The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 18, 1980
Filed:
Jul. 05, 1978
Donald E Dick, Boulder, CO (US);
Robert L Metz, Superior, CO (US);
D Scott RoJohn, Boulder, CO (US);
Raymond D Elliott, Denver, CO (US);
Life Instruments Corporation, Boulder, CO (US);
Abstract
An improved high resolution rotating head ultrasonic scanner is provided for use in an ultrasonic scanning subsystem of an ultrasonic breast scanning system. The scanning subsystem of the breast scanning system includes a pair of high resolution ultrasonic rotating scanning heads mounted on a transport mechanism. A scan is conducted by moving the transport mechanism while the scanning heads rotate so that a series of parallel uniformly spaced cross-sectional scans of the tissue of the breast are conducted from the inferior to the superior border of the breast. Each scanning head has three ultrasonic transducers uniformly spaced around its perimeter. The focal ranges of the transducers of a given scanning head are chosen so that a sector scan conducted by each head is divided into slightly overlapping zones with the depth of each zone corresponding to the focal range of one of the transducers on each scanning head. The angular velocity and phase of the scanning heads are controlled so that during one revolution of the scanning heads each transducer of each head conducts a sector scan primarily through its zone. However, only one such transducer will conduct such a scan at any one time.