Hitachi, Ltd.

Fujifilm Healthcare Corporation

Teiichiro Ikeda

Chizue Ishihara

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Mayumi Suzuki

Shinta Takano

Takashi Azuma

Hiroki Tanaka

Shuntaro Machida

Ryo Imai

Tomohiko Tanaka

Masanori Hisatsu

Misaki Hiroshima

Hirozumi Takeshima

Provided are an ultrasound imaging apparatus and a surgical operation support system for obtaining position information of a device outside an imaging area and presenting the position information to a user together with an ultrasound image. The surgical operation support system includes the ultrasound imaging apparatus, an ultrasonic source fixed to a therapeutic tool to be inserted into a subject body, a display device for displaying the ultrasound image and the position of the ultrasonic source. The ultrasound imaging apparatus is provided with a position estimator for estimating the position information of the ultrasonic source, and the position estimator analyzes a grating lobe artifact (false image) that is generated by the ultrasonic wave emitted from the ultrasonic source outside the imaging area, to estimate the position information of the ultrasonic source with respect to the imaging area.

Ultrasound imaging apparatus that alternates between monitoring and imaging modes, surgical operation support system, and method using the same

In performing aperture synthesis according to an ultrasound imaging apparatus, the amount of spatial change of amplification factors of phasing signals at respective receive phasing points are reduced, and a high-quality image is obtained. In a receive beamformer that generates an inter-transmission weight in accordance with a phasing range, and performs aperture synthesis processing, the inter-transmission weight being generated is applied to the receive phasing points within the phasing range obtained through transmission and reception, and the inter-transmission synthesis is performed. The inter-transmission weight is generated in such a manner that a variation form of the amplification factor between adjacent receive phasing points is smoothed and a difference of the amplification factor is reduced, as to each receive phasing point after the inter-transmission synthesis is performed.

Ultrasonic imaging device, method for adjusting inter-transmission weight, and ultrasonic imaging method

Without using any approximated wave front propagation model, appropriate delay times are set for received signals to obtain phased signals for both the inside and outside of irradiation area of transmission beam. A reception beamformer comprises a wave front propagation calculatorthat obtains times until ultrasonic waves transmitted from a plurality of ultrasonic transducers arrive at a reception focus by calculation, and a delay time extractorthat calculates delay times for the reception focus on the basis of distribution of the arrival times of the ultrasonic waves for each of the plurality of the ultrasonic transducers obtained by the wave front propagation calculator. Therefore, even if the wave front that arrives at the reception focus has a complicated shape, it is not necessary to approximate the wave front, and phasing addition can be performed with appropriate delay times obtained from times until the ultrasonic waves arrive at the reception focus.

Ultrasound image capturing device and method of processing ultrasound signal

A clutter reduction effect using adaptive beam forming is uniformly obtained with respect to the entire image even in an imaging condition in which the number of bundled signals is greatly distributed in an ultrasonic image. A received signal processing unit includes a summing unit that bundles the plurality of received signals for a predetermined imaging point or a plurality of signals obtained by processing the received signals, and a weighting unit that obtains a coherence value among the plurality of signals summed in the summing unit, and weights the plurality of signals before being summed in the summing unit or a signal obtained through summing in the summing unit, with a weight corresponding to the coherence value. The weighting unit weights the coherence value nonlinearly in a predetermined direction in the subject, and weights the plurality of signals before being summed in the summing unit or the signal obtained through summing in the summing unit by using the nonlinearly weighted coherence value.

Ultrasonic imaging device

Reception beamforming that does not generate discontinuity in the vicinity of the depth of a transmit focus is executed even if reception scanning lines are disposed outside of the irradiation area of a focusing-type transmission beam. The degree of discontinuity showing the discontinuity of reception signals detected by plural ultrasound elementsor the degree of discontinuity regarding the discontinuity of the wave fronts of phased signals is detected by a discontinuity extracting unit. If there is an area where the degree of discontinuity is larger than a predefined value, a delay time generating unitfor discontinuity elimination changes the delay times in the area where the discontinuity is generated.

Ultrasound imaging pickup apparatus

Reception beamforming is executed using delay times that complexly vary in accordance with differences between transmission conditions. An irradiation areaof a transmission beam is calculated, and the lengths of segments, using which delay times are calculated, are set in accordance with the positional relationships between the calculated irradiation areaand reception scanning lines. For example, the reception scanning linesare divided into areas A to C, and the lengths of segmentsb in the outer area B located outside of the irradiation areaare set shorter than the lengths of segmentsa andc in the inner areas A and C.

A weight value used for a beamforming process performed on received signals in an ultrasound imaging apparatus is obtained with a small amount of computations and with a high degree of precision, even when a method of adaptive signal processing is employed. Multiple elementsreceive ultrasound signals from a test subject, and the similarity operatorobtains the similarity between the received signals x(n). By using the similarity C(n) between the received signals obtained by the similarity operator, the adaptive weight operatorcomputes the adaptive weight w(n) in association with the similarity. The beamforming operatoruses the adaptive weight w(n) and the received signal x(n) to generate a beamforming output. The imaging processoruses the beamforming output to generate image data. By way of example, the similarity operatorperforms computations of the similarity in the time direction.

Ultrasound imaging apparatus

The invention aims to give uniform and stable characteristics to a cMUT-cell array and to improve acoustic characteristics. To this end, a signal blocking section is additionally provided for cellslocated in the outermost peripheral portion or at the end positions of a two-dimensional arrayof cMUT cells that are designed and manufactured as ones usable as an ordinary transducer capable of transmission and reception of signals. The signal blocking section is provided to prevent the displacement and the vibration of the cells, and to block the transmission and the reception of signals.

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Tokyo, Japan

Teiichiro Ikeda