Importance

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Abstract

An acoustic imaging system having an array of N transducers arranged for transducing transmit electrical signals into acoustic pulses and for transducing acoustic pulse echos into electrical receive signals has a transducer multiplexer that connects in substantially cyclic order any one of a selected group of M adjacent transducer elements to one of a plurality of substantially identical transmit or receive channels. Each channel includes phase changing means for dynamic focusing, such as a mixer driven by one of a plurality of individually phased clocks. A control demultiplier orders connection of an appropriate one of the differently phased clocks to the mixer of each channel in an order precisely corresponding to the cyclic ordering of the transducer connections by the transducer multiplexer as groups of M adjacent transducer elements are selected to form acoustic scan lines stepped across the entire array.

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First Claim