Patent ID: 6719696
Filing Date: 2004-04-13
Classification: G01S,G10K,Y10S

Abstract:
A field deployable 3D ultrasound imaging system for producing high resolution 3D images of an object, the ultrasound system comprising:a compact adaptive multidimensional sensor array for capturing reflections of ultrasound waves, the ultrasound waves being reflected by different structures within the object, and for providing sensor time series indicative of the reflected ultrasound waves; a processing unit for: receiving the sensor time series produced by the multidimensional sensor array; processing the sensor time series in order to produce continuous beamtime series by: decomposing the multidimensional sensor array into two coherent subsets of at least one of circular array beamformers and line array beamformers, a first subset comprising subsequent beamformers in a first coordinate direction of the multidimensional array and a second subset comprising subsequent beamformers in a second other coordinate direction of the multidimensional array; beamforming for a predetermined beam steering direction of data relating to the sensor time series by applying the subsequent beamformers of the first subset, each beamformer producing a beam time series; beam forming for the predetermined beam steering direction of each beam time series of the first subset of beamformers applying the subsequent beamformers of the second subset for the steered direction producing one beam time series for the beam steering direction; and, reconstructing 3D images from the beam time series.