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:
Jun. 06, 2000
Filed:
Dec. 31, 1998
Anne Lindsay Hall, New Berlin, WI (US);
Kai E Thomenius, Clifton Park, NY (US);
Lewis Jones Thomas, II, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Kenneth Wayne Rigby, Clifton Park, NY (US);
General Electric Company, Milwaukee, WI (US);
Abstract
A method and an apparatus for adaptively suppressing incoherent data in a coherent imaging system. A focused ultrasound beam is transmitted with conventional transmit beamforming time delays. The returning echo signals are processed along two separate receive signal processing paths. The time delays along one processing path are set for traditional coherent receive beamforming, while the time delays along the other processing path are set to apply incoherent summing to the same set of return signals (e.g., time delays equal to zero). Then at each point in the receive beam or vector, the coherent and incoherent summation signals are compared. If the coherent and incoherent summation signals are of like amplitude, the beamformed signal of the first processing path is deemed incoherent, and its display is suppressed in the final image.