Patent ID: 8135190
Filing Date: 2012-03-13
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
1. A method of removing an effect of side lobes in forming an ultrasound synthetic image having a plurality of pixels in an ultrasound diagnostic device including a transmit/receive control unit, a probe and a beam former, the method comprising: a) setting, via the transmit/receive control unit of the ultrasound diagnostic device, a plurality of scan lines and defining sequential indices upon the scan lines; b) setting, via the transmit/receive control unit of the ultrasound diagnostic device, a transmit order of transmit beams for the scan lines in a manner according to sequentially ordered scan indices set by alternately decrementing and incrementing a predetermined scan line index of the scan line indices by −1 and +3, respectively; c) transmitting, via the probe of the ultrasound diagnostic device, the transmit beam based on the set transmit order to obtain a plurality of receive beams in response to each transmission of the transmit beam; d) grouping, via the beam former of the ultrasound diagnostic device, the receive beams to an increment group corresponding to a plurality of scan line pairs of the scan lines, each pair having an index difference of +2, and a decrement group corresponding to a plurality of scan line pairs of the scan lines each pair having an index difference of −1; e) performing, via the beam former of the ultrasound diagnostic device, an auto correlation upon the receive beams included in the respective increment group and the decrement group; and f) determining, via the beam former of the ultrasound diagnostic device, weights based on mean phase differences of the increment and decrement groups, applying the weights to the auto correlation results and summing the weight-applied auto correlation results to thereby remove said effect of side lobes.