Patent ID: 7542790

Claim:
An apparatus for measuring the velocity of a moving object or the velocities of a collection of moving objects, the apparatus comprising: a generator for generating excitation signals; an emitting multi-element transducer for transforming the excitation signals into wave energy by emitting the wave energy by excitation of elements or groups of elements of the multi-element transducer in a predefined sequence; a receiving transducer having a plurality of receiving transducer elements for receiving signals from the moving object or objects generated by interaction with the wave energy emitted from the emitting multi-element transducer; a receive beam former for receiving signals from the plurality of receiving transducer elements and for delaying each of the signals from the plurality of receiving transducer elements individually relative to the others of the signals from the plurality of receiving transducer elements; an update processor for obtaining a set of focused beams for respective excitations of the elements; and a velocity processor executing computer-readable instructions for directing the velocity estimator to: form a first image from a first set of focused beams, where the first set of focused beams are acquired in response to excitation of respective sets of elements of the multi-element transducer, and where the sets of elements are excited in a first predetermined order; form a second image from a second set of focused beams, where the second set of focused beams are acquired in response to excitation of respective sets of elements of the multi-element transducer, and where the sets of elements are excited in a second predetermined order, where the first predetermined order and the second predetermined order are the same order; and determine the velocity or velocities by correlating the first image and the second image.