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:
Feb. 12, 2002
Filed:
May. 25, 2000
Bruno Hans Haider, Ballston Lake, NY (US);
Kenneth Wayne Rigby, Clifton Park, NY (US);
General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and an apparatus for dynamically optimizing the frame rate as a function of an estimate of the target motion. First, the target motion is estimated, and then this estimate is used to control the number of firings per frame and/or the degree of frame-averaging. Preferably, the motion of the target is estimated by measuring pixel brightness variations on a frame-to-frame, region-to-region or line-to-line basis. Then the degree of frame-averaging is adjusted as a function of the motion estimate. Alternatively, target motion can be estimated by calculating the Doppler signal. Other imaging parameters, such as number of transmit firings per frame, size of the transmit aperture, and transmit excitation frequency, can be adjusted as a function of estimated target motion.