COMBINED MOTOR DRIVE AND AUTOMATED LONGITUDINAL POSITION TRANSLATOR FOR ULTRASONIC IMAGING SYSTEM

摘要

A vascular imaging system (20) with an automated longitudinal positiontranslator includes a drive unit (22) with a single motor toprovide for rotational, longitudinal translation of a drive cable (34) anddistally mounted transducer (36) within a catheter assembly (24).The drive unit (22) includes a main body casing (42), and a pullback carriage(48) on which the main body casing slidingly engages. Thedrive cable is mechanically coupled to the motor, and an outer sheath of thecatheter assembly is fixed to the pullback carriage via a rigidpullback arm (54). The imaging system can be made to operate in an automatedlongitudinal translation mode, wherein the main bodycasing of the drive unit is made to uniformly and longitudinally move relativeto the pullback carriage by the drive unit motor, thus causingcoincident longitudinal movement of the drive cable (and distally locatedtransducer) relative to the outer guide sheath (28) of the catheterassembly.