Patent ID: 7285094
Filing Date: 2007-10-23
Classification: A61B,G01S,G10K

Abstract:
1. A system for gathering ultrasound image data in a scanning process, comprising: a two-dimensional probe carrying a multiplicity of transducer elements disposed or arranged in an array in a first dimension and a second dimension of an image space; switching electronics operatively connected to said probe for selectively energizing said transducer elements and selectively polling said transducer elements to effectively divide said array, along at least one of said first dimension and said second dimension, into a plurality of subapertures each transmitting and receiving a plurality of coarse or low-resolution ultrasound beams beamformed signals, the beamformed signals of said subapertures collectively spanning a volume to be imaged, said subapertures each having a length dimension or size and said beamformed signals each having a beam width or spatial resolution inversely related to the length dimension or size of the respective subaperture; and a signal processor operatively coupled to said switching electronics for coherently combining received low-resolution beamformed signals from said subapertures to synthesize a composite aperture having a larger length dimension or size than any one of said subapertures and focused at each point of said volume, resulting in image data at each point of said volume having higher a spatial resolution finer than the spatial resolution of any one of said beamformed signals in accordance with the larger length dimension or size of said composite aperture.