Patent ID: 8684933

Claim:
A portable ultrasound imaging system, comprising: an ultrasound transducer configured to direct acoustic ultrasound signals into a body and produce corresponding electronic echo signals therefrom; a mechanical mechanism configured to orient the ultrasound transducer in a desired direction; a transmitter configured to control production of the acoustic ultrasound signals from the ultrasound transducer; a receiver configured to receive the electronic echo signals from the ultrasound transducer and to process and digitize the electronic echo signals; and a processor configured to control the mechanical mechanism for orienting the ultrasound transducer and to produce image data for gray scale B-mode tissue images from the digitized echo signals, wherein the processor is further configured to produce image data for color flow images from the digitized echo signals by: (a) controlling the mechanical mechanism such that the ultrasound transducer is oriented in a desired direction; (b) controlling the transmitter to produce a number of acoustic ultrasound signals that are delivered into a body in the desired direction at a first pulse repetition frequency (PRF); (c) receiving digitized echo signals for a number of ensemble beams created in response to the number of acoustic ultrasound signals delivered; (d) selecting data from all of the ensemble beams at a desired depth to produce a set of digitized echo signals at the first PRF; (e) regrouping the set of data at the first PRF to produce new sets of digitized echo signals, each with data obtained at a second PRF by selecting data from fewer than all the ensemble beams; (f) calculating flow parameters from the data in each new set of digitized echo signals; (g) combining the flow parameters calculated from the new sets of digitized echo signals to produce the flow data for the desired depth; (h) shifting to another depth and repeating steps (d)-(g) until all desired depths along the beam in the desired direction are finished; (i) moving the transducer to a new desired direction and repeating steps (a)-(h) to get a flow estimation at all desired depths at the new desired direction; and (j) repeating steps (a)-(i) until a whole flow region of interest is covered, wherein the processor controls the mechanical mechanism such that the data for each of the number of ensemble beams in the desired direction is obtained before the ultrasound transducer is oriented in a new direction.