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. 29, 1994
Filed:
Mar. 26, 1993
Hiroshi Fukukita, Tokyo, JP;
Lin X Yao, Bellevue, WA (US);
Zoran Banjanin, Renton, WA (US);
Jin Kim, Issaquah, WA (US);
Hisashi Hagiwara, Yokohama, JP;
Masami Kawabuchi, Yokohama, JP;
Siemens Medical Systems, Inc., Iselin, NJ (US);
Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co. Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, advantage is taken by the inventors of the fact that the speed of operation of the digital hardware in a digital beamformer having a plurality of parallel receiving channels can be reduced by providing multiple phases for the data signals supplied by each receiving channel and then processing the multi-phase data in N parallel summing paths. An interpolation-decimation filter receives the multi-phase data from the N parallel summing paths and provides at its output a signal having a reduced data rate (1/N). In accordance with this technique, the speed of operation of the individual digital circuits for forming the required beamforming delays are not increased as compared to conventional post-beamforming interpolation schemes, so that hereby the effective data rate is increased by a factor N and the delay quantization error is reduced by a factor N.