Patent ID: 7695436

Claim:
A system for generating a therapeutic ultrasound signal, comprising: a medical-treatment transducer array having a plurality of transducer elements, each element being adapted to convert a periodic electrical signal to an ultrasound signal; and a waveform generator coupled to at least one transducer element and including: at least one signal generator adapted to transmit a periodic electrical signal to the transducer element, and at least one duty cycle control adapted to control the duty cycle of the periodic electrical signal of an associated signal generator, wherein the duty cycle of the periodic electrical signal is associated with a plurality of weighted apodization levels derived by dividing the period of the periodic electrical signal into a plurality of equal segments, and wherein each of at least a plurality of the transducer elements emit ultrasound signals having a different effective amplitude from each other of the plurality of the transducer elements in accordance with the duty cycle of an associated periodic electrical signal, such that the transducer array emits an apodized therapeutic ultrasound signal.