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. 25, 1980
Filed:
Aug. 31, 1977
Dieter Hassler, Erlangen, DE;
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin & Munich, DE;
Abstract
In an illustrated embodiment an array of ultrasonic transducer elements is combined into a first transmitting surface to emit a first transmit signal, and then in alternation with blanking intervals is combined into receiving surfaces of progressively increased size for the reception of echo signals and for constructing a first image line of a first partial image. A second transmitting surface of lesser size then emits a transmit signal and further combinations of transducer elements are activated during time intervals thereafter which correspond to the blanking intervals of the first image line. Such sequential lines may form a composite line on a visual display. A planar array of transducer elements may have its successive receiving surfaces of varying size electronically focused either in the scan direction or in the layer thickness direction, or the array can have mechanical curvature to provide a desired focus in the layer direction. A circuit arrangement is preferred which simplifies the control of switching and minimizes the number of electronic focusing channels while still achieving a relatively high image frequency.