Patent ID: 6867720

Claim:
A method of gathering spatial information, such method comprising the steps of: retrieving an oversampled delta-sigma modulated sequence for a selected set of channels of a transducer at from a memory; delaying the sequence of each channel of the selected set within a transmit/receive delay register to steer a transmitted ultrasonic beam; counting a number of samples of the delta-sigma modulated sequence to detect an end of a transmit sequence; detecting a reflected signal at the end of the transmit sequence on each channel of the selected set of channels; delta-sigma modulating the detected signal of each channel; dynamically delaying a corresponding set of delta-sigma modulated samples from among the channels of the modulated detected signals in the transmit/receive delay register; and summing a corresponding set of delta-sigma modulated values to provide an output signal whose amplitude corresponds to a signal intensity of the formed beam as a function of range.