

Robert Scott Duthie

Wei-Cheng Tian

Aiman A Abdel-Malek

Feng Lin

James Edward Rothman

Alexander Sokulin

Craig Patrick Galligan

Krishnakumar Sundaresan

Jason William Castle

Jean-Francois Gelly

Gregory Andrew Grossman

John Donald Burczak

Mirsaid Seyed Bolorforosh

Koeunyi Bae

Ye-Ming Li

Stanley Chu

Hyon-Jin Kwon

Jie Sun

Sam Yie-Sum Wong

Linda Ann Itani

A separation device, system and associated method are provided herein for separation of particulates form a base fluid. The separation device comprises a first microchannel comprising a fluid inlet and a mesofluidic collection chamber. The mesofluidic collection chamber has a first side and a second side, wherein the mesofluidic collection chamber is operatively coupled to the first microchannel on the first side, and wherein the mesofluidic collection chamber comprises a first fluid outlet at the second side, such that the fluid inlet, first microchannel, and first fluid outlet are in fluidic communication via the mesofluidic collection chamber.

Devices for separation of particulates, associated methods and systems

Systems and methods for time-delay inverted beamforming are provided. One method includes sampling, substantially uniformly in time, a set of continuous-time element signals to form a set of sampled element signals and mapping, for each sampled element signal, one or more samples substantially equally spaced in time to one or more samples non-equally spaced in time corresponding to the respective contribution of each element signal to a continuous-time beamsum signal. The method also includes forming a beamsum signal sampled substantially uniformly in time from the non-uniformly spaced, mapped samples corresponding to each sampled element signal.

Systems and methods for inverted beamforming

An ultrasound imaging method for detecting a target region of altered stiffness is provided. The method comprises delivering at least one reference pulse to the target region to detect an initial position of the target region, delivering a first pushing pulse having a first value of a variable parameter to a target region to displace the target region to a first displaced position, delivering a first tracking pulse to detect the first displaced position of the target region, delivering a second pushing pulse having a second value of the variable parameter to the target region to displace the target region to a second displaced position, and delivering a second tracking pulse to detect the second displaced position of the target region. An ultrasound imaging system for detecting a region of altered stiffness is also provided.

Systems and methods for detecting regions of altered stiffness

A method for correcting ultrasound data includes acquiring ultrasound data using an ultrasound probe having a plurality of transducer elements associated with a plurality of channels that include conductive pathways and communicating the ultrasound data as received ultrasound signals along the conductive pathways of the channels. The method further includes determining a crosstalk signal that is generated in one or more of the channels by at least one of communication of the received ultrasound signals along the channels or vibration of one or more of the transducer elements. In one aspect, the method also includes modifying one or more subsequently acquired ultrasound signals that are communicated along the channels based on the crosstalk signal.

Method and system for correcting ultrasound data

Methods and systems for improving correlation of shear displacement waveforms are presented. The method includes delivering one or more reference pulses to a plurality of target regions to detect corresponding initial positions. Further, a plurality of pushing pulse segments are delivered to one or more pushing locations, where one or more parameters corresponding to the plurality of pushing pulse segments are adapted for generating a shear displacement waveform with a desired wave shape. Additionally, one or more tracking pulses may be delivered to the plurality of target regions for detecting displacements of at least a subset of the target regions as a function of time. Particularly, the displacements are determined as time samples of the shear displacement waveform. Subsequently, a shift between the shear displacement waveform detected at least two different target regions in the subset of the plurality of target regions is detected.

Methods and systems for improved correlation of shear displacement waveforms

A method for Fresnel zone imaging is provided. The method comprises identifying a plurality of constructive regions and a plurality of destructive regions in an energy transmitting device and converting the destructive regions to the constructive regions by using an apodization profile. The apodization profile comprises apodization values for each constructive region and destructive region and the apodization values comprise real numbers.

Fresnel zone imaging system and method

Predictive Analog-to-Digital Converter system in one embodiment includes a sampling section producing a sampled analog input signal with a first summer section combining the sampled analog input signal and an analog prediction signal to produce an analog prediction error signal. There is at least one error analog-to-digital convertor digitizing the analog prediction error signal, wherein a digital error signal output from the error analog-to-digital convertor is one of a full bitwidth error signal during an over-range condition else a lower bitwidth error signal. A second summer is coupled to the digital error signal output and a digital prediction signal, and generates a full bitwidth digital output signal. A feedback section is coupled to the digital output signal and providing the digital prediction signal and the analog prediction signal.

Predictive analog-to-digital converter and methods thereof

A method for correcting a time delay between at least two signals in ultrasound systems is provided. The ultrasound system comprises a beamformer processor comprising a summer coupled to the transducer array and configured for performing a complex operation on a first plurality of receive signals to generate a beamsum signal; wherein each of the receive signals comprise a corresponding beamforming delay and a complex filter coupled to the summer and configured to transform the beamsum signal to an analytical signal. The beamformer processor further comprises a plurality of correlator processors coupled to at least one respective transducer element and the complex filter, each correlator processor configured to calculate a correlation sum for at least one receive signal and at least one time delay estimator adapted to receive the correlation sum of at least one receive signal and configured to estimate the corresponding time delay using the correlation sum.

Time delay estimation method and system for use in ultrasound imaging

A reconfigurable linear array of sensors (e.g., optical, thermal, pressure, ultrasonic). The reconfigurability allows the size and spacing of the sensor elements to be a function of the distance from the beam center. This feature improves performance for imaging systems having a limited channel count. The improved performance, for applications in which multiple transmit focal zones are employed, arises from the ability to adjust the aperture for a particular depth.

Reconfigurable linear sensor arrays for reduced channel count

A device comprising an array of sensors and a multiplicity of bus lines, each sensor being electrically connected to a respective bus line and comprising a respective multiplicity of groups of micromachined sensor cells, the sensor cell groups of a particular sensor being electrically coupled to each other via the bus line to which that sensor is connected, each sensor cell group comprising a respective multiplicity of micromachined sensor cells that are electrically interconnected to each other and not switchably disconnectable from each other, the device further comprising means for isolating any one of the sensor cell groups from its associated bus line and in response to any one of the micromachined sensor cells of that sensor cell group being short-circuited to ground. In one implementation, the isolating means comprise a multiplicity of fuses. In another implementation, the isolating means comprise a multiplicity of short circuit protection modules, each module comprising a current sensor circuit and an electrical isolation switch.

Isolation of short-circuited sensor cells for high-reliability operation of sensor array

A method and system for operating an ultrasound system is provided. The method comprising estimating a relative motion between a transducer and an imaging subject and controlling an adaptive beamformer system in response to to an estimation of the relative motion.

Adaptive ultrasound imaging system

Techniques for minimizing artifacts resulting from ultrasound time-delay focusing while using a single-bit delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter for each beamformer channel include correcting the dynamic focus artifact in a delta-sigma beamformer by always inserting a pair of samples having a zero sum when a delay is required. Using other techniques, the dynamic focus artifact is not eliminated on each beamforming channel, but rather is eliminated in the beamsummed, reconstructed signal. In one technique, samples having a zero sum are respectively inserted on a pair of symmetric channels such that the net effect on the beamsummed signal is zero. In another technique, a &plus;1 sample is inserted when a focus time delay is required, and either a pre-calculated or counted number of channels having a focus time delay at each time sample is subtracted from the beamsum.

Delta-sigma beamformers with minimal dynamic focusing artifacts

A method and an apparatus for dynamically optimizing the frame rate as a function of an estimate of the target motion. First, the target motion is estimated, and then this estimate is used to control the number of firings per frame and/or the degree of frame-averaging. Preferably, the motion of the target is estimated by measuring pixel brightness variations on a frame-to-frame, region-to-region or line-to-line basis. Then the degree of frame-averaging is adjusted as a function of the motion estimate. Alternatively, target motion can be estimated by calculating the Doppler signal. Other imaging parameters, such as number of transmit firings per frame, size of the transmit aperture, and transmit excitation frequency, can be adjusted as a function of estimated target motion.

Method and apparatus for adaptive frame-rate adjustment in ultrasound imaging system

A method and apparatus for ultrasonically imaging flow directly in B mode employs a sequence of pulses transmitted to a transmit focal position, with the backscattered signals from this sequence being filtered to remove echoes from stationary or slow-moving reflectors along the transmit path. The resulting flow signals are superimposed on a conventional B-mode vector and displayed. A B-mode flow image is formed by repeating this procedure for multiple transmit focal positions across the region of interest. The filtering is performed in slow time (along transmit firings) using a high-pass 'wall' filter (e.g., an FIR filter) with harmonic image feed-through and optionally B-mode (fundamental) feed-through. The resulting B-mode flow image has low clutter from stationary or slow-moving tissue or vessel walls, high resolution, high frame rate and flow sensitivity in all directions.

Method and apparatus for enhanced flow imaging in B-mode ultrasound

A method and an apparatus for adaptively suppressing incoherent data in a coherent imaging system. A focused ultrasound beam is transmitted with conventional transmit beamforming time delays. The returning echo signals are processed along two separate receive signal processing paths. The time delays along one processing path are set for traditional coherent receive beamforming, while the time delays along the other processing path are set to apply incoherent summing to the same set of return signals (e.g., time delays equal to zero). Then at each point in the receive beam or vector, the coherent and incoherent summation signals are compared. If the coherent and incoherent summation signals are of like amplitude, the beamformed signal of the first processing path is deemed incoherent, and its display is suppressed in the final image.

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Clifton Park, NY, United States of America

Kenneth Wayne Rigby