Patent ID: 8465433

Claim:
An ultrasound assembly, comprising: i. a garment configured to be affixed to a portion of a living body; ii. at least one ultrasound transducer having a fixed position on said garment and configured to provide at least one of: a) produce; and b) receive ultrasound signals that pass through the living body; iii. an ultrasound processing unit operatively associated with said at least one ultrasound transducer and configured to process said ultrasound signals following passage through the living body; iv. an ultrasound operator-interface unit operatively associated with said ultrasound processing unit and configured to provide information with respect to said ultrasound signals following passage through the living body, wherein said at least one transducer comprises at least one transducer array; and an ultrasound beam-forming unit configured to produce ultrasound beam propagation wherein at least one of: i. at least one sub-array; ii. said at least one array; iii. a plurality of transducer arrays; and iv. said at least one transducer are configured to provide beams consisting of at least one of: a. transmitting; and b. receiving, and said ultrasound processing unit includes a software module configured to process information from said provided beams, wherein said ultrasound processing unit (A) includes a software-based compounding module configured to produce output datasets from input datasets; wherein said input datasets comprise information from said provided beams; by: i. interpolating data for each input dataset to a coordinate grid of every output dataset; and ii. calculating a weighted mean over all input datasets per output grid point, using input datasets whose field of view covers the relevant grid point, (B) is configured to receive input datasets acquired from multiple directions, and, for at least one small target region located in more than one of said input datasets, apply an elastic registration process to relevant measurements in said input datasets, (C) includes a software module-based process configured to reduce clutter effects, comprising: i. acquiring at least one frame of data for the target volume; and ii. for each sample range-gate at each beam position calculating a beam pattern for the current range, with respect to an applicable scanning apex, at all other beam positions; wherein said beam pattern is normalized so that the peak value is 1.0, (D) includes a software module configured to generate ultrasound computed tomography or ultrasound diffraction tomography images by geometrically transforming at least one of: i. scanning processing parameters; and ii. signal processing parameters; to obtain samples equivalent to those obtained using at least one of: a. cylindrical geometry; and b. spherical geometry, or or (E) includes a software module-based process configured to receive data from calibration beams, wherein said calibration beams include at least one of: i. transmit beams; and ii. receive beams, and said process aligns said transmit beams and said receive beams.