Patent ID: 8021302

Claim:
An ultrasonic apparatus, comprising: a pulse transmission and reception unit configured to transmit a first transmitted pulse in which a frequency increases with time and a second transmitted pulse in which the frequency decreases with time, and to receive a first received pulse corresponding to the first transmitted pulse and a second received pulse corresponding to the second transmitted pulse; an envelope curve detection unit configured to detect a first envelope curve based on the first received pulse and a second envelope curve based on the second received pulse, respectively; a time difference detection unit configured to detect a first time lag from a transmitted time of the first transmitted pulse to a received time of the first received pulse based on the first envelope curve, to detect a second time lag from a transmitted time of the second transmitted pulse to a received time of the second received pulse based on the second envelope curve, and to detect a time difference between the first time lag and the second time lag; and an attenuation characteristic obtaining unit configured to obtain a frequency dependent-attenuation characteristic based on the detected time difference.