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:
Aug. 05, 1997
Filed:
Sep. 29, 1995
Jin Kim, Issaquah, WA (US);
Steven R Marquis, Fall City, WA (US);
Zoran Banjanin, Renton, WA (US);
Dong-Chyuan Liu, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Siemens Medical Systems, Inc., Iselin, NJ (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for removing noise from a signal S(x). The noise is removed by filtering S(x) through a low pass filter having an adjustable pass band. A control processor analyzes S(x) prior to S(x) being input to the low pass filter and adjusts the pass band in response to an estimate of the SNR or rate of change of S(x) such that the pass band is reduced when the estimated SNR decreases and the pass band is increased when the SNR increases. In embodiments in which the control processor utilizes the rate of change of S(x) to control the pass band, the pass band is reduced when the rate of change of S(x) increases and increased when the rate of change of S(x) decreases. In embodiments used in ultrasound applications, the estimate of the SNR can be obtained from x, the power in S(x), or the variance in the measured velocity. The estimate of the rate of change of S(x) may be computed from an estimate of the correlation distance in S(x).