Patent ID: 6074348
Filing Date: 2000-06-13
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
A system for imaging ultrasound scatterers, comprising:an ultrasound transducer array comprising a plurality of transducer elements;pulsing means coupled to said transducer array for pulsing selected ones of said transducer elements which form a transmit aperture with a first pulse sequence during a first transmit firing and with a second pulse sequence during a second transmit firing, said first and second pulse sequences being identical;transmit beamforming means coupled to said pulsing means for forming first and second beams during said first and second transmit firings respectively, said first and second beams being focused at substantially the same transmit focal position;receive beamforming means coupled to said transducer array for forming a first beamsummed receive signal from a first set of receive signals from other selected ones of said transducer elements which form a receive aperture subsequent to said first transmit firing and for forming a second beamsummed receive signal from a second set of receive signals from said other selected ones of said transducer elements which form said receive aperture subsequent to said second transmit firing;means for providing a first set of filter coefficients to said first beamsummed receive signal and a second set of filter coefficients to said second beamsummed receive signal, said first set of filter coefficients being different from said second set of filter coefficients;a filter having an input coupled to an output of said receive beamforming means, a plurality of M filter taps coupled to receive said first and second sets of filter coefficients from said means for providing said first and second sets of said filter coefficients, and an output for supplying a first filtered signal in dependence on said first beamsummed receive signal and said first set of filter coefficients and for supplying a second filtered signal in dependence on said second beamsummed receive signal and said second set of filter coefficients;a vector summer coupled to the output of said filter for adding at least said first and second filtered signals to form a wall-filtered signal;means for B-mode processing said wall-filtered signal to form a B-mode flow image signal; andmeans for displaying an image which is a function of said B-mode flow image signal.