Abstract:
An ultrasonic probe includes ultrasonic transducers and processing electronics to control emission of ultrasonic energy and to process and digitize returned echo data. Processed echo data can then be transmitted over a digital interface for display.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The subject matter disclosed herein relates to ultrasonic probes, in particular, an integrated active ultrasonic probe that is connectable to a plurality of computing devices. 
         [0002]    Nondestructive testing devices can be used to inspect, measure, or test objects to identify and analyze anomalies in the objects. These devices allow an inspection technician to maneuver a probe at or near the surface of the test object in order to perform testing of both the object surface and its underlying structure. Nondestructive testing can be particularly useful in some industries, e.g., aerospace, power generation, and oil and gas transport or refining (e.g., pipes and welds). The inspection of test objects must take place without removal of the object from surrounding structures, and where hidden anomalies can be located that would otherwise not be identifiable through visual inspection. Ultrasonic testing is one example of nondestructive testing. When conducting ultrasonic testing, ultrasonic pulses or beams are emitted from ultrasonic transducers mounted in a probe and pass through a test object. As the ultrasonic energy, in the form of pulses or beams, pass through the object, various ultrasonic reflections called echoes occur as the ultrasonic beams interact with internal structures (e.g., anomalies or surfaces) of the test object. These echoes are detected by the ultrasonic transducers and are analyzed by processing electronics connected to the ultrasonic transducers. 
         [0003]    A phased array ultrasonic probe comprises a plurality of electrically and acoustically independent ultrasonic transducers that incorporate piezoelectric material and are mounted in a single probe housing. During operation, predetermined patterns of electrical pulses are generated and transmitted to the probe. The electrical pulses are applied to the electrodes of the phased array transducers causing a physical deflection in the piezoelectric material which generate ultrasonic energy (e.g., ultrasonic signals or beams) that is transmitted through the test object to which the probe is coupled. By varying the timing of the electrical pulses applied to the phased array ultrasonic transducers, the phased array ultrasonic probe generates ultrasonic beams that impact the test object at different angles. This process of beam steering facilitates an efficient inspection of different regions of the test object to completely detect anomalies therein. The amplitude and firing sequence of the individual transducers of the phased array probe can be programmably controlled in order to adjust the angle and penetration strength of the ultrasonic beam that is emitted into the test object. When the resulting ultrasonic echo returns to contact the surface of the piezoelectric material of a transducer it generates a detectable voltage difference across the transducer&#39;s electrodes which is then recorded as echo data by the processing electronics, and includes an amplitude and a delay time. By tracking the time difference between the transmission of the electrical pulses and the receipt of the echo data, and measuring the amplitude of the received echo data, various characteristics of the test object can be determined such as its thickness, or the depth and size of anomalies therein. 
         [0004]    In some applications, the ultrasonic probe is connected to a dedicated processing station by cables which can be several meters long. The processing station drives the ultrasonic probe via the cables and the cables carry analog echo data detected by the transducers during a scanning inspection back to the processing station for analysis. The length of the cables tends to create added noise in the returning echo data. The processing station includes signal processing electronics for analyzing the echo data and a display screen for displaying the results of any analyses. The processing station hardware must match the type of the ultrasonic probe providing the echo data and is typically custom manufactured for each type of ultrasonic probe. For example, a probe having 128 transducers requires the same number of conductors in the cable to transmit echo data from each of the transducers in the probe head back to the processing station. For phased array ultrasonic probes containing such a large number of transducers, or more, the probe cable between the phased array probe and the processing station can be quite dense and is difficult to maneuver. 
         [0005]    The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. 
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    One aspect of the invention is an integrated active ultrasonic probe and a processing system operable with the integrated active ultrasonic probe. The integrated active ultrasonic probe includes specialized hardware and processing components required for generating ultrasonic test data which can be transmitted over a standard digital interface to a connected processing system. By moving specialized hardware and processing into the integrated active ultrasonic probe, the use of a generic processing system, or processing unit, such as a PC/workstation, laptop, or tablet, to analyze and visualize the ultrasonic echo data is facilitated. This relieves the requirement for specialized hardware and processing in the processing station. The new design is integrated into a small volume that fits into the probe housing that can be maneuvered within test objects. Signal-to-noise ratio is improved because shorter wires connect processing electronics directly to the ultrasonic transducers. The ultrasonic transducers and the processing of data generated thereby are part of the integrated active ultrasonic probe and heavy cables for housing significant data transmission lines are not required. 
         [0007]    The ultrasonic probe includes ultrasonic transducers and processing electronics to control emission of ultrasonic energy and to process and digitize returned echo data. Processed echo data can then be transmitted over a standard digital interface. Advantages that may be realized in the practice of some disclosed embodiments of the integrated active ultrasonic probe is improved signal-to-noise and compatibility with various processing systems. 
         [0008]    In one embodiment, an ultrasonic probe is disclosed comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers connected to an integrated circuit. The integrated circuit includes a plurality of transmitter and receiver circuits each generating electrical signals transmitted to one of the plurality of ultrasonic transducers and each receiving echo data detected by the one of the plurality of ultrasonic transducers. A control circuit is connected to the plurality of transmitter and receiver circuits to control the transmission of the electrical signals and to process the echo data. An analog-to-digital converter digitizes the processed echo data and a control unit receives the digitized and processed echo data for processing it into A-scan summation data. A digital interface is connected to the control unit for transmitting the A-scan summation data. 
         [0009]    In another embodiment, a processing system for processing ultrasonic data is disclosed. The processing system includes a processing unit having a processor, a display, and a digital interface. An ultrasonic probe is connected to the digital interface and includes a number of ultrasonic transducers. An integrated circuit is connected to the plurality of ultrasonic transducers and includes a plurality of transmitter and receiver circuits. Each of the transmitter and receiver circuits generates electrical signals that are transmitted to one of the ultrasonic transducers and each receives echo data generated thereby. A control circuit is connected to the transmitter and receiver circuits to control the transmission of the electrical signals and to process the received echo data. An analog-to-digital converter is connected to the integrated circuit to digitize the processed echo data. A control unit is connected to the analog-to-digital converter to receive the digitized processed echo data and to process it into A-scan summation data. The A-scan summation data is then transmitted over the digital interface. 
         [0010]    In another embodiment, a method of processing ultrasonic data is disclosed. The method includes receiving output data generated by an active integrated ultrasonic probe, which output data comprises beam formation data. A scan conversion of the beam formation data is performed and the beam formation data is decimated into a format compatible for display on a display screen. The scan converted beam formation data is combined into volume data and then rendered and displayed on the display screen. 
         [0011]    This brief description of the invention is intended only to provide a brief overview of subject matter disclosed herein according to one or more illustrative embodiments, and does not serve as a guide to interpreting the claims or to define or limit the scope of the invention, which is defined only by the appended claims. This brief description is provided to introduce an illustrative selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This brief description is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. The claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in the background. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0012]    So that the manner in which the features of the invention can be understood, a detailed description of the invention may be had by reference to certain embodiments, some of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the drawings illustrate only certain embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the scope of the invention encompasses other equally effective embodiments. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis generally being placed upon illustrating the features of certain embodiments of the invention. In the drawings, like numerals are used to indicate like parts throughout the various views. Thus, for further understanding of the invention, reference can be made to the following detailed description, read in connection with the drawings in which: 
           [0013]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of an exemplary phased array integrated active ultrasonic probe; 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  is a diagram of an exemplary processing unit that is connected to the exemplary phased array integrated active ultrasonic probe of  FIG. 1 ; and 
           [0015]      FIG. 3  is a flow diagram of an exemplary processing sequence performed by a generic processing unit connected to the integrated active ultrasonic probe of  FIG. 1 . 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0016]      FIG. 1  illustrates an integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . In one embodiment, the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  comprises an array  101  of ultrasonic transducers  102  each electrically connected to a transmitter and receiver circuit  112 . The transmitter portion of the transmitter and receiver circuits  112  each comprise a pulser  114  that transmits electrical pulses to a connected one of the ultrasonic transducers  102 . The pulsers  114  generate electrical pulses coordinated by control circuit  103  and buffered in transmitter delay circuits  115 , including delays for controlling beam steering. 
         [0017]    The receiver portion of the transmitter and receiver circuits  112  comprises an amplifier  116  and receiver delay  117  for receiving ultrasonic echoes detected by one of the connected ultrasonic transducers  102 . In addition to controlling transmitter signals to the ultrasonic transducers  102 , control circuit  103  sums the received echo data from all the transmitter and receiver circuits  112  connected to it, using receiver delay circuits  117 , as part of a beam forming calculation process, and transmits the processed echo data to analog-to-digital (A/D) converter  105  over an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) output port  118 . Each ASIC  113  comprises an ASIC output port  118  connected to an A/D converter  105  for digitizing the ASIC output which can include A-scan data. A plurality of transmitter and receiver circuits  112 , and a control circuit  103 , can be fabricated on a single ASIC  113  having an ASIC output port  118 . Thus, the beam formation is executed on the ASIC  113  which is disposed in the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . By integrating the transmitter and receiver circuits  112  directly onto the ASIC  113  in the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 , the signal-to-noise ratios are improved due to the shorter electrical connection as compared to the conventional longer cable connections as described above. 
         [0018]    A digital control unit  106 , comprised of, for example, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), comprises an ASIC data interface  104  for communicating control data to the ASICs  113  and is connected to the A/D converters  105  for receiving the A/D converted data. The control unit  106  includes a digital interface  108  output. Such an interface can include, for example, a standard interface such as a USB interface, PCIe interface, WLAN interface, or Ethernet interface, to communicate with a connected generic processing unit  200  such as a tablet computer  220 , a laptop computer  230 , or a PC/workstation computer  240 . The control unit  106  controls the different functions of the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  and the ASICs  113 . In one embodiment, four ASICs  113  are connected to the control unit  106 , with each ASIC  113  typically connected to about thirty two ultrasonic transducers  102 . This configuration of ultrasonic transducers  102  can be mounted within the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . 
         [0019]    The digital control unit  106  implements the standard digital interface  108  using digital transmission over a cable, e.g. USB, PCIe, Ethernet, or over a wireless interface, e.g., WLAN, for data transmission to the processing unit  200 . The alternative wireless implementation uses battery  110  that provides power for wireless digital transmission via antenna  111 . The data received from A/D converter  105  and processed by control unit  106  is typically clipped to  16  bit width before it is transmitted to the processing unit  200  over the standard digital interface  108 . 
         [0020]    The scheme for interrogating a test object is generated in probe control unit  106  and sent to the control circuit  103  in the form of a programmed beam steering operation. The interrogation scheme is stored, for example, in probe memory  109 . The scheme might comprise, for example, a series of ultrasonic beams directed at the test object at particular angles wherein each beam in the series is slightly shifted by a predetermined number of degrees for a complete scan of the test object. Although the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  is illustrated and described as a phased array probe, it should be noted that the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  can include a single ultrasonic transducer  102 , or a single ASIC  113  with multiple connected ultrasonic transducers  102 . 
         [0021]    As shown in  FIG. 2  the processing unit  200  can comprise any of several embodiments. The processing unit  200  can include a tablet computer  220 , a laptop computer  230 , or a PC/workstation computer  240 . A peripheral digital interface  203 , can connect the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  to processing unit  200  for managing control and data communications between the processing unit  200  and the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  or other components. The digital interface  203  can include, for example, a standard USB interface, Ethernet interface, or PCIe interface, or a wireless, e.g., WLAN or Bluetooth interface. Software installed on generic processing unit  200  enables controlled operation of integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  via a user interface. The software can be scaled in complexity to conform to the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  hardware, for example, the number of transducers  102  mounted in the active ultrasonic probe  100 . Control data sent from processing unit  200  to the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  can include configuration set up, mode selection, and initialization data. Processing unit  200  includes one or more processor(s)  202 , for running system software and controlling system operations, and processing unit memory  204  coupled to processor  202 . Computer program instructions (executable instructions) can be stored in processing unit memory  204  or otherwise available to be executed by the processor  202  such as by downloading from a network. Processing unit  200  comprises a display screen  201  for a user to view system operations, user interface, and integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  inspection results. The processing unit  200  receives A-scan summation data generated by the control unit  106  of the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . The received A-scan data are typically processed via scan conversion and decimation, after which they are displayed on an x-y graph with, for example, depth on the y-axis and distance from the transducer  102  on the x-axis, or with amplitude on the y-axis and time of flight on the x-axis. These displayed data form the signature of a potential anomaly and are typically stored in processing unit memory  204  and post processed to provide additional views for the operator to assist in determining if an anomaly is truly a defect or not. The processing unit  200  includes a power supply  205 , connected to an external AC voltage or provided by a portable power source such as a battery. 
         [0022]      FIG. 3  illustrates a method  300  of processing data transmitted from the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . After receiving the data output  301  from the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 , the first step in the processing unit  200  comprises a scan conversion  302  and a down sampling decimation step  303  for enabling the data to be displayed on display screen  201  of processing unit  200  with maximum resolution according to its display rate. Scan conversion  302  calculates an image from the beam formation data while decimation limits the sampling rate to about  1024  samples per beam. Afterwards the scan converted and decimated data is calculated and combined into a volume  304 , which is then rendered and displayed  305  on display screen  201 . The data transmission between the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  and the processing unit  200  can implement a format where one data frame, i.e. one set of beams, is combined into one block for transmission to the processing unit  200 . It should be noted that other methods of processing ultrasonic echo data output by the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  can be implemented in the processing unit  200 . 
         [0023]    In view of the foregoing, embodiments of the invention combine an integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  with a compatible digital interface  108 , e.g. a standard USB, PCIe, Ethernet, WLAN, or Bluetooth. A technical effect is improvement to the signal-to-noise ratio that is realized, as the transmitter and receiver for the ultrasonic signals is directly connected to the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 , at a distance of less than about 50 mm. It simplifies the connection between the integrated active ultrasonic probe  100  and the processing unit  200  due to bulky cables being replaced with standard digital interface  108  cables. With the standard digital interface  108  any commercially available processing unit  200  can be used with integrated active ultrasonic probe  100 . 
         [0024]    As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method, or computer program product. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.), or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “circuitry,” “unit,” and/or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon. 
         [0025]    Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program code and/or executable instructions embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing. 
         [0026]    Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user&#39;s computer (device), partly on the user&#39;s computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user&#39;s computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user&#39;s computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider). 
         [0027]    Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
         [0028]    These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
         [0029]    The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. 
         [0030]    This written description uses examples to disclose the invention, including the best mode, and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the invention, including making and using any devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. The patentable scope of the invention is defined by the claims, and may include other examples that occur to those skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be within the scope of the claims if they have structural elements that do not differ from the literal language of the claims, or if they include equivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from the literal language of the claims.