Patent ID: 7425198

Claim:
A Doppler ultrasound system for monitoring blood flow, comprising: an ultrasound transducer having a plurality of ultrasound transducer elements; an ultrasound pulser circuit operatively coupled to the ultrasound transducer and configured to generate signals to drive a set of elements of the plurality of ultrasound transducer elements to radiate an ultrasound beam; an ultrasound receiving circuit operatively coupled to the ultrasound transducer and configured to process signals detected from reflections of the ultrasound beam by at least a portion of the plurality of ultrasound transducer elements and generate processed data therefrom representative of reflected signal power of blood flow; and a computer operatively coupled to the ultrasound pulser circuit and the ultrasound receiving circuit, the computer configured to control the ultrasound pulser circuit to drive different sets of elements of the ultrasound transducer, control the ultrasound receiving circuit to generate processed data for the different sets of elements, and further configured to analyze the processed data for the different sets of elements to determine a window through which blood flow is detected, the window generally defined by a selected one of the sets of elements for which processed data is provided by the ultrasound receiving circuit and operating conditions for the pulser and receiving circuits for the selected set of elements.