Network-based ultrasound imaging system

Inventors

Call, Josef R. • Davis, Henry A. • Smith, David M. • Specht, David J. • Le, Viet Nam • McHardy, Lang J. • DIGIOVANNI, II, Joseph James • Osborn, Nathan W. • RITZI, Bruce R.

Abstract

Systems and methods for network-based ultrasound imaging are provided, which can include a number of features. In some embodiments, an ultrasound imaging system images an object with three-dimensional unfocused pings and obtains digital sample sets from a plurality of receiver elements. A sub-set of the digital sample sets can be electronically transferred to a remote server, where the sub-set can be beamformed to produce a series of two-dimensional image frames. A video stream made up of the series of two-dimensional images frames can then be transferred from the remote server to a display device.

Core Innovation

The invention provides a method of ultrasound imaging that transmits an unfocused three-dimensional ping into an object using a transmitter element of a transducer array in a probe of a data capture device, and receives echoes of the unfocused three-dimensional ping from one or more reflectors with a plurality of receiver elements of the transducer array. The analog signals from each receiver element are converted into a full dataset of digital sample sets, where the full dataset comprises digital sample sets from all the receiver elements.

The full dataset is communicated to a network-based image generation system, where digital sample sets from a plurality of receiver elements are combined to represent a three-dimensional location of each reflector as a voxel in a 3D volume. The system selects a first voxel within the 3D volume, identifies closest digital sample sets within the full dataset to the selected first voxel for each receiver element, and sums the closest digital sample sets to produce a final representation of the selected first voxel.

The architecture and method further support embodiments in which the 3D volume representation can be extended to additional transmitted pings and can provide different combining behaviors based on whether receiver elements are within a coherence window, including coherent combining and incoherent combining. Additionally, the 3D volume can be mapped to a two-dimensional image by extracting a 2D pixel slice for later selection of a desired 2D image via a user interface.

Claims Coverage

The document includes one independent claim defining the end-to-end network-based ultrasound imaging method and its voxel construction using a full dataset. The independent claim includes 6 primary inventive steps/features: (i) transmitting an unfocused three-dimensional ping, (ii) receiving echoes with multiple receiver elements, (iii) generating a full dataset from all receiver elements, (iv) communicating the full dataset to a network-based image generation system, (v) voxel representation in a 3D volume by selecting a voxel and identifying closest digital sample sets per receiver element, and (vi) summing the closest digital sample sets to form a final voxel representation.

Overall, the claims cover a network-based approach where an unfocused three-dimensional ping is captured as a full dataset from all receiver elements and communicated to a remote image generation system that constructs a 3D voxel representation by selecting a voxel, identifying closest digital sample sets per receiver element, and summing them to form the voxel’s final representation.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications