Patent ID: 8758248
Filing Date: 2014-06-24
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. An ultrasound imaging method, comprising: configuring an overall transmit aperture comprising a plurality of apertures in a transducer array of an ultrasound imaging device, wherein the plurality of apertures comprises one or more transducer elements in the transducer array; delivering one or more reference pulses to a plurality of target regions to detect initial positions of the plurality of target regions, wherein the plurality of target regions corresponds to two or more regions of a target object having different depth values, different lateral locations, or a combination thereof; determining a compound delay profile that distributes acoustic power corresponding to a single pushing pulse in an acoustic radiation force impulse imaging sequence to at least two distinct regions in the plurality of target regions to achieve multiple foci operation in a single transmit event using a compound focus; delivering the pushing pulse to the two distinct regions in the plurality of target regions using the compound delay profile; and delivering one or more tracking pulses to the plurality of target regions for detecting corresponding displacements of at least the two distinct regions in the plurality of target regions.