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:
Oct. 13, 1987
Filed:
Nov. 05, 1985
Samuel H Maslak, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Hugh G Larsen, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Acuson, Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
An acoustic imaging system having an array of N transducers arranged for transducing transmit electrical signals into acoustic pulses and for transducing acoustic pulse echos into electrical receive signals has a transducer multiplexer that connects in substantially cyclic order any one of a selected group of M adjacent transducer elements to one of a plurality of substantially identical transmit or receive channels. Each channel includes phase changing means for dynamic focusing, such as a mixer driven by one of a plurality of individually phased clocks. A control demultiplier orders connection of an appropriate one of the differently phased clocks to the mixer of each channel in an order precisely corresponding to the cyclic ordering of the transducer connections by the transducer multiplexer as groups of M adjacent transducer elements are selected to form acoustic scan lines stepped across the entire array.