Patent ID: 8545406

Claim:
A method of apodizing ultrasound signals received from a plurality of data channels (k) each associated with different ones of a plurality of transducer elements for ultrasound beamforming, comprising: providing digital channel data representing echo data received from target tissue in each of said plurality of data channels and a predefined number of active data channels (N act ) selected from said plurality of data channels; applying a software-based integrated apodization algorithm to dynamically apodize said digital channel data using a selected apodizing function h[n,k], where n is a sample number, using a computing system including non-transitory machine readable storage to implement said integrated apodization algorithm, said integrated apodization algorithm comprising: (i) applying dynamic aperture control for creating an effective aperture comprising generating a parameter numApertureChannels (N ap [n]) where N ap [n] is ≦said N act , and selecting N ap [n] particular ones from said plurality of data channels based on a dynamic beam focusing location for said ultrasound beamforming; (ii) applying dynamic data scaling to provide data normalization using a vector inner product relation between said apodizing function h[n,k] and a scale factor to generate normalized apodization factors h norm [n,k], and applying said normalized apodization factors h norm [n,k] to said digital channel data to generate apodized and normalized digital channel data for said data channels defined by said N ap [n] particular ones during at least one of said [n], wherein said scale factor is represented by K rat [n] and said vector inner product relation comprises: h norm [n,k]=K rat [n]·h[n,k] for 0 ≦k≦N, wherein K rat ⁡ [ n ] = N act N ap ⁡ [ n ] .