HIGH RESOLUTION 3D ULTRASOUND IMAGING SYSTEM DEPLOYING A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL ARRAY OF SENSORS AND METHOD FOR MULTI-DIMENSIONAL BEAMFORMINGSENSOR SIGNALS

摘要

An adaptive multidimensional having near-instantaneous convergence for ultrasound imaging systems deploying multidimensional sensor arrays is disclosed. In a first step, the multidimensional is decomposed into subapertures. Each sub-aperture is then again decomposed into two coherent subsets of circular and/or line array beamformers in different coordinate directions of the multidimensional array. Implementation of the multidimensional according to the present invention provides the basis for a 3D ultrasound imaging syst em according to the present invention comprising a compact multidimensional sensor array and a compact processing unit that is field deployable and generates high resoluti on three-dimensional images in real time. It is also possible to capture four- dimensional images, the fourth dimension being time and the resulting images forming a video ima ge of a volume of a moving organ.