Abstract: Systems and methods for encoding radiofrequency, RF, data, e.g., electrical signals, by a microbeamformer are disclosed herein. The microbeamformer may use a pseudo-random sampling pattern (700) to sum samples of the RF data stored in a plurality of memory cells. The memory cells may be included in a delay line of the microbeamformer in some examples. The summed samples may form an encoded signal transmitted to a decoder which reconstructs the original RF data from the encoded signal. The decoder may use knowledge of the pseudo-random sampling pattern to reconstruct the original data in some examples.

Abstract: Ultrasound image devices, systems, and methods are provided. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising an array of acoustic elements configured to transmit ultrasound energy into an anatomy and to receive ultrasound echoes associated with the anatomy; and a processor circuit in communication with the array of acoustic elements and configured to receive, from the array, ultrasound channel data corresponding to the received ultrasound echoes; normalize the ultrasound channel data by applying a first scaling function to the ultrasound channel data; generate beamformed data by applying a predictive network to the normalized ultrasound channel data; de-normalize the beamformed data by applying a second scaling function to the beamformed data; generate an image of the anatomy from the beamformed data; and output, to a display in communication with the processor circuit, the image of the anatomy.

Abstract: Ultrasound image devices, systems, and methods are provided. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising an array of acoustic elements configured to transmit ultrasound energy into an anatomy in accordance with a first preset acquisition setting, and to receive ultrasound echoes associated with the anatomy; and a processor circuit in communication with the array of acoustic elements and configured to receive, from the array, ultrasound channel data corresponding to the received ultrasound echoes; generate a first set of beamformed data by applying a predictive network to the ultrasound channel data, wherein the first set of beamformed data is associated with a second preset acquisition setting different than the first preset acquisition setting; generate an image of the anatomy from the first set of beamformed data; and output, to a display in communication with the processor circuit, the image of the anatomy.

Abstract: An ultrasound (US) system (10) includes a US scanner (14) and a US probe (12) operatively connected to the US scanner.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes ultrasound systems and methods configured to determine the elasticity of a target tissue. Systems can include an ultrasound transducer configured to acquire echoes responsive to ultrasound pulses transmitted toward the tissue, which may include a region of increased stiffness. Systems can also include a beamformer configured to control the transducer to transmit a push pulse into the tissue, thereby generating a shear wave in the region of increased stiffness. The beamformer can be configured to control the transducer to emit tracking pulses adjacent to the push pulse. Systems can further include a processor configured to determine a displacement amplitude of the shear wave and based on the amplitude, generate a qualitative tissue elasticity map of the tissue. The processor can combine the qualitative map with a quantitative map of the same tissue, and based on the combination, determine a boundary of the region of increased stiffness.

Abstract: An ultrasound imaging system with an inertial tracking sensor rigidly fixed to an ultrasound probe. In a first embodiment, a real-time pose estimation unit enhances image based tracking using the inertial data stream to calculate out-of-plane angles of rotation and determine an out-of-plane translation by iteratively selecting planes with the estimated out-of-plane rotations with varying out-of-plane offset, computing the differences between sub-plane distances computed by speckle analysis and the selected plane minimizing for the root mean square of the differences for all selected planes. In another embodiment, the real-time pose estimation unit enhances inertial tracking using the ultrasound image data stream to estimate an in-plane rotation angle; and substituting the in-plane rotation angle for an angle of rotation estimated using the inertial data stream.

Abstract: In some examples, received signals from certain multilines may be selectively filtered to remove aliased frequencies that may result in grating lobes in ultrasound images. In some examples, a transmit beam may be shaped to reduce spatial frequencies in received signals. In some examples, the width of the transmit beam may be adjusted based on a frequency of the transmit signal. In some examples, a focal depth of the transmit beam may be adjusted based on a frequency of the transmit signal.

Abstract: An ultrasound imaging system may acquire short and/or undersampled radiofrequency ensembles for generating color Doppler images. The ultrasound imaging system may process the short and/or undersampled ensembles to simulate color Doppler images acquired from long radiofrequency ensembles. In some examples, the ultrasound imaging system may include a neural networks to process the ensembles. In some examples, the neural network may include two serial neural networks. In some examples, during training of the neural network, a power Doppler-based flow mask may be used on the output of the neural network. In some examples, during training of the neural network, an adversarial loss may be used on the output of the neural network.

Abstract: An ultrasound imaging system with an inertial tracking sensor (20) rigidly fixed to an ultrasound probe (10). In a first embodiment, a real-time pose estimation unit (32) enhances image based tracking using the inertial data stream to calculate out-of-plane angles of rotation and determine an out-of-plane translation by iteratively selecting planes with the estimated out-of-plane rotations with varying out-of-plane offset, computing the differences between sub-plane distances computed by speckle analysis and the selected plane minimizing for the root mean square of the differences for all selected planes. In another embodiment, the real-time pose estimation unit enhances inertial tracking using the ultrasound image data stream to estimate an in-plane rotation angle; and substituting the in-plane rotation angle for an angle of rotation estimated using the inertial data stream.

Abstract: In an ultrasound imaging system which produces synthetically transmit focused images, the multiline signals used to form image scanlines are analyzed for speed of sound variation, and a map 60 of this variation is generated. In a preferred implementation, the phase discrepancy of the received multilines caused by speed of sound variation in the medium is estimated in the angular spectrum domain for the receive angular spectrum. Once the phase is estimated for all locations in an image, the differential phase between two points at the same lateral location, but different depth, is computed. This differential phase is proportional to the local speed of sound between the two points. A color-coded two- or three-dimensional map 60 is produced from these speed of sound estimates and presented to the user.

Abstract: A system for aiding a user to perform a medical ultrasound examination comprises a memory comprising instruction data representing a set of instructions; a processor; and a display. The processor is configured to communicate with the memory and to execute the set of instructions. The set of instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: i) receive a real-time sequence of ultrasound images captured by an ultrasound probe during the medical ultrasound examination; ii) use a model trained using a machine learning process to take an image frame in the real-time sequence of ultrasound images as input, and output a predicted relevance of one or more image components in the image frame to the medical ultrasound examination being performed; and iii) highlight to the user, in real-time on the display, image components that are predicted by the model to be relevant to the medical ultrasound examination, for further consideration by the user.

Abstract: An ultrasound imaging system which uses multiline receive beamforming for synthetic transmit focusing are phase adjusted to account for speed of sound variation in the transmission medium. The phase discrepancy of the received multilines caused by speed of sound variation in the medium is estimated in the frequency domain for both the transmit angular spectrum and the receive angular spectrum. The phase variation is removed in the frequency domain, then an inverse Fourier transform is used to transform the frequency domain results to the spatial domain. In another implementation, the phase discrepancy of the received multilines is estimated and corrected entirely in the spatial domain.

Abstract: Ultrasound image devices, systems, and methods are provided. An ultrasound imaging system comprising a processor circuit in communication with an ultrasound transducer array, the processor circuit configured to receive, from the ultrasound transducer array, a set of images of a three-dimensional (3D) volume of a patients anatomy including an anatomical feature; obtain first measurement data of the anatomical feature in a first image of the set of images; generate second measurement data for the anatomical feature in one or more images of the set of images by propagating the first measurement data from the first image to the one or more images; and output, to a display in communication with the processor circuit, the second measurement data for the anatomical feature.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes ultrasound systems and methods configured to determine the elasticity of a target tissue. Systems can include an ultrasound transducer configured to acquire echoes responsive to ultrasound pulses transmitted toward the tissue, which may include a region of increased stiffness. Systems can also include a beamformer configured to control the transducer to transmit a push pulse into the tissue, thereby generating a shear wave in the region of increased stiffness. The beamformer can be configured to control the transducer to emit tracking pulses adjacent to the push pulse. Systems can further include a processor configured to determine a displacement amplitude of the shear wave and based on the amplitude, generate a qualitative tissue elasticity map of the tissue. The processor can combine the qualitative map with a quantitative map of the same tissue, and based on the combination, determine a boundary of the region of increased stiffness.

Abstract: A system (100) and method (2000): specify image features (1342/1344/1346) which are to be avoided in selecting a region of interest (10) in tissue of a body for making a shear wave elasticity measurement of the tissue; receive (2020) one or more image signals from an acoustic probe (120) produced from acoustic echoes from an area of the tissue; process (2030) acoustic images (504/506/508) in real-time to identify the image features which are to be avoided in selecting the region of interest; provide (2040) visual feedback to a user to choose a location for the region of interest based on the identified image features; select (2050) the region of interest in response to the visual feedback; and make (2060) the shear wave elasticity measurement of the tissue within the selected region of interest using one or more acoustic radiation force pulses.

Abstract: Systems and methods for encoding radiofrequency, RF, data, e.g., electrical signals, by a microbeamformer are disclosed herein. The microbeamformer may use a pseudo-random sampling pattern (700) to sum samples of the RF data stored in a plurality of memory cells. The memory cells may be included in a delay line of the microbeamformer in some examples. The summed samples may form an encoded signal transmitted to a decoder which reconstructs the original RF data from the encoded signal. The decoder may use knowledge of the pseudo-random sampling pattern to reconstruct the original data in some examples.

Abstract: An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system acquires received beams of echo signals produced in response to a plurality of transmit events. The received beams are combined with refocusing to account for differences in receive beam to transmit event locations. The delays and weights used in the refocusing are supplemented with delays and weights which correct for reverberation artifacts. The received echo signals are processed to detect the presence of reverberation artifacts and a simulated transmission of reverberation signal components to virtual point sources in the image field is calculated. This simulation produces the delays and weights used for reverberation signal compensation, or estimated reverberation signals which can be subtracted from received echo signals to reduce reverberation artifacts.

Abstract: A system for boundary identification includes a memory (42) to store shear wave displacements through a medium as a displacement field including a spatial component and a temporal component. A directional filter (206, 208) filters the displacement field to provide a directional displacement field. A signal processing device (26) is coupled to the memory to execute a boundary estimator (214) to estimate a tissue boundary in a displayed image based upon a history of the directional displacement field accumulated over time.

Abstract: Ultrasound image devices, systems, and methods are provided. An ultrasound imaging system, comprising an array of acoustic elements configured to transmit ultrasound energy into an anatomy and to receive ultrasound echoes associated with the anatomy; and a processor circuit in communication with the array of acoustic elements and configured to receive, from the array, ultrasound channel data corresponding to the received ultrasound echoes; normalize the ultrasound channel data by applying a first scaling function to the ultrasound channel data; generate beamformed data by applying a predictive network to the normalized ultrasound channel data; de-normalize the beamformed data by applying a second scaling function to the beamformed data; generate an image of the anatomy from the beamformed data; and output, to a display in communication with the processor circuit, the image of the anatomy.

Abstract: Various embodiments of the present disclosure include a thermal ablation probabilistic controller (30) employing an ablation probability model (32) trained to render a pixel ablation probability for each pixel of an ablation scan image illustrative of a static anatomical ablation. In operation, the thermal ablation probabilistic controller (30) spatially aligns a temporal sequence of ablation scan datasets representative of a dynamic anatomical ablation, and applies the ablation probability model (32) to the spatial alignment of the temporal sequence of ablation scan datasets to render the pixel ablation probability for each pixel of the ablation scan image illustrative of the static anatomical ablation.