Patent ID: 8920321

Claim:
An object information acquisition apparatus, comprising: an electromechanical conversion element group including a plurality of electromechanical conversion elements, each electromechanical conversion element being configured to receive an elastic wave and to convert the received elastic wave into an electric signal, the elastic wave being emitted by a test object in response to the test object being irradiated with an electromagnetic wave; an actuator configured to mechanically move the electromechanical conversion element group from a first position to a second position; and an adding circuit configured to add electric signals transmitted from two or more electromechanical conversion elements, wherein the plurality of electromechanical conversion elements includes a first electromechanical conversion element and a second electromechanical conversion element, wherein a first electric signal is transmitted from the first electromechanical conversion element to the adding circuit at a first point in time when the first electromechanical conversion element is located at a predetermined position with respect to the test object when the electromechanical conversion element group receives the elastic waves at the first position, wherein a second electric signal is transmitted from the second electromechanical conversion element to the adding circuit at a second point in time when the second electromechanical conversion element is located at substantially the same predetermined position with respect to the test object when the electromechanical conversion element group receives the elastic waves at the second position, and wherein the adding circuit adds the first electric signal received from the first electromechanical conversion element to the second electric signal received from the second electromechanical conversion element.