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:
May. 18, 2010
Filed:
Apr. 10, 2006
Hiroyuki Karasawa, Kaisei-machi, JP;
Hiroyuki Karasawa, Kaisei-machi, JP;
FUJIFILM Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An ultrasonic observation apparatus in which the frame rate can be made higher than that in a mechanical or conventional electronic scan method. The ultrasonic observation apparatus includes: an ultrasonic endoscope including ultrasonic transducers; a transmission aperture setting unit for setting ultrasonic transducer groups as transmission apertures; a transmission frequency setting unit for setting respective frequencies of drive signal groups for the transmission apertures; a drive signal generating unit for generating the drive signal groups having the set frequencies; a reception aperture setting unit for setting ultrasonic transducer groups as reception apertures; a signal processing unit for performing signal processing on reception signal groups respectively outputted from the ultrasonic transducer groups; and a control unit for controlling the transmission aperture setting unit to sequentially change regions of the ultrasonic transducer groups to be set as the transmission apertures at a predetermined time interval.