Ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus capable of probe exchange

An ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus capable of interchangeably using a plurality of probes each having ultrasonic transducer elements disposed in an array and being detachably connected to the apparatus via a connector, wherein a storage unit is provided in the probe for storing data associated with the elements disposal configuration or control information on scanning or focusing, and a controller provided in the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus accesses the storage unit via the connector to read the element disposal configuration data or the control information and perform a control operation of picking up an image in accordance with the read-out data.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic apparatus for use in medical 
diagnosis or in flaw detection, and more particularly to an ultrasonic 
diagnosis apparatus suitable for flexibly dealing with a change in 
specification of a probe. 
Of most of conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, an ultrasonic probe 
is coupled to the apparatus via a removable connector. There is known an 
ultrasonic apparatus of the type that it selectively uses one of a 
plurality of probes such as a linear array type probe having transducer 
elements disposed linearly, a so-called convex array type probe having 
transducer elements disposed circularly and the like. Among those 
ultrasonic apparatus, there has been proposed an ultrasonic apparatus 
which can discriminate a probe connected thereto among those probes. One 
example of such an apparatus is shown in JP-A No. 60-222766 (1985). 
According to this apparatus, a store means such as a shift register for 
storing a code representative of a probe type is mounted on a probe, and 
the store means is accessed by the apparatus to read the code and 
discriminate the type of the probe actually connected thereto. 
A main memory of such a conventional ultrasonic apparatus stores scanning 
and focusing control data for each type of a transducer, more specifically 
stores data regarding the selection of transducer elements and delay 
amounts of transmitting and receiving signals for respective transducer 
elements. When a code representative of a probe type is read from a store 
means provided on the probe, a memory area in the main memory 
corresponding to the read-out code is pointed out to read therefrom 
control data for the connected probe. Then the probe is controlled and, 
imaging operation are performed by using the control data. Such a 
conventional ultrasonic apparatus, however, have some problems: The number 
of probes which can be selectively used by the apparatus is limited 
depending on the capacity of a main memory. In addition, if the type of 
probes to be used is increased or modified, it is necessary to alter the 
content of the main memory. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above problems. 
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the above-mentioned 
problems associated with conventional ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus and 
provide an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus capable of flexibly dealing with 
a change in specification of a probe. 
In an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus which receives and transmits an 
ultrasonic signal by using an interchangeable array type probe to obtain 
an ultrasonic image of an object to be diagnosed, the above object of the 
present invention is achieved by providing- a store means within the 
probe, which store means stores at least signal control information 
characteristic to the probe. 
According to the present invention, a memory unit is provided within a 
probe to store signal control information characteristic to the probe. 
Therefore, irrespective of probe specification, the ultrasonic diagnosis 
apparatus can receive the signal control information matching the 
specification directly from the probe, thus obviating alteration of the 
memory content or addition of circuits as was the case with a conventional 
ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
The embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with 
reference to the accompanying drawings. 
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an ultrasonic diagnosis 
apparatus according to the present invention. In the Figure, a probe is 
indicated by reference A, and an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus main frame 
is indicated by B. The probe A and the main frame B are electrically 
connected by an apparatus main frame connector 4 and a probe connector 3. 
The probe A has ultrasonic transducer elements disposed in one-dimensional 
array configuration. Signal lines for respective transducer elements are 
connected via the connectors to an element selection circuit 5 in the main 
frame B. A main storage unit 2 is provided in the probe A to store control 
data characteristic to the probe. The apparatus also comprises a 
transmission/reception switch circuit 6, a beam former 7, a driver circuit 
8, a controller 9, a signal processor 10, a digital scan converter (DSC) 
11 and a display apparatus 12. 
In this embodiment, electrical scan is performed using a focused ultrasonic 
beam and data necessary for such scan has been stored previously in the 
main storage unit 2 of the probe A, the data including data for selecting 
transducer elements, and data for delaying transmitting and receiving 
signals for respective transducer elements. 
In operation, first the main storage unit 2 is accessed at a predetermined 
address in accordance with an access signal from the controller 9, to 
thereby read element selection data indicating the number of a transducer 
element group to be used at a first transmitting and receiving operation, 
transmitting signal delay data indicating the delay amounts of 
transmitting signals for respective elements, and receiving signal delay 
data indicating the delay amounts of receiving signals for respective 
elements. The element selection circuit 5 constructed of a switch matrix 
selects signal lines of elements to be used in accordance with the 
read-out element selection data and connect them to signal lines leading 
to the transmission/reception switch circuit 6. The transmit signal driver 
circuit 8 is constructed of a plurality of presettable counters, a clock 
for supplying clock pulses to those counters to change the counts thereof, 
and a plurality of drivers for causing to generate an element driving 
pulse at the timing when an overflow signal is outputted from each of the 
counters. The read-out transmitting delay amount data is preset at the 
counters as their initial values. The beam former 7 is constructed of a 
plurality of delay lines each having intermediate taps, switches each for 
selecting one of the intermediate tap of an associated delay line; and an 
adder amplifier for adding outputs from selected intermediate taps and 
amplifying the added result. Which one of the intermediate taps of each 
delay line is selected is determined by the read-out receiving signal 
delay data. After the above data is preset, the controller 9 causes the 
transmission/reception switch circuit 6 to enter a transmit mode and 
activate the driver circuit 8. Thus, each counter of the driver circuit 8 
starts counting clock pulses. A transmit pulse is generated each time an 
associated counter overflows. These generated transmit pulses are applied 
to selected elements via the transmission/reception switch circuit 6, the 
element selection circuit 5, and the connectors 4 and 3, to thereby 
emitting focused ultrasonic beams. Next, the controller 9 causes the 
transmit/receive switch circuit 6 to take a receive mode. Then, the signal 
lines of selected elements are caused to be connected to associated delay 
lines of the beam former 7. Consequently, the received signals from the 
selected elements, i.e., those signals generated in the selected elements 
by the reflected ones of the focused ultrasonic beams generated as above, 
are subjected to predetermined delays by associated delay lines. As a 
result, the beam former 7 outputs a signal which is made by matching the 
phases of respective received signals on a way that the phases of signals 
due to waves reflected from a selected focal point become to a same phase, 
and then, adding the signals together. 
Output signals from the beam former 7 undergo various signal processing by 
the signal processor 10 such as detection, compression, fast time-constant 
control (FTC), and A/D conversion and thereafter, are inputted to the 
digital scan converter 11. 
The above-described transmission/reception operation starting from the 
reading operation of the control data from the main storage unit 2 is 
repeated to obtain a B-mode ultrasonic image through electronic scan. 
Namely, the transmission/reception operation is repeated by sequentially 
changing the transducer elements to be selected, and data is sequentially 
stored in the digital scan converter 11 to form one frame of data. Signals 
from the digital scan converter 11 are sent to the display 12 sequentially 
in the order of scan lines to thereby display an ultrasonic image. 
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the ultrasonic 
diagnosis apparatus according to the present invention. In the Figure, 
reference numbers 1 to 12 denote identical elements to those shown in FIG. 
4. Reference number 13 denotes a sub storage unit. In this embodiment, a 
probe is provided with a main storage unit 2 for storing circuit control 
information characteristic to the probe, whereas the ultrasonic diagnosis 
apparatus main frame is provided with the sub storage unit 13 for 
temporarily storing the content of the main storage unit 2. 
With a probe connected to the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, the content 
of the main storage unit 2 is read via a probe connector 3 and an 
apparatus main frame connector 4 under control of a controller 9. The 
read-out content is stored in the sub storage unit 13. Then, during a 
transmission/reception operation, control information stored in the sub 
storage unit 13 is read under control of the controller 9, thereby 
controlling associated circuits. Flow and process of other signals are 
identical to those of the first embodiment described above. 
With the above circuit arrangement, signal transfer is performed only once 
over a relatively long signal path between the main storage unit 2 and the 
controller 9 so that it becomes not susceptible to the effect of noise. 
Further, since an access to the main storage unit 2 is performed only once 
when a probe is connected or the power is turned on, a storage unit having 
a long access time can be used as the main storage unit 2, thus resulting 
in low cost. 
A read-only memory (ROM) and a random access memory (RAM) may be used as 
the main storage unit 2 and the sub storage unit 13, respectively. 
However, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. 
FIG. 3 shows an example of an array of transducer elements 1 of the probe A 
practically used in the above embodiments, the example showing a convex 
array type ultrasonic probe. Transducer elements are disposed at the 
interval of pitch P on a circular line having a radius r. Elements 
indicated by G.sub.1 are those selected at a first transmission/reception 
operation, 1.sub.1 denotes a direction of transmitting and receiving beams 
at that time, and F.sub.1 denotes a focus of transmitting and receiving 
beams. G.sub.2, 1.sub.2 and F.sub.2 denote the elements to be selected, 
direction and focus, respectively at a second transmission/reception 
operation, and G.sub.n, 1.sub.n and F.sub.n denote the elements to be 
selected, direction and focus, respectively at an nth 
transmission/reception operation. 
Stored in the main storage units shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 are the numbers of 
elements to be selected sequentially for focusing and receiving ultrasonic 
beams onto and from the focusses F.sub.1, F.sub.2, . . . , F.sub.n, 
transmitting signal delay amount data, and receiving signal delay amount 
data. 
If a combination of the transmitting and receiving direction and the focus 
location shown in FIG. 3 is applied to another probe having a different 
pitch P or a curvature r, it becomes necessary to select different 
elements and different delay amounts of transmitting and receiving 
signals. However, according to the above embodiments, the data 
representative of the element selection and the delay amounts is stored in 
the main storage unit 2 of a probe A so that a proper image pickup 
operation can be performed simply by connecting the probe via its 
connector 3. This is very advantageous in that a same ultrasonic diagnosis 
apparatus can selectively use one of a plurality of probes. It is 
particularly advantageous in that it is not necessary to modify the 
apparatus main frame B even if a probe with a different specification is 
used. Probes manufactured to have a same specification may have different 
pitches P or curvature r due to manufacture tolerance. Even in such a 
case, by storing control data matching each probe in the main storage 
unit, a correct transmission/reception of ultrasonic beams becomes 
possible. 
Although an example of a convex array type probe is shown in FIG. 3, the 
invention is not limited thereto but it is also applicable to other probes 
such as a linear array type probe with transducer elements disposed 
linearly. The invention is further applicable to a probe of the type that 
it performs a so-called electronic sector scan control, in which, a beam 
is steered not by means of selective switching of transducer elements but 
by means of delay amount control for transmitting and receiving signals to 
and from transducer elements Thus, the invention is advantageous in that a 
same ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus can selectively use a plurality of 
probes including linear array type probes, convex array type probes and 
electronic sector scan type probes. 
In the circuit arrangement of the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, not only a 
store function but also an arithmetic function may be implemented in the 
sub storage unit 13 so that the sub storage unit 13 may perform a control 
operation of signal processing circuits by storing information on the 
array pitch and curvature of a probe in the main storage unit 2. More 
specifically, stored in the main storage unit 2 is so-called probe 
structure information such as an array pitch, curvature, focus and 
transmitting and receiving apertures, respectively of a probe. On the 
other hand, stored in the sub storage unit 13 is delay time control 
information obtained through arithmetical operation using the above probe 
structure information, e.g., control information including coded values of 
the numbers of input/output taps of delay lines to be used, which control 
information is not directly associated with a probe specification. 
FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate how the main storage units 2 of FIGS. 1 and 2 
for storing control information characteristic to a probe are mounted on 
the probe. In the Figures, reference number 14 denotes a housing for a 
transducer array, 15 a cable, 16 the main storage unit, and 3 and 4 a 
probe connector and an apparatus main frame connector, respectively. 
It is to be noted that the term "probe" used in the above-described 
embodiments is intended to cover not only the housing 14 for a transducer 
array but also the probe connector 3. Namely, the main storage unit 16 may 
be housed either in the probe connector 3 as shown in FIG. 4A or in the 
housing 14 for a transducer array as shown in FIG. 4B.