Esaote S.p.a.

Paolo Pellegretti

Marco Crocco

Rosario Varriale

Fulvio Biordi

Amedeo Buonanno

Andrea Serra

Luca Balbi

Theodorus Franciscus Mulder

Marco Vicari

Marco Merlanti

Mauro Fabiano

Franco Fontana

A multi-user system for acquiring, generating and processing ultrasound images comprises: a plurality of ultrasound probes with a communication unit for transmitting corresponding data to one or more processing units also with a communication unit; display and/or user interface terminals with a communication unit for transmitting to and receiving data from said processing units and/or said probes; a communication network connecting together the communication units of said probes, display and/or user interface terminals and said processing units. Processing units are configured to receive scanning signals detected by said probes and process said signals to generate ultrasound images and optionally process said ultrasound images and to transmit said images and/or outputs of said processing to said display and/or user interface terminals. Probes and/or processing units are loaded programs with encoded instructions to receive data from each of said probes and to generate the corresponding images and/or to perform the corresponding processing.

Multi-user system for the acquisition, generation and processing of ultrasound images

Performing retrospective dynamic transmit focusing beamforming for ultrasound signals by a) transmitting plural transmit beams, each transmit beam centered at a different position along array, having width or aperture encompassing plural laterally spaced line positions, each transmit beam width or aperture overlapping width or aperture of adjacent transmit beam or more laterally spaced transmit beams; b) receiving echo signals; c) processing echo signals to produce plural receive lines of echo signals at laterally spaced line positions within width or aperture of transmit beam; d) repeating steps b), (c) for additional transmit beams of plural transmitted transmit beams; e) equalizing phase shift variance among receive lines at common line position resulting from transmit beams of different transmit beam positions concurrently with steps c), d); f) combining echo signals of receive lines from different transmit beams spatially related to common line position to produce image data; g) produces an image using image data.

Method and system for performing retrospective dynamic transmit focussing beamforming on ultrasound signals

A method is provided for generating ultrasound transmission waves comprising: a) providing an array of electroacoustic transducer elements each one being connected to an electric excitation signal generator by a dedicated feeding channel; b) feeding at least a part of the electroacoustic transducer elements with a pulsed electric signal having a predetermined frequency, a predetermined amplitude, a predetermined length or duration and a predetermined phase or a predefined delay with respect to the pulsed electric signals fed to the adjacent transducer elements, the said pulsed electric excitation signals comprising a sequence of pulses; c) modulating each or at least part of the pulsed electric signals by feeding to the transducer elements only a predetermined portion of the pulses of the said pulsed electric signals. Modulating is carried out by cutting the duration of each pulse of the pulsed electric excitation signal according to a predetermined time period.

Method for generating ultrasound transmission waves and ultrasound system for carrying out the said method

The present disclosure relates to an ultrasound multi line dynamic receive focusing beam former that is part of an ultrasound system, where the beam former of the present invention resolves conceptually the, in the prior art dynamic receive focusing beam formers, by fundament, internally generated distortions, which (in the prior art), become internally generated by the beam former process itself. These distortions within prior art beam formers, typically compromises, to some degree, the ability of accurate detections after the dynamic receive focusing beamforming. The present invention advantage is an ultrasound system capable of very accurate focusing selectivity with a high dynamic range, and very low signal distortion, therefore capable of, for example, a clear detection of harmonics and super harmonics, due to the fundamentally absence of internal distortion-generation. The scope is to resolve several, in prior-art, mentioned issues above, to provide computational efficient systems and methods capable of detecting the applications-features, very accurate and at high speed, utilizing the distortion free ultrasound Retrospective Transmit focus capable, multi-line dynamic receive focusing beamforming, which can be realized in hardware or software, wherein instead of 1d time domain processing, also 1d frequency domain processing might be utilized, suitable for other modalities that need longer detection lengths (like coding in Tx sequences).

Systems and methods for distortion free multi beam ultrasound receive beamforming

A method of reconstructing an MRI or ultrasound biomedical image, based on compressed sensing includes exciting a body under examination; acquiring image data from the generated signals, wherein the signals are acquired by pseudo-random undersampling; reconstructing the image using a nonlinear iterative algorithm for minimizing an optimization function containing one or more terms for image data sparsity in one or more predetermined domains with a data fidelity constraint term ensuring fidelity to the acquired image data; wherein two or more sets of image data are acquired from the generated signals, each data set being acquired in a different undersampling scheme and/or a different acquisition mode such as to make expected and unavoidable artifacts incoherent; each of the acquired image data set is multiplied by a correction matrix &#x394;.

Biomedical image reconstruction method and apparatus

Apparatus and method for detecting ultrasound images from a body under examination. The apparatus comprises a unit emitting ultrasound pulses and a unit receiving ultrasound pulses. The emitting unit and the receiving unit face each other and are spaced apart by a predetermined distance. These units are arranged at opposite sides of a cavity housing the body under examination. The ultrasound pulses emitted from the emitting unit are received by the receiving unit after passing through the body under examination and are transformed into transmission signals. Included is a control unit for the emitting unit, a unit processing the received signals, image generating device and image displaying device. The processing unit comprises a unit comparing the values of a propagation speed of ultrasound pulses and/or of the attenuation of ultrasound pulses with predetermined threshold values.

Apparatus and method for ultrasound imaging with contrast agents

An apparatus for ultrasound imaging of a body, particularly a breast of a patient, includes ultrasonic pulse-emitting and pulse-receiving units, disposed in facing relationship at a predetermined distance from each other on opposite sides of a compartment for receiving the body, ultrasonic pulses emitted by the emitting unit and received by the receiving unit after passing through the body being converted into transmit signals; and an ultrasonic pulse emitting and receiving unit disposed to define a scan plane substantially perpendicular to the coronal plane of the patient and having one or more electro-acoustic transducers, which emit ultrasonic pulses into the body and receive echoes generated by the anatomic structures of the body, the echoes being converted into reflection signals. An acoustic impedance adaptation medium, particularly a liquid, preferably water, is interposed between the emitting unit and/or the receiving unit and/or the emitting and receiving unit and the breast.

Apparatus for ultrasound imaging

A method for ultrasound imaging of tissues located in a tissue image region includes the steps of projecting at least one ultrasound beam into the tissue image region and receiving ultrasound reflections in order to transduce the ultrasound reflections into corresponding electric echo signals. The echo signals are processed according to at least two different modes including, an imaging mode for furnishing a panoramic image of the region under examination and a second processing mode that is a different echo processing mode for imaging particular tissues or tissue structures. The images obtained by processing are displayed on the same screen wherein the image obtained by the first mode is displayed with a gray scale and the image obtained by the second mode is displayed in a colored manner.

Method and apparatus for ultrasound imaging

A method for ultrasonic imaging, particularly of moving bodies, such as surgical utensils, tissues, flows, or the like, which includes the following steps:&mdash;Periodically emitting ultrasonic pulses along a predetermined view line and with a predetermined repetition rate through one or more transducers;&mdash;Receiving the echoes produced by the body and/or the tissues or flows and transforming them into echo signals;&mdash;Processing the echo signals for extracting information therefrom and for generating an image based on such information. According the invention, the following steps are additionally provided:&mdash;determining a real time vector difference between the echo signals of two pulses successively emitted at predetermined time intervals;&mdash;using said difference signal as an information signal for ultrasonic imaging.

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Genoa, Italy

Paolo Pellegretti