Patent ID: 9384530
Filing Date: 2016-07-05
CPC Classification: A61B,G01S,G06T

Claim Text:
1. A method of improving the resolution and frame rate of ultrasound image frames obtained from a field of view covered by a plurality of field points in a medium using a multi-element transducer, comprising: a. transmitting a set of beams into the medium, each transmit beam in the set of transmit beams having a transmit aperture and individual element transmit attributes used for acquiring an image frame, where the set of transmit beams includes at least one transmit beam that insonifies at least part of the field of view in the medium; b. determining, through measurement or simulation, a plurality of attributes of each transmit beam in the set of transmit beams at the plurality of field points that cover the field of view; c. storing the plurality of attributes for each field point of the plurality of field points for repeated use in processing each new image frame; d. transmitting and receiving echo signals using the set of transmit beams and storing the echo signals in a memory; e. processing the stored echo signals using one or more of the stored transmit beam attributes to qualify the ultrasound echo signal received from a field point contributed by a given transmit beam for use in image formation, and to specify how the signal should be processed; and f. producing and combining multiple image parameters from the set of qualified transmit beams that overlap for a field point to produce a final image parameter that constitutes a field point value for the image frame.