Litton Industrial Products, Inc.

Other

Gas Research Institute

Sonipulse, Inc.

General Electric Company

Ford Aerospace & Communications Corporation

Liposonix, Inc.

Medicis Technologies Corporation

Sound Products Company L.p.

Folsom Research, Inc.

Robert W Cribbs

Carl W Hennige

Gary L Engle

John E Mahony

Warren Questo

Rick Hillstead

Thomas J DeLacy

Herman P Briar

Ching-Chen Wu

Claudio I Zanelli

Billy L Lamb

Donna L Cribbs, Legal Representative

Douglas G Niessen

Disclosed herein is a sonic resonator system for use in testing the adhesive bond strength of composite materials. Also disclosed herein are a method of calibrating the sonic resonator system to work with a particular composite bond joint, and a method of non-destructive testing the 'pass-fail' of the bonded composite bond strength, based on a required bond strength.

Sonic resonator system which applies a rarefaction wave to a composite structure at a specific location to test bond strength

Sonic resonator system for testing the adhesive bond strength of composite materials

A system for imaging tissue during ultrasound therapy treatments is described. The system has a high intensity focused ultrasound transducer, video display and controller. The controller has two receive paths for detecting cavitation and boiling in present during an ultrasound therapy treatment, and representing the two visually on a display.

Ultrasonic treatment and imaging of adipose tissue

A system for the destruction of adipose tissue utilizing high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) within a patient's body. The system comprises a controller for data storage and the operation and control of a plurality of elements. One elements is a means for mapping a human body to establish three dimensional coordinate position data for existing adipose tissue. The controller is able to identify the plurality of adipose tissue locations on said human body and establish a protocol for the destruction of the adipose tissue. A HIFU transducer assembly having one or more piezoelectric element(s) is used along with at least one sensor wherein the sensor provides feed back information to the controller for the safe operation of the piezoelectric element(s). The sensor is electronically coupled to the controller, and the controller provides essential treatment command information to one or more piezoelectric element(s) based on positioning information obtained from the three dimensional coordinate position data.

An apparatus and method for detecting utilities buried in the ground wherein an array of sonic receivers are arranged in rows and ranks against the ground and a corresponding array of sonic transmitters are arranged relative to the array of sonic receivers so that a distance between each sonic transmitter and each adjacent sonic receiver is the same. Echoes generated by the apparatus may then be normalized, averaged and compared to the original echoes to develop a profile of the buried utility.

Application of sonic signals to detect buried, underground utilities

A method and system for detecting an underground obstacle in which a plurality of acoustic signal sensors are deployed in a predetermined pattern on an area of ground defined by a guided drill path. A drill head of a drill is inserted into the ground and a borehole is drilled in the ground along the guided drill path. The noise signal generated by the drill head is detected at at least two of the acoustic signal sensors and the difference in arrival time of the noise signal at the two acoustic signal sensors is determined. This difference in arrival time of noise signal is analyzed, whereby the presence or absence of an underground obstacle is determined.

System and method for guided boring obstacle detection

Fat cells in a living patient are noninvasively destroyed without separating the skin from the body by applying to the fat layer high intensity focused ultrasound simultaneously in a multiplicity of discrete focal zones produced by a single transducer array. A novel phasing apparatus for producing a widely variable set of focal zone patterns for lipolytic therapy and other purposes is disclosed.

Method and apparatus for lipolytic therapy using ultrasound energy

Speech analysis is performed by synchronizing, with the initiation of glottal pulses produced during the voicing of phonemes, a pitch-independent transform that performs analysis entirely within a pitch period. Analysis is made of the three most dominant formant frequencies of the sound sets involved in the enunciation of voiced phonemes. Peaks in the transform represent formant frequencies. Three peaks are selected from the transform identifying the frequencies with the first, second and third greatest amplitudes. Correlation of the waveform between successive pitch periods detects whether a sound is a vowel, a voiced sibilant, or unvoiced. Unvoiced sound sets are similarly analyzed but the analysis is synchronized with artificially generated synch pulses. The sound sets are analyzed to determine (1) whether the sound is a vowel, a voiced sibilant or an unvoiced sound; (2) the primary formant frequency, i.e. the one with the greatest amplitude; (3) the substantial presence of secondary and tertiary formant frequencies with the next two largest amplitudes, as well as their frequencies; (4) the frequency ratios of the primary to the secondary and the primary to the tertiary frequencies; (5) the decay rate of at least the greatest formant frequency; and (6) the time relationships of these sound sets to one another and to unvoiced sounds. A unique set of phoneme identifications is derived from these factors. Apparatus using these factors for phoneme encoding and speech reproduction from encoded phonemes is disclosed.

Method and apparatus for speech analysis

In a scan converter for converting polar-coordinate radar data into a standard video display scanned at a 100 ns per pixel rate, the reading of sixteen x-y pixels into the video buffer, writing of two polar pixels into the x-y memory, and fading of four x-y pixels in the x-y memory can all be accomplished in a single 1600 ns time slot by using a nibble mode of addressing with an x-y memory made up of four standard 64K chips operable in parallel. In another aspect of the invention, radar data can be written into the x-y memory of a scan converter at double that rate without affecting the read or fade capabilities by configuring the x-y memory chips in such a manner that a given address on the memory chips represents a group of adjacent pixels of one line of the display and a corresponding group of pixels of the next adjacent line of the display.

Scan converter for radar

A small, simple, yet accurate probe for producing a sector scan for ultrasonic medical diagnostic apparatus is provided by positioning a curved transducer array within the probe opposite a window, and filling the probe with a fluid having an acoustic velocity on the order of 0.5.times.10.sup.5 cm/sec. This combination is made possible by forming the window from a stiff polyionomer material whose acoustic velocity is closed to that of human skin, yet which is stiff enough even when thin to be essentially non-deformable in clinical use. Grating lobes of the ultrasonic beam, as well as the scatter produced within the probe by the high reflectivity of the window material, are absorbed by coating or lining the inner side walls of the probe with an open-celled polyether urethane foam having a cell diameter slightly smaller than one wavelength of the ultrasound in the probe fluid.

Curved-array ultrasonic probe using low-velocity fluid

Pixel data is selectively updated in an ultrasound scanning system in which the monitor display includes a plurality of addressable pixels. A random access memory holds the intensity values for the display pixels, and the memory is updated in response to rescanning of a patient. Updating is inhibited for a pixel of a vector when the preceding vector included the same pixel. Spurious display effects are thereby minimized.

Method and means for eliminating fountain effect in an ultrasound system

A scanner for use in ultrasonic imaging systems of the type which translates a transducer assembly along a path of successive positions. The scanner rotates the assembly during translation and, in one embodiment, rotates the transducer about a center of rotation which is offset from the center of translation.

Scanning method and apparatus

Described herein is a microwave radar system which employs heterodyned swept frequency at approximately two millisecond sweep intervals. The power source is a reliable solid state, low power device such as a Gunn diode. The heterodyned difference frequency signals are converted to digital form, transformed into the frequency domain by means of a Fourier power transform, and then averaged by computer processing. Performing the Fourier power transform before averaging enables the processing of quasi-incoherent data whereby signal-to-noise ratio improvement is a function of the square root of the average number of samples taken. High-speed processing is used to off-set the loss of statistical averaging of phase-coherent data which cannot be preserved because of target motion. Thus, the sequence of the power transform allows phase-less averaging over the entire collection period. Complementary elements including signal isolation and stability, through interdependent design features of the antenna and circulator, permit the use of low-power CW radar which minimizes danger to ecology and human safety. Thus, the invention has particular applicability to the analysis of clouds, the extraction of range and thickness data of clouds, and the presence and velocity of rainfall. The invention can be used for point targets as well. Algorithms are built into the computer to compensate for various factors such as wind, temperature, and the nature of scattering nuclei.

Swept frequency radar system employing phaseless averaging

A high resolution, ultrasound imaging system is disclosed having a transducer which produces a diverging beam of ultrasound energy of sufficiently large angle so as to impinge on the sound-reflecting object from substantially all positions along the transducer scan path.

High resolution ultrasound diagnostic apparatus

A Scan Converter for use with an Ultrasonic Imaging System is disclosed, which permits the buffering of sweep address and video data with relatively fewer bits of information. In essence, the propogation path of the ultrasonic pulses is resolved into a pair of vectoral components while the propogation path media is defined by successive contiguous body segments which are to be respectively displayed as video picture elements. A series of first signals indicate the crossing of segment boundaries in the vectoral direction having the faster rate of boundary crossings. A second signal is produced having a unique valve which indicates a boundary crossing by the pulse in the other vectoral direction. Reflections of the ultrasonic pulse are sampled at a rate determined by the first signals; i.e., the rate at which segment boundaries are crossed in the first vectoral direction. The sample values are held for storage in memory. The memory includes a matrix of memory location associated with respective picture elements. The one coordinate of the memory address is successively incremented with the storage of the respective successive values. The second coordinate of the address is incremented by the unique value of the forementioned second signal; in other words, when a segment boundary is crossed in the slower vectoral direction.

Growing community of inventors

Placerville, CA, United States of America

Robert W Cribbs