Abstract:
A probe is described for analyzing a target using an array of transceivers formed of transmitter/receiver pairs. As opposed to the prior art, the high voltage trigger signals from used to trigger the transmitters are separated from the output signals of the receivers thereby resulting in a simpler and more efficient circuitry. Moreover, the output signals are delayed to compensate for the delays in the echo signals from the target due to the varying distance between the different transceivers and the target. The probe can be used for analyzing pathological organs, as well as many other objects such as gas pipes, airplane wings, etc.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 62/129,344 filed Mar. 6, 2015 and incorporated herein in its entirety. 
    
    
     A. FIELD OF INVENTION 
     A system and method for mapping a material, object or organ (pathology) is presented using improved Transmit/Receive (T/R) imaging techniques and a multiplicity of sensors. The sensors may be ultrasound, acoustic, electromagnetic or other type of sensors. 
     B. DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART 
     Phased array imaging techniques have been applied to ultrasound, electromagnetic (RADAR), optical and acoustic (SONAR) sensors. Phased array systems are used extensively in non-destructive evaluation, biomedical imaging, underwater imaging and RADAR and others. The prior art techniques use an array or a matrix of waveform transceivers. Individual transceivers are designed to produce a far field pattern. A time delay or a phase shift pattern is introduced between individual transceivers resulting in an interference pattern. The interference pattern effectively steers the transmitted beam in a desired direction or at a focal point. 
     As shown in  FIG. 1 , a conventional phased array imaging system  10  may consist of the following major components: 
     1) a transceiver array  12 ; 
     2) a transmit beam-former  14 ; 
     3) a receive beam former  16 , 
     4) SPDT (Single Pole Double Throw) Transmit/receive switches  18  (one for each transceiver of the array  12 , 
     5) Amplifiers  20 , 
     6) Analog to digital converters (ADCs)  22   
     7) at least one signal processing and computing device  24 . 
     The transmit beam former  14  and/or switches  18  excite (turns on/off) the transmitter elements in the transceiver array  12  at precisely timed intervals. In  FIG. 2  the transmitter elements T 1 , T 2 , . . . Tn−1, Tn of array  12  are shown with transmitters T 1  and Tn being the farthest from a focal point or focus F, transmitter elements T 2  and Tn−1 being closer to the focal point F, and so on. The transmitter elements T 1 , Tn are excited (and/or switched on/off) first, transmitter elements closer to the focal point (2, Tn−1 are excited after a predetermined time delay, and so on. 
     Alternatively, as shown in  FIG. 3  directional steering may be used, in which case the transmitter elements T 1  . . . T 8  are excited by respective excitation wave or pulses that are provided either with time delays or phase shifts or a combination of both time delays and phase shifts. Phase shifts for directional steering of beam are most common in RADAR (electromagnetic) phased arrays. All these excitation signals are produced by the transmit beam former  14 . 
     When the beams from transmitters hit a target, the resulting interference pattern produces echoes from the region under observation. These echoes are detected and collected by individual receiver elements Time delays that are introduced during the excitation phase of the process are taken into account in summing the received waveforms. The receive beam former  16  performs the task of delaying the received waveforms and summing them. 
     Because often the received waveforms are highly attenuated, an ‘analog front end’ amplifiers  20  are needed before the receive beam former  16  can delay and sum the waveforms. Often high voltages are involved during the excitation or transmit mode and hence SPDT transmit-receive switches  18  are required to protect the analog front end amplifiers  20  and the receive beam former  16  from damaging high voltages. Analog to digital converters  22  interface the receive beam former  16  to a signal processing and computing device  24 . The computing device  24  also includes a graphic user interface (not shown) and further means (not shown) to present the received echoes in human understandable format. 
     Due to electronic focusing and beam steering, phased array based ultrasound, SONAR and RADAR systems generate outputs with sharper focus, a variable depth of field and reduced mechanical complexity as compared to prior technology. However, the present state of the art suffers from significant technological and functional drawbacks which result in:
         1. High cost of phased array imaging systems   2. Noise due to power supply.   3. Ringing and blind zone distances.   4. Reduced accuracy and resolution of phased array imaging systems.   5. Due to the above and other technological drawbacks, the miniaturization of phased array systems is hindered.       

     More specifically, the disadvantages of current phased array imaging systems such as the ones illustrated in  FIGS. 1-3  include: 
     1) The requirement for SPDT T/R switches  18 : As discussed above, these T/R switches  18  are used to protect the receive amplifiers  20  and the receiver beam former  16  from destructive high excitation transmit pulse voltages. T/R switches have a switching time delay, typically in range of tens of nanoseconds. For the beam former  16  typical delay times are in range of few nanoseconds. Hence, the T/R switches  18  introduce significant electrical and electronic complexities in phased array imaging systems. Additionally, many advanced T/R switches  18  often need a digital programming signal to either enable them or to control bias currents. Due to this requirement for T/R switches, amplifiers are not integrated directly with transceivers. This is especially a problem in ultrasound phased array systems. Since the amplifiers are not physically close to the transceivers, noise and time delays are introduced as the received (very low level) echo signals travel through cables from the transceivers to T/R switches. Further, T/R switches have their own electrical characteristics which convolute (distort) the received echoes with ‘noise’, thereby introducing further inaccuracy. 
     2) Large number of ADCs  22 : Current phased array systems require analog to digital converters of the order of the number of transceiver elements. This increases the cost and complexity of the current phased array imaging systems. 
     3) High performance ADCs  22 : Current phased array imaging systems require a very precise time delay from the transmit beam former. For example, in a current ultrasound phased array system, a typical time delay could be as small as 1-2.5 ns. Since the received echoes need to be time delayed as well, this would mean an ADC capable of sampling at 1 GHz or faster. Ultrasound signals are typically only 1-50 MHz; hence a much higher speed ADC is required to process the time delay. Therefore, using high performance ADCs drastically increases the cost and complexity of the current phased array systems. It further increases the memory requirement in signal processing by up to 1000 times for phased array ultrasound systems. Additionally, due to the high computing resources required, the imaging frame rate is extremely slow, causing blurry images, and less accurate final imaging. 
     4) High performance computing and signal processing device  24 : Due to the above discussed high cost of high performance ADC&#39;s, an alternate to using high performance ADCs is to use ‘interpolation filtering’ or some other computational technique to sum and delay the received echoes. However, this still requires large memory and computational power, reduces accuracy/resolution as well as increases cost due to the need for high computing resources. 
     5) Significant electrical noise introduced by the high voltage power supply: Either electromagnetic or ultrasonic, the received voltages in the present state-of-art phased array imaging signals are several orders of magnitude smaller than the transmitter pulsing voltages. In present state-of-art systems, the high voltage components (50-200 volts for ultrasound) are electrically connected to low voltage receiver elements (for ultrasound, received voltages are a few millivolts). This is because both transmitter and receiver elements are not electrically isolated (share a common electrical point (ground)), as illustrated for example in US Patent Application Publication 2010/00274139. Hence even a small noise in high voltage power supply leads to significantly larger noises in analog front end, low noise amplifier etc. The additional noise in the received waveforms/echoes means that—1) additional computational resources or analog electronics has to be dedicated to reduce the noise 2) High pulsing voltages need to be used to excite the transmitter. Both of these have a detrimental effect on image quality, miniaturization, cost as well as health hazard (in case of ultrasound, high pulsing voltages cause tissue heating and damage). 
     6) Ringing and blind distance: As a result of 1) transmitter and receiver elements not being electrically isolated and 2) the transmitter continuing to vibrate even after the pulsing voltage is removed, near surface object objects cannot be imaged. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is concerned with the design of an efficient phased array imaging/material mapping system without T/R switches and with a lesser number of low sampling speed ADCs. The invention further provides for electrical isolation between LNA (Low Noise Amplifiers) and high voltage power supply, different ground electrical reference point, dramatically reduced noise. 
     The invention also reduces the required memory size and therefore reduces the need for computing resources and costs. The invention includes dedicated transmitters and receivers instead of using the same phased array element (piezoelectric/capacitive/magnetostrictive/antennae etc.) as both the transmitter and the receiver (transceiver). 
     In one embodiment, a phased array probe is presented that includes
         a plurality of transmitters and receivers wherein at least one of said transmitter is a reference transmitter and all other transmitters are laterally offset from said reference transmitter, and wherein at least one receiver is a reference receiver with all the other receivers being laterally offset from said reference receiver;   a beam former generating control signals for exciting each said transmitter,   a pulse generator generating excitation pulses to said transmitter in response to said control signals, in response said transmitters sending respective probe signals to a target or other object of interest, the excitation pulses to all other transmitters being delayed by a period related to said lateral offset;   a receiving module receiving echo signals from said receivers corresponding to said probe signals, said receiving module delaying echo signals from said all other receivers by delays related to said lateral offset; and   an analyzer analyzing said echo signals.       

     The transmitters are one of piezoelectric, capacitive, magnetostrictive, acoustic, electromagnetic and any other transducer elements converting electrical voltage pulses into acoustic, ultrasonic or electromagnetic waves. 
     The probe may include low noise amplifiers amplifying signals from said receivers to generate said echo signals. The receiving module may include ADCs converting the echo signals into corresponding digital output signals. 
     Preferably, echo signals are delayed by respective amounts with said echo signals from all the receivers occurring simultaneously. Once they processed, the echo signals can be summed or added resulting a single well defined, clean signal. 
     In one embodiment multiplexers may be used to reduce the number of components. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of a known system using a phased transceiver array; 
         FIG. 2  shows a plurality of beams transmitted from transmitters to single focal point; 
         FIG. 3  shows a plurality of parallel beams from transmitters directed at an angle with respect to a surface of an object; 
         FIGS. 4A and 4B  a block diagram and a two-dimensional layout of a sensor array configured in accordance with this invention; 
         FIG. 5  shows a block diagram of a sensor system using the array of  FIG. 4 ; 
         FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D  show respectively the sequence of responses from a group of linear receivers in accordance with this invention, the sequence of excitation pulses sent to the linear receivers, the timing of the received waveforms from the receivers, and the sequence of delays applied each trigger signal to achieve shapeforming; 
         FIG. 7A  shows the waveshapes from the linear receivers with no delay; 
         FIG. 7B  shows the wave shapes of the linear receivers with the delays shown in  FIG. 6D ; 
         FIG. 8  shows a block diagram of a sensor system constructed in accordance with this invention using multiplexers; 
         FIG. 9  shows a block diagram for a real time, small size, high resolution ultrasound imaging system for biomedical or industrial imaging constructed in accordance with this invention; and 
         FIG. 10  shows a block diagram of a high resolution, low cost ultrasound system for structural condition monitoring constructed in accordance with this invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       FIGS. 4A and 4B  shows a novel configuration of transceiver array  100  with alternate (separate) transmitters  102  and receivers  104 . The transmitters  102  are excited by high trigger signals t from a beam forming circuitry (not shown) in this figure. Both transmitters  102  and receivers are aimed a target or object  106 . The reflected signals are sensed by receivers  104  and corresponding received signal r (after amplification by amplifiers  108  are sent by a separate set of lines to a signal processor (not shown in this drawings). 
     As T/R switches used in prior art systems are not required, a low noise amplifier (LNA) and/or preamplifier  108  can be placed physically close to the respective receiver  104 , eliminating noise, time delays and possibly fragile cables. The LNA  108  is an analog electronic device that is easily integrated with the phased array  100  using well known solid state integration technology at low cost. Since the received signals r are amplified at a considerably reduced connection distance, the signal to noise ratio improves significantly and little, if any, additional noise is picked up in the cables  110  between the LNA and the receive beam former circuitry due to the higher signal levels. The receive beam former circuitry could be provided on a separate chip disposed near array  100  or could be integrated on the same IC chip. This would also result in a significantly improved accuracy, resolution and lower costs as compared to the prior art. 
       FIG. 4A  shows the novel phased array sensor  100  in a one dimensional linear configuration. However similar arrangement is possible in a two dimensional matrix form as well as shown in  FIG. 4B . Even though the amplitude of the received signals may be reduced by half, the LNA can have gain in the range of 10-100 so that the resultant signal to noise ratio is still much higher than prior art. This novel phased array sensor shown in  FIGS. 4A and 4B  may be integrated (and may be substituted in conventional system) with existing phased array instrumentation without any major changes to existing hardware or software. 
     However, in the present application a transmit and receive beam former circuit is presented in order to reduce both the number and the sampling frequency of ADCs. In the proposed new circuit shown in  FIG. 5 , the receive beam former used in conventional systems (such as the one described in the US patent Publication identified above) is eliminated. In conventional systems, the transmit beam former consists of a type of programmable logic device such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or a phase shifter. As shown in  FIG. 5 , the transmit beam former initiates high voltage excitation pulses, it also generates appropriately delayed ‘trigger’ pulses for ADC digitizer “programming” in such a way that the received echoes (or received signals) are aligned properly so as to increase resolution. This further serves to increase system accuracy and reduce costs. 
     More specifically, referring to  FIG. 5 , the complete system  200  includes a transmit beam former  201  that generates control signals to a high voltage pulser  202 . In response, the pulser  202  generates high voltage excitation pulses (of an appropriate magnitude and duration) to each of the transmitters  102 . In response, the transmitters  102  generate a signal to the target or object of interest  106 . The signals reflected from the target  106  (or echoes) are sensed by receivers  104 . The received signal from each receiver is amplified by amplifier  108 , conditioned (e.g., filtered, etc., by a signal conditioner  210  and provided to a bank of ADC (analog to digital converters)  212 . The beam former  201  also sends a set of trigger or delay signals to the ADC bank  212  to delay all or some of the received signals. The ADCs start sampling the received signals only after they receive their respective trigger. These signals are therefore appropriately delayed and hence can be summed (or a weighted average operation can be performed) by the signal processing and computing module  214 . 
       FIGS. 6A-D  illustrates the use of delay signals to align received echoes. For simplicity, let us assume a five element phased array  100  (with equally spaced transmit elements  102 - 1 ,  102 - 2  . . .  102 - 5 ) is used to focus on target  106  disposed at a focal point which lies on the perpendicular bisector of the phased array. Since transmitter  102 - 1  and  102 - 5  are farthest from the focal point, they are excited first. Transmitter  102 - 3  is excited after a time delay δ from transmitters  102 - 1  and  102 - 5 . Transmitter  102 - 2  and  102 - 4  are excited after a time delay of δ from transmitter  102 - 3  as shown in  FIG. 6B . 
     This results in all the waveforms/pulses interfering constructively at the focus. The resultant echoes from the focus arrive at the respective receivers (which have been omitted from  FIG. 6A  for the sake of clarity) at different times as shown in  FIG. 6C  with the echoes from the receiver associated with transmitter  102 - 3  arriving at the earliest. To sample the received echoes, we can use trigger signals as shown in  FIG. 6D , so as to compensate for the time difference due to the path difference for different transceiver elements. 
       FIGS. 7A and 7B  show the echo pulses from transceivers and the effect of sampling using our novel technique (delayed trigger) versus sampling without using delayed triggers (current state of art). Notice that there is a marked improvement in accuracy. As described in section B (prior art), an alternate to using the delayed triggers is to use either high sampling frequency ADCs or to use interpolation filtering. Both these techniques used in present art result in either high cost, reduced resolution or both. 
     The illustration in  FIGS. 7A  and B show the improvement in resolution/accuracy just for 5 element phased array.  FIG. 7A  shows five signals received from the five receivers. Obviously it is difficult to analyze these signals to get information about the target  106 .  FIG. 7B  shows the combined with and without the delays. Obviously delaying and summing the signals results in a combined signal that is much easier to analyze. 
     However, in practice, the number of transceiver elements in the phased array can be in several hundreds and hence the resolution/accuracy without delayed trigger will be very poor as the number of transceiver elements increases. 
     The digital data from all the receivers is already offset by a suitable delay originating from the transmit beam former and hence can be added as such without any interpolation. Hence, for a 10 MHz ultrasound signal with 1 ns delay, an ADC/Digitizer with 10 MHz sampling frequency can be used instead of possibly a 1 GHz sampling ADC. Hence, less computing resources are required to process the received ultrasound echo signal. 
     Further, a multiplexer can be used to reduce the number of ADCs as well, further reducing the cost. AnN:1 multiplexing architecture  300  (with N being the number of receivers) is shown in  FIG. 8 . During the transmit stage, all the transmitters are excited by the transmit beam former  302 . However, during the receive stage, both the trigger signals as well as received echoes from the receivers are multiplexed using two multiplexers  306 ,  308 . Only one received echo goes to the analog front end and ADC/Digitizer at a time and the corresponding trigger signal switches on the ADC/digitizer. Once an echo is digitized, it is stored in the computer memory and the next echo is digitized, keeping the delay law pattern in the transmit beam former identical. Since all the echoes are appropriately offset and properly ‘referenced’, all the echoes can be added up within the ADC/digitizer  310  after all the receiver data have been acquired. 
     Alternately, the digitized echoes can be added up sequentially as they are acquired. Even though  FIG. 8  shows N:1 multiplexing architecture however N:K multiplexing scheme can be adopted as well, where K is the number of analog-front end and ADC/digitizer pairs. The N:K multiplexing will be higher frame rate than N:1 multiplexing but the cost will be higher than N:1 multiplexing. By a suitable selection of N and K, the cost and frame-rate can both be optimized. The novel integrated beamforming architecture with or without multiplexing can be used either with existing phased array probes or with the novel phased array probes without T/R switches or with novel phased array probes with electrical isolation between transmitters and receivers. 
     The electrical isolation between transmitter and receiver elements will completely eradicate the noise from high voltage component of the system to cross over to the low noise amplifiers. In addition, blind distances will be completely eliminated through the electrical isolation of transmitters and receivers. This will enable the imaging of near surface artifacts as well as possible reduction in transmitter pulsing voltages. 
     Reduced voltages also will provide for safer “in body” medical imaging, meeting newer food and drug administration (FDA) restrictions on high voltage in medical examinations. 
     The multiplexed architecture is especially suitable for materials testing applications where the test specimen is ‘static’ or changes very slowly. For example, using the multiplexed architecture, a low cost real-time ultrasonic monitoring system for civil or energy infrastructure such as oil/gas pipelines can be designed and permanently fixed to the structure. 
     A 1-20 MHz high resolution and small sized phased array ultrasound system  400  constructed in accordance with this invention is now described in accordance with this invention in conjunction with  FIG. 10 . The transducer  401  consists of a number of alternate transmitter  402 - 1  . . . and receiver elements  404 - 1 , . . . (only two each shown in Figure). The receiver elements  404 - 1 , . . . are connected to an analog front end (AFE  408 ) chip such as MAX 2077 (Maxim Integrated) for amplification. The transmitter elements  402 - 1  . . . isolate the receivers from high voltage circuitry, effectively reducing noise in received ultrasound signals. The AFE  408  includes a number of low noise amplifiers, time gain amplifiers and low pass (anti-aliasing) filters. The transmitter elements  402 - 1 , . . . are connected to a high voltage pulser (HVP)  406  chip such as STHV748 (ST Microelectronics) or MAX4940 (Maxim Integrated). The HVP chip  406  produces an up-to 200 volt peak-peak pulse. The AFE output  409  is connected to a high speed ADC  410  such as AD-9248 (Analog Devices). A 200 MSPS ADC will be sufficient for frequencies in range of 1-20 MHz. The ADC clocks obtained from am FPGA  412  are appropriately delayed (in steps of 1 ns) to enable receive beamforming. ADC clocks as well as the digital data to configure both HVP and AFE are generated by the FPGA  410  such a FPGA-SOC chip such as Altera Cyclone V SoC. The FPGA-SoC also collects the digital output from ADC to form a human readable ultrasonic image. 
     A high resolution and extremely low cost ultrasound system  500  for structural condition monitoring applications is shown in  FIG. 11   
     In certain applications (mainly industrial) such as monitoring of wind turbine blades, oil and gas pipelines and aerospace structures, it will be very useful to have a low cost sensor system permanently attached to the structure which can monitor the structure. In such structural condition monitoring applications, instantaneous imaging is not necessary. However, the imaging resolution (typically micrometers) cannot be sacrificed. At the same time, cost saving becomes critical. Using the present invention, create a high resolution yet low cost system can be created. The system saves cost by reducing the number of ADCs significantly. 
     As an example, for an oil pipeline of the diameter of 32 inches, an ultrasound transducer (typically 1-5 MHz) of several hundred thousand elements will be required to cover the entire circumference of the pipeline over the cylindrical length of, say, 6 inches. For such an application, reduction in the sampling frequency and number of ADCs is the key to reducing the system cost. As discussed in previous sections, for a 5 MHz phased array transducer, our novel design enables the transmit beamforming with an accuracy of 1 ns while using ADCs in the range of 50-100 MSPS. This design has enormous cost savings as compared to using ADCs in 1 GHz MSPS for a 1 ns delay. Secondly, we reduce the number of ADCs by using an analog multiplexer after the receiver elements. Since the data from each ADC is precisely timed, the ADC digital output can be stored in FPGA-SoC memory and can be summed/processed at a later time. In addition to reducing the number of ADCs, we can also reduce the number of AFEs successfully. Similarly, the number of HVPs can be reduced by using a high voltage high speed analog switch such as MAX 4968 (Maxim Integrated). Alternately, HVPs can be replaced by high voltage field effect transistors (FETs) and the FETs can be integrated permanently with the ultrasound transducer. This will reduce the amount of noise and jitter during transmit beam forming improving resolution and accuracy. 
     The digital data acquired from ADCs can be communicated to another computer through a WiFi/Bluetooth or other suitable topology. Ultrasonic measurements in a given area can be compared over time. This can enable detection of subtle changes in the structure such as hydrogen cracking (for oil and gas pipelines) or matrix micro cracking (in fiber composite structures such as wind turbine blades or carbon fiber aircraft structures). Small changes such as these go undetected in normal ultrasonic measurements due to high background noise. Automated monitoring of such small changes using permanently mounted phased array ultrasonic sensors can enable early warning about catastrophic failure and can increase the service lifetime of structures. 
     The system  500  includes a sensor array  501  including transmitters  502  and receivers  504 . High voltage pulses are generated by pulsers  506  and fed through multiplexers  508  to the transmitters  502 . The echoes or received signals from the receivers  504  are multiplexed by multiplexer  512 , amplified and conditioned by AFE&#39;s  514 , digitized by ADC&#39;s  516  and then fed to the FPGA  510  for analyses. As before clock signals for the ADCs  516  and pulsers  506  with suitable delays are generated by the FPGA  510 . 
     Present phased array ultrasound systems are extremely expensive and so are almost operated by skilled technicians and not affixed to the structure for automated monitoring. However, as the novel architecture embedded in equipment is expected to reduce the costs drastically, the phased array ultrasound device can be fixed to the monitored infrastructure at a particular spot. Alternately, ‘smart pipelines’ can be fabricated with built-in phase array transducers. 
     Numerous modifications may be made to the invention without departing from its scope as defined in the appended claims.