Bk Medical Aps

B-K Medical A/s

Svetoslav Ivanov Nikolov

Henrik Jensen

Jens Munk Hansen

Fredrik Gran

Jacob Kortbek

Jens Mose Pedersen

Jorgen Arendt Jensen

Bo Martins

Robert H Owen

Bo Hansen

J&oslash;rgen Arendt Jensen

A system includes an image guidance system with a memory with computer executable instruction, a processor configured to execute the computer executable instructions, and a display. The computer executable instructions cause the processor to: receive a three-dimensional model of vasculature from an ultrasound imaging system, receive a real-time optical feed of an interior of a cavity from an optical camera-based guidance system, receive a first tracking signal indicative of a first spatial location of a probe of the ultrasound imaging system, receive a second spatial location of the optical camera-based guidance system, and overlay the optical feed with the three-dimensional model based on the first and second tracking signals. The display is configured to visually present the optical feed with the three-dimensional model overlaid thereover.

Combination ultrasound / optical image for an image-guided procedure

A system includes a transducer array configured to produce a signal indicative of a received echo wave, receive circuitry configured to amplify and digitize the signal, sub-systems configured to process the digitized signal to generate an image including electronic noise from the system, and a system controller. The system controller is configured to retrieve a pre-determined noise level of an analog front end of the receive circuitry, configure the sub-systems, wherein each of sub-systems includes multiple processing blocks, and the configuring determines which of the processing blocks are employed and which of the processing blocks are bypassed for a scan, and determine a noise level for each of the employed sub-systems based on a corresponding noise model. The sub-systems include a processor configured to adaptively vary at least one of a gain and a dynamic range of the image as a function of depth based on the noise levels.

Model-based control of a dynamic range of an ultrasound image

An ultrasound imaging system includes a probe and a console. The probe includes an elongate shaft with a long axis, a transducer array disposed the shaft along the long axis and configured to generate signals indicative of received echoes, and a motor with a position sensor configured to rotate the shaft within a predetermined arc. The console includes a beamformer configured to process the signals from the transducer array and generate at least a volume of data for each sweep of the transducer array along the arc. The console further includes a display configured to display the volume of data.

High-resolution and/or high-contrast 3-D and/or 4-D ultrasound imaging with a 1-D transducer array

An ultrasound imaging system () includes a transducer array () with a two-dimensional non-rectangular array of rows () of elements, transmit circuitry () that actuates the elements to transmit an ultrasound signal into a field of view, receive circuitry () that receives echoes produced in response to an interaction between the ultrasound signal and a structure in the field of view, and a beamformer that processes the echoes, thereby generating one or more scan lines indicative of the field of view.

Ultrasound imaging

A method includes receiving first electrical signals from a first single-element transducer () and second electrical signals from a second single-element transducer (). The transducers are disposed on a shaft (), which has a longitudinal axis (), of an ultrasound imaging probe () with transducing sides disposed transverse to and facing away from the longitudinal axis. The transducers are angularly offset from each other on the shaft by a non-zero angle. The transducers are operated at first and second different cutoff frequencies. The shaft concurrently translates and rotates while the transducers receive the first and second ultrasound signals. The method further includes delay and sum beamforming, with first and second beamformers (), the first and second electrical signals, respectively via different processing chains (), employing an adaptive synthetic aperture technique, producing first and second images. The method further includes combining the first and second images, creating a final image, and displaying the final image.

Ultrasound imaging with multiple single-element transducers and ultrasound signal propagation correction using delay and sum beamforming based on a cross-correlation function

An ultrasound imaging system includes a biplane ultrasound probe and a console. The biplane ultrasound probe includes a sagittal array and a transverse array. The console includes a transmit circuit, a receive circuit, and an image generator. The transmit circuit is configured to control the sagittal and transverse arrays to emit ultrasound signals while the probe is manually rotated and translated. The receive circuit is configured to receive electrical signal produced by the sagittal and transverse arrays in response to the sagittal and transverse arrays receiving echoes produced in response to the corresponding ultrasound signals interreacting with structure. The image generator is configured to construct a three-dimensional image with the electrical signals from the sagittal or transverse array using the electrical signals from both the sagittal and transverse arrays to track the motion of the probe and align scanplanes.

3-D imaging via free-hand scanning with a multiplane US transducer

An ultrasound imaging includes a beamformer configured to process ultrasound echo signals generated by the plurality of elements of a transducer array. The beamformer includes a delay processor configured to generate a delay for each of the signals and apply the delays to corresponding signals and a summer configured to sum the delayed signals to produce an image. The delay processor includes a spatio-temporal processor configured to computed delays based on time-of-flight calculations from a center of the elements to one of a transmit focal point, a virtual source or a plane, a spatial correction processor configured to compute delay corrections for the computed delays, an adder configured to add the delay corrections to the computed delays to produce corrected delays, and a delay component configured to delay each of the signals with a corresponding corrected delay.

Spatial delay beamformation

An ultrasound imaging system () includes a transducer array (). The transducer array includes a first set of transducer elements (oror) and a second set of transducer elements (oror). The first and second sets of transducer elements includes long axes and are angularly offset from each other by a non-zero angle with respect to the long axes. The ultrasound imaging system further includes a velocity processor () that processes echoes received by the first and second sets of transducer elements and determines an axial and two transverse flow velocity components based on the received echoes.

Three dimensional (3D) vector flow imaging with BiPlane phased array transducer

A motion processor () includes a motion estimator () that iteratively estimates a motion between a pair of consecutive frames of pre-processed echoes, wherein the motion estimator () generates the estimated motion based on at least on one iteration. A method includes iteratively estimating tissue motion between a pair of consecutive frames of pre-processed echoes over at least one iteration.

Imaging tissue motion estimation

An imaging system () includes a transducer array () with a transducer element () with at least two faces (). Each face faces a different direction. The transducer element includes at least two sub-elements (). Each sub-element is part of a different face. The at least two sub-elements transmit respective beams at each location along a scan path ().

Multi-faced ultrasound transducer element

An imaging transducer () includes a plurality of transducer elements () arranged with respect to each other in an array along an long axis of the transducer, wherein an effective width of a transducer element of the transducer is equal to or greater than a center-to-center distance between adjacent transducer elements. A method includes acquiring data with an imaging transducer, wherein the transducer includes a plurality of transducer elements arranged with respect to each other in an array along an long axis of the transducer, wherein an effective width of a transducer element of the transducer is equal to or greater than a center-to-center distance between adjacent transducer elements.

Imaging transducer array

The invention relates to an apparatus for flow estimation using synthetic aperture imaging. The method uses a Synthetic Transmit Aperture, but unlike previous approaches a new frame is created after every pulse emission. In receive mode parallel beam forming is implemented. The beam formed RF data is added to the previously created RF lines obtained by the same transmit sequence. The apparatus comprises a pulser () to generate a pulsed voltage signal, that is fed to the emit beam former (). The emit beam former () is connected to the emitting transducer array (). The ultrasound is reflected by the object () and received by the elements of the transducer array (). All of these signals are then combined in the beam processor () to focus all of the beams in the image in both transmit and receive mode and the simultaneously focused signals are used for updating the image in the processor (). The estimation processor () to correlate the individual measurements to obtain the displacement between high-resolution images and thereby determine the velocity.

Apparatus and method for velocity estimation in synthetic aperture imaging

A method and apparatus for recursive ultrasound imaging using a Synthetic Transmit Aperture and by which a new frame is created at every pulse emission. In receive, parallel beam forming is implemented. The beam formed RF data is added to the previously created RF lines. To keep the level of the signal, the RF data obtained previously, when emitting with the same element, is subtracted from the RF lines. Up to 5000 frames/sec can be achieved for a tissue depth of 15 cm with a speed of sound of c&equals;1540 m/s. The high frame rate makes continuous imaging data possible, which can significantly enhance flow imaging. A point spread function 2&deg; wide at &minus;6 dB and grating lobes of &lE;&minus;50 dB is obtained with a 64 elements phased array with a central frequency f &equals;3 MHz using a sparse transmit aperture using only 10 elements (N &equals;10) during pulse emission. The corresponding images have the quality of a dynamically focused image in transmit and receive. The dynamic focusing gives a small sampling volume and the capability to view small blood vessels and obtain the velocity profiles within the vessels with lower variance than with normal imaging.

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Farum, Denmark

Svetoslav Ivanov Nikolov