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Abstract

The system provides three-dimensional real time imaging, with features that serve to control acoustic effects that cause interference. Systems are disclosed for medical imaging and other applications in fields that utilize radiated wave signals. The system includes visualization methods to enable guidance of surgical instruments as well as general medical diagnostic usage. The present invention uses a beamformed television method which achieves visual format imaging. Beamformed television includes orthogonal arrays to efficiently resolve two dimensions of a scene with measures to control grating lobes. Beamformed television also includes a method that reduces the time to transmit and receive signals by use of a single burst transmission of multiple frequency codes from each transducer which causes multiple, coded transmit beams that are radiated simultaneously. The addition of step chirp operations achieves highly precise range resolution which makes visual format imaging possible at selected ranges. It also enables a variety of visualization capabilities. The step chirp operation involves repeating the burst transmission at sequentially stepped frequencies. Thus, the frequency codes, that enable the transmit beamforming process, are shifted as a group for each frequency step of the stepped chirp. Frequency domain to time domain conversion using an FFT method efficiently yields range resolved signals.

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First Claim