Patent ID: 9739885
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: A61B,G01S,G10K

Claim:
1. A method for controlling an aperture of an array transducer of an ultrasound probe, elements of the array being coupled to a microbeamformer in the probe which performs at least partial beamforming of received echo signals, the method comprising: configuring the aperture of the array into a plurality of patches of different sizes, each patch of the plurality of patches comprising a group of transducer elements coupled to the microbeamformer; receiving echoes from a shallow depth of field with an active aperture comprising one or more patches of the plurality of patches, wherein each of the one or more patches have a first size; and receiving echoes from a deeper depth of field by growing the active aperture to add patches each having a second size larger than the first size; the configuring further comprising configuring patches of a uniform size in a first dimension and a different size in a second dimension, such that a smallest patch is positioned in a center of the aperture in either the first dimension or the second dimension with patches of progressively increasing size positioned on either side of the smallest patch in either the first dimension or the second dimension.