Automatic bladder volume measuring device

By combining a 3D ultrasound probe with an FPGA control processor and a gradient calculation processor, automatic measurement of bladder volume is achieved, solving the problem of large measurement errors in existing technologies and improving the accuracy of measurement and treatment effects.

CN223504244UActive Publication Date: 2025-11-04SUZHOU MEDXUN MEDICAL TECH CO LTD
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Patent Information

Application Number
CN202422378991.9
Authority / Receiving Office
CN · China
Patent Type
Utility models(China)
Current Assignee / Owner
Filing Date
2024-09-29
Publication Date
2025-11-04
Estimated Expiration
2034-09-29

AI Technical Summary

Technical Problem

Existing bladder capacity measurement devices, which use a single mathematical model and mechanical probe drive, are difficult to accurately measure urine volume for different bladder shapes, resulting in large measurement errors and requiring high operator skill, thus affecting diagnostic and treatment outcomes.

Method used

By employing a 3D ultrasound probe combined with an FPGA control processor and a gradient calculation processor, the bladder volume is automatically measured through coordinate transformation and point integration operations using variable angle emission, variable frequency sampling, and other methods. This enables rapid delineation of the bladder boundary and volume calculation.

Benefits of technology

It improves the accuracy and precision of bladder volume measurement, reduces reliance on operator technique, and enhances the reliability of measurement and therapeutic effect.

✦ Generated by Eureka AI based on patent content.

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Abstract

The utility model discloses an automatic bladder volume measuring device which comprises an ultrasonic probe module, a microprocessor, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) control processor, a power supply and an input module, the FPGA control processor generates a driving signal of the ultrasonic probe to the probe driving circuit according to an instrument starting pre-scanning or scanning signal sent by the input module, and the probe driving circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to scan and rotate; the probe signal receiving and transmitting circuit receives an ultrasonic signal reflected by the ultrasonic probe, carries out amplification and A / D conversion, converts the ultrasonic signal into a digital signal, and transmits the digital signal to the FPGA control processor for ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and rapid groove edge and volume calculation. According to the utility model, accurate and quantitative measurement of the bladder volume can be conveniently and painlessly carried out, and the measurement of the bladder volume can be applied to wider fields.
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Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The utility model relates to medical equipment technical field detection equipment, concretely relates to a bladder volume automatic measuring device. BACKGROUND

[0002] For home paraplegic patients and elderly patients with urinary incontinence, bladder capacity and residual urine volume need to be determined to timely perform catheterization, avoid urine backflow, damage the kidney or cause bladder muscle atrophy.

[0003] The early bladder capacity measuring instrument developed in the world is a device that uses a 3D ultrasonic probe to take the bladder as an ellipsoid shape, and determines the bladder urine volume by calculating the long axis, short axis and depth of the ellipsoid according to the volume formula of the ellipsoid. However, the shape of each person's bladder is different, and the shape of the bladder when it is full and not full is also different. Therefore, using a single mathematical model to determine the bladder urine volume will not be accurate for most patients. Such a device will bring many inaccuracies to the evaluation of bladder physiological function and the therapeutic effect evaluation of the treatment process of bladder diseases, affecting the correct diagnosis of doctors. In particular, as the application range of quantitative determination of bladder capacity expands, such as controlling the bladder to be full to 350ml to avoid organ displacement. Achieve the effect of accurate radiotherapy. Therefore, accurate determination of bladder volume in the pelvic cavity radiotherapy process can minimize damage to normal tissues and significantly reduce radiotherapy reactions, and the treatment effect is significantly improved compared with ordinary radiotherapy. In view of the shortcomings of the device, researchers have developed a bladder urine volume measuring device using a 3D ultrasonic probe through flap superposition technology (utility model patent No. ZL 201210215960.0). The technology described in the patent application solves the problem of using a single mathematical model to measure the urine volume of different bladder shapes. It establishes a mathematical model suitable for measuring the urine volume of various bladder shapes. This bladder urine volume measuring device using a 3D ultrasonic probe through flap superposition technology, the capacity calculation formula (Vn = [0.87 x S(n) x S(n)] / a) in the flap superposition technology is also based on the ellipsoid empirical formula of two orthogonal cross sections. When the shape of the bladder cannot be approximated to an ellipsoid, the error will be large. Moreover, the patent application No. 201610929931.9 has pointed out the disadvantages of this algorithm. The utility model patent ZL 201210215960.0 uses the orange segment integral method to calculate the bladder volume. In the case that the probe central axis does not deviate from the bladder center, the calculation accuracy can be guaranteed. However, if the central axis deviates from the bladder center, the calculation of the "large orange segment" will be overestimated, as shown in Figure 13 , where the bladder cross-sectional area is S1+S2. However, due to the deviation of the central axis, S3 and S4 are calculated, affecting the entire volume calculation value and leading to a large error. As shown in Figure 13It can be seen that if the central axis deviates from the cross section of the bladder, the error will be larger. At present, the 3D ultrasonic probe used for bladder volume measurement device in the world is a motor-driven mechanical probe. During scanning, the axis will deviate to a certain extent. In addition, if the operator does not place the probe in the center of the patient's bladder, the measurement error will be large, so the operator's skill is required very high. Patent application No. 201610929931.9 proposes to first convert the 12 surfaces of the bladder into a 3D model, and then integrate from top to bottom. Although the calculated bladder volume is not affected by the shape of the bladder, when calculating each integral surface, the formula wherein The formula calculates the area of each small sector using the area formula of the sector (central angle is 15° and radius is Ri) However, this calculation method is suitable for the case where the central axis is inside all cross-sectional areas (even if the central axis deviates, the volume calculation will not have errors), but when the central axis appears outside the cross-sectional area, as shown in Figure 14A Cutting surface 1 has deviated to the outside of the central axis, which will cause a large error when calculating, as shown in Figure 14B When cutting surface 1 is calculated, the area of the shaded part in the figure will be calculated as more, and the larger the deviation of the central axis, the larger the calculation error. Therefore, this algorithm also requires high skill of the operator. Practical new type content

[0004] In order to solve the above technical problems, the utility model provides a kind of bladder volume automatic measuring device.

[0005] A kind of bladder volume automatic measuring device, comprising:

[0006] Ultrasonic probe module, including ultrasonic probe, probe drive circuit and probe signal transceiver circuit;

[0007] Microprocessor, and power supply and FPGA main control processor signal connection;

[0008] FPGA control processor, and probe drive circuit and probe signal transceiver circuit signal connection, for controlling ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic imaging and image processing, carry out fast groove and volume calculation;

[0009] Power supply;

[0010] Input module;

[0011] The FPGA control processor generates the driving signal of the ultrasonic probe to the probe drive circuit according to the instrument start pre-scanning or scanning signal sent by the input module, and the probe drive circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to scan and rotate;

[0012] The probe signal transceiver circuit receives the ultrasonic signal reflected by the ultrasonic probe, and performs amplification and A / D conversion to convert the ultrasonic signal into a digital signal and transmit the digital signal to the FPGA control processor for ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and fast groove edge and volume calculation.

[0013] Further, the microprocessor is a Cofex-A9 processor, which is connected with the FPGA control processor through a control line, an SPI bus and an EIM bus.

[0014] Further, the FPGA control processor is an FPGA programmable logic device, which includes a main control processor, an ultrasonic imaging and image processor, and a gradient calculation processor.

[0015] Further, the ultrasonic probe includes a probe module, an upper motor and a lower motor, the probe module includes a probe wafer and a probe transmitting circuit.

[0016] The lower motor is fixed at the starting position of the scanning range when the scanning starts, the upper motor drives the probe module to swing back and forth within a specified angle range, and the ultrasonic probe obtains the ultrasonic image of the first section.

[0017] Then, the lower motor rotates by a specified angle and is fixed, the upper motor swings back and forth within the specified angle range to obtain the ultrasonic image of the second section, and the process is repeated until the lower motor rotates to the terminal position, the upper motor swings back and forth within the specified angle range to obtain the ultrasonic image of the nth section, and the process is stopped.

[0018] Further, the FPGA control processor generates a transmitting pulse output to the probe transmitting circuit, the probe transmitting circuit amplifies the transmitting pulse and sends the amplified transmitting pulse to the probe wafer, the probe signal transceiver circuit includes an ultrasonic preamplifier circuit and an A / D signal conversion circuit, the ultrasonic preamplifier circuit amplifies the ultrasonic electrical signal transmitted by the probe wafer and sends the amplified ultrasonic electrical signal to the A / D signal conversion circuit to convert the amplified ultrasonic electrical signal into an ultrasonic digital signal, and the ultrasonic imaging and image processor processes the ultrasonic digital signal.

[0019] Further, the probe transmitting circuit includes a UCC37323 chip and an amplification circuit, the transmitting pulse is transmitted by the FPGA control processor to the input end of the UCC37323 chip, the output signal of the UCC37323 chip is power amplified by the amplification circuit and then sent to the probe wafer for transmission.

[0020] Further, the ultrasonic imaging and image processor adopts a coordinate transformation method of variable angle transmission and variable frequency sampling for digital scan conversion.

[0021] Furthermore, the coordinate transformation method of the variable angle emission and variable frequency sampling is to complete the coordinate transformation in the vertical direction during the sampling and storage of each scan line, and to complete the coordinate transformation in the horizontal direction during the process of reading data from the memory row by row.

[0022] Furthermore, the gradient calculation processor first sets the gradients of the first and last sampling lines to 0. During the gradient calculation process, it first saves the data of two sampling lines. When sampling starts from the second sampling line, it first sets the gradients of the first and last sampling points of the sampling line to 0. Starting from the third sampling point, it calculates the horizontal and vertical gradients of the second sampling point of the second line; and so on.

[0023] The specific implementation steps of the gradient calculation processor to calculate the horizontal and vertical gradient values ​​of each sampling point in the image are as follows:

[0024] 1) Calculate the gradient matrix: A frame of original ultrasound image is sampled with 400 points vertically and 201 lines horizontally, such as... Figure 5 As shown, we obtain a raw ultrasound data matrix of size 400*201; assuming the sampled value of the x-th point on the y-th emission line (horizontal direction) and (vertical direction) is z. (x,y) , adopt as Figure 6 The Sobel operator shown is used as the gradient operator in the x-direction (vertical direction) and y-direction (horizontal direction). When the Sobel operator is used to calculate the gradient over a 400*201 region, the result is denoted as z. (x,y) gradient G in the x-direction of the sampling point x and the gradient G in the y direction y The components are as follows:

[0025] G x =(z (x+1,y-1) +2*z (x+1,y) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x-1,y) +z (x-1,y+1) )

[0026] G y =(z (x-1,y+1) +2*z (x,y+1) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x,y-1) +z (x+1,y-1) )

[0027] Marked as z (x,y) The formula for calculating the gradient of the sampling points is:

[0028] 2). In the threshold processing, a basic global threshold is adopted: when the gradient value of a certain pixel point (x, y) is greater than or equal to a set threshold T, the gray value of the point is defined as 255, otherwise, it is defined as 0.

[0029]

[0030] After sampling of a frame of image is completed, an ultrasonic data matrix of 400*201 and a gradient data matrix of 400*201 are obtained.

[0031] The utility model further provides a kind of bladder volume measuring method, comprising the following steps:

[0032] S1, utilize 3D ultrasonic probe to obtain several images;

[0033] S2, adopt the technique of drawing the boundary point of bladder on one side and carry out point integration operation on the other side to carry out bladder capacity determination.

[0034] Further, in S2, according to the image gradient value, the boundary data of each cross section of bladder is obtained by quick edge processing, and a plurality of bladder boundary segmentation points are obtained, each bladder boundary curve of the plurality of images obtained by scanning bladder is divided into L1, L2, L3… segments according to the bladder boundary segmentation points, according to the division of the curve, the integral value of one face in the integral value of L1 segment curve is calculated first, the area value corresponding to all points of L1 segment is added, which is the volume value corresponding to L1 segment, then the positive and negative of the volume value is judged according to the key point of each segment, and the volume value corresponding to all segments is accumulated, which is the right side volume of the scanning cross section of the bladder, and the left side volume of the image is calculated in the same way, and the volume value of the right side and the left side is accumulated, which is the volume value of a scanning cross section, and the volume of the three-dimensional volume combined by all scanning cross sections is the volume of the whole bladder. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0035] ​In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application or the prior art, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application, and other drawings can be obtained by those skilled in the art without creative labor on the premise of not paying creative labor.

[0036] Figure 1 and Figure 15 It is a structure schematic diagram of the bladder measuring device of the present application;

[0037] Figure 2 It is a 12-image driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper motor and the lower motor in the present application;

[0038] Figure 3 It is a forward driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper motor in the present application;

[0039] Figure 4 It is a reverse driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper motor in the present application;

[0040] Figure 5 It is a schematic diagram for calculating the horizontal gradient and the vertical gradient of the sampling point in the present application;

[0041] Figure 6 It is an ultrasonic section sampling schematic in the present application;

[0042] Figure 7 It is a 3X3 region (Z is the gray value) of one image and a Sobel operator schematic diagram in the present application;

[0043] Figure 8 It is a block diagram of the improved image edge enhancement in the present application;

[0044] Figure 9 It is a block diagram for calculating the gradient query table in the present application;

[0045] Figure 10 It is a schematic diagram for dividing the right curve of the bladder in the present application;

[0046] Figure 11 It is a schematic diagram that each curve is composed of points in the present application;

[0047] Figure 12 It is a schematic diagram that each point of each curve corresponds to an integral of a surface in the present application;

[0048] Figure 13 It is a schematic diagram of the error of the center axis deviating from the large orange segment algorithm but still in the bladder section in the prior art;

[0049] Figure 14A and Figure 14BError diagram for the prior art 3D imaging algorithm center axis deviating outside the bladder section. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0050] For the convenience of understanding the present application, the present application will be described more fully below with reference to the accompanying drawings and preferred embodiments. However, the scope of protection of the present application is not limited to the following specific embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments in the present application and the features in the embodiments can be combined with each other without conflict.

[0051] In order to achieve the purpose of the present application, the technical scheme provided by the present application is:

[0052] As shown in Figure 1 and Figure 15 , a bladder volume automatic measurement device comprises:

[0053] An ultrasonic probe module comprises an ultrasonic probe, a probe driving circuit and a probe signal transceiver circuit;

[0054] A microprocessor is connected in signal with a power supply and an FPGA main control processor;

[0055] An FPGA control processor is connected in signal with the probe driving circuit and the probe signal transceiver circuit, and is used for controlling the ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and performing rapid groove edge and volume calculation;

[0056] A power supply;

[0057] An input module; the input module generally comprises a scanning button and / or a touch screen (generally provided with a button module).

[0058] The FPGA control processor generates a driving signal of the ultrasonic probe to the probe driving circuit according to the instrument starting pre-scanning or scanning signal sent by the input module, and the probe driving circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to scan and rotate;

[0059] The probe signal transceiver circuit receives the ultrasonic signal reflected back by the ultrasonic probe, and performs amplification and A / D conversion, and converts into a digital signal to be transmitted to the FPGA control processor, for ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and rapid groove edge and volume calculation.

[0060] In some embodiments, the microprocessor adopts a Cofex-A9 processor, and is connected with the FPGA control processor through a control line, an SPI bus and an EIM bus.

[0061] In some embodiments, the FPGA control processor adopts an FPGA programmable logic device, which comprises a main control processor, an ultrasonic imaging processor, an image processor and a gradient calculation processor.

[0062] In a specific implementation, the ultrasonic probe comprises a probe module, an upper motor and a lower motor, the probe module comprises a probe wafer and a probe transmitting circuit;

[0063] The lower motor is fixed at the starting position of the scanning range when starting scanning, the upper motor drives the probe module to swing back and forth within a specified angle range (for example, 120°), and the ultrasonic probe acquires an ultrasonic image of the first section.

[0064] Then, the lower motor rotates by a specified angle (for example, 15°) and is fixed, the upper motor swings back and forth within a specified angle range (for example, 120°) to acquire an ultrasonic image of the second section, and so on until the lower motor rotates to the ending position, the upper motor swings back and forth within a specified angle range (for example, 120°) to acquire an ultrasonic image of the nth section, and stops.

[0065] The FPGA control processor generates a transmitting pulse output to the probe transmitting circuit, the probe transmitting circuit amplifies the transmitting pulse and sends it to the probe wafer, the probe signal transceiver circuit comprises an ultrasonic preamplifier circuit and an A / D signal conversion circuit, the ultrasonic preamplifier circuit amplifies the ultrasonic electrical signal transmitted by the probe wafer, converts it into an ultrasonic digital signal through the A / D signal conversion circuit, and sends it to the ultrasonic imaging and image processor for processing.

[0066] In some embodiments, the probe transmitting circuit adopts a UCC37323 chip and an amplification circuit matched with the UCC37323 chip; the transmitting pulse is delivered by the FPGA control processor to the input end of the UCC37323 chip, the output signal of the UCC37323 chip is power amplified by the amplification circuit and then sent to the probe wafer for transmission.

[0067] The ultrasound imaging and image processor adopts a coordinate transformation mode of variable angle emission and variable frequency sampling to perform digital scan conversion on the received ultrasound digital signals. In practice, the emission scan imaging mode is different from the TFT scan imaging display direction, and the imaging speed is also different. In order to realize real-time imaging of the two-dimensional section, a digital scan converter (DSC) is designed in the image processing and gradient calculation process to realize the conversion of the ultrasound emission scan mode into the TFT (display) scan mode. We know that the scan mode of ultrasound is mainly divided into linear array and sector mode. The DSC principle of linear array scan mode is relatively simple. The elements in the probe emit and receive ultrasound echoes in sequence. These ultrasound scan lines correspond to the column address of the image memory, and the sample points on each scan line correspond to the row address of the image memory. The sample values are written into the row address of the image memory in sequence by column, and the data is read out from the memory in sequence by row during display. The sector scan mode is preferred. Since the DSC of the sector scan mode is complex and needs to perform coordinate conversion, the polar coordinates of the sector are generally converted into rectangular coordinates by calculation. The echo information is written into an image memory corresponding to the display pixels according to the given rectangular coordinate address, and the data is read out from the memory in sequence by row during display. Although this method is simple, it occupies a large amount of storage resources and has great limitations on image post-processing. The most critical problem is that the storage address of the sample points obtained by using this operation mode has precision problem, so it is difficult to achieve high-precision interpolation, which directly affects the image quality.

[0068] Therefore, in actual application, the coordinate transformation mode of variable angle emission and variable frequency sampling can complete the coordinate transformation in the vertical direction in the process of sampling and storing each scan line, and the sampling frequency of each line is different. The coordinate transformation in the horizontal direction is completed in the process of reading data from the memory in sequence by row. The greatest advantage of this method is that all echo data is preserved, so that the data interpolation link can obtain high precision. The image quality is greatly improved, but the processing speed is required to be high. The programmable logic device FPGA can be used to realize the coordinate transformation mode of variable angle emission and variable frequency sampling. The DSC also has the important function of performing some digital image processing and compensation processing. For example, the average, enhancement, correlation, gamma correction, digital amplification, detection, logarithmic compression, image information smoothing interpolation, and signal band pass of the image signal and a series of processing are completed in the DSC, and finally the image is displayed on the screen.

[0069] In practical applications, the gradient calculation processor performs gradient calculation by first setting the gradients of the first and last sampling lines to 0, and in the gradient calculation process, first saving the data of 2 sampling lines, setting the gradients of the first and last sampling points of the sampling line to 0 when sampling from the second sampling line, and calculating the horizontal and vertical gradients of the second sampling point of the second line from the third sampling point. By analogy; the first and last sampling lines have little effect on the final overall image gradient, so we set their gradients to 0. The specific implementation of horizontal gradient calculation and vertical gradient calculation is shown in Figure 4 . After obtaining the horizontal and vertical gradients, we need to perform square and square root operations, which consume a lot of time. The advantage of FPGA implementation is that we can obtain the calculation result by querying the table, with almost no delay, greatly reducing the time of software implementation.

[0070] The gradient calculation processor obtains the horizontal and vertical gradient values of each sampling point of the image as follows:

[0071] 1. Calculate the gradient matrix: a 400-point longitudinal sampling and 201-line horizontal sampling of an ultrasonic original image, as shown in Figure 5 , we obtain a 400*201 original ultrasonic data matrix; assuming that the sampling value of the xth point on the yth emission line (horizontal direction) is z (x,y) , the Sobel operator shown in Figure 6 is used as the x-direction (vertical direction) gradient operator and the y-direction (horizontal direction) gradient operator; when the Sobel operator is used to calculate the gradient of the 400*201 region, the x-direction gradient G (x,y) and the y-direction gradient G x of the sampling point marked as z y are obtained respectively as follows:

[0072] G x =(z (x+1,y-1) +2*z (x+1,y) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x-1,y) +z (x-1,y+1) )

[0073] G y =(z (x-1,y+1) +2*z (x,y+1) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x,y-1) +z (x+1,y-1) )

[0074] marked as z (x,y)The calculation formula of the gradient of the sampling point is

[0075] 2). In the threshold processing, the basic global threshold is adopted: when the gradient value of a pixel point (x, y) is greater than or equal to the set threshold T, the gray value of the point is defined as 255, otherwise it is 0; that is: (x,y)

[0076]

[0077] After a frame of image is sampled, an ultrasonic data matrix of 400*201 and a gradient data matrix of 400*201 are obtained.

[0078] After the image data and the gradient data are processed by hardware interpolation, an ultrasonic image data matrix of 400*500 and an image gradient data matrix of 400*500 are obtained. As shown in Figure 7 .

[0079] As can be seen from the above formula, the gradient value of a sampling point only needs to be calculated by 4 times of shift operation, 8 times of addition, 2 times of subtraction operation, 2 times of square operation and 1 time of square root operation. For FPGA, the addition and subtraction operation is very fast, and the square operation and the square root operation can be realized by using the table lookup method, as shown in Figure 8 . Because the calculation speed is faster than the software implementation. Since we are performing edge enhancement on the data before imaging, the calculation amount is reduced more, and the implementation speed is faster.

[0080] Using the above device, we can implement a bladder volume measurement method, including the following steps:

[0081] S1, using a 3D ultrasonic probe to obtain a plurality of images;

[0082] S2, using a technique of drawing the boundary points of the bladder on one side and performing point integration operation on the other side to perform bladder capacity measurement.

[0083] ​In S2, the bladder each cross section boundary data is obtained according to the image gradient value fast edge processing, and a plurality of bladder boundary segmentation points are obtained, each bladder boundary curve of the 12 images obtained by bladder scanning is divided into L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5 segments according to the bladder boundary segmentation points, according to the division of the curve, the integral value of the integral value of the L1 segment curve is first calculated, the area value corresponding to all points of the L1 segment is added, which is the volume value corresponding to the L1 segment, and the volume value is judged according to each segment L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5 key point, the volume value corresponding to L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5 segments is added, which is the right volume of the bladder scanning section, and the left volume of the image is calculated according to the right side, and the volume values of the right side and the left side are added, which is the volume value of one scanning section, and the three-dimensional volume of the 12 scanning sections is combined to obtain the volume of the whole bladder.

[0084] The working principle of the utility model is as follows:

[0085] 1) Whole machine main control

[0086] The microprocessor is used as the main controller of the instrument, adopts Cofex-A9 processor, issues instructions, indicates the FPGA control processor (hereinafter referred to as FPGA) as the slave controller to control the series of control instructions and signals of bladder volume scanning, and the FPGA immediately issues the probe scanning, ultrasonic signal emission receiving control, ultrasonic imaging, image processing and gradient calculation processing instructions.Simultaneously, the main control Cofex-A9 processor is sent to the main control Cofex-A9 processor to obtain the bladder scanning image information and the image gradient value information.The main controller and the slave controller control each other, complete the bladder volume measurement, and manage the orderly work of each part of the machine.

[0087] 2) Probe scanning control

[0088] The embodiment adopts a fan scanning type B ultrasonic diagnostic instrument. The instrument adopts a mechanical fan scanning ultrasonic probe and drives the sensor by mechanical transmission to realize fan scanning. The fan scanning type B ultrasonic diagnostic instrument adopts a swing (with rotation) three-dimensional ultrasonic probe directly driven by a three-phase stepping motor. The probe has two stepping motors. The lower stepping motor (main motor) rotates 180° along the longitudinal axis, and the upper stepping motor (slave motor) swings 120° back and forth. When starting scanning, the lower stepping motor is fixed at the 0° starting position in the 0-180° scanning range, and the upper stepping motor swings 120° back and forth to obtain an ultrasonic image. Then the lower stepping motor rotates 15° and is fixed, and the upper stepping motor rotates 120° to obtain a second image. Next, the lower stepping motor rotates 15°, and the upper stepping motor scans again. In this way, the lower stepping motor rotates 180° and stops. At this time, 13 images are obtained in total, and 12 of them are used for calculation to calculate the volume of the bladder. The upper stepping motor controls and drives the piezoelectric wafer in the probe to swing 120° back and forth. The piezoelectric wafer emits ultrasonic beams to form ultrasonic scanning while swinging. The ultrasonic waves produce reflected or scattered waves when passing through the tissue interface in the human body. According to the return time, the tissue organs can be positioned, and according to the intensity, the characteristics of the tissue can be detected. Only one pulse can obtain one information on a certain plane of the tissue. To obtain a two-dimensional plane tissue image, at least 128 times of emission are needed. Then the images received by the successive emission are displayed on the display screen. The displayed image is the intensity of the received beam signal modulated by gray scale, and a plane image identical to the actual section is obtained.

[0089] The 12-image driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper and lower stepping motors is shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3 Figure 1 The 12-image driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper and lower stepping motors is shown in Figure 3 The forward rotation driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper stepping motor is shown in Figure 4 The reverse rotation driving pulse waveform diagram of the upper stepping motor is shown in

[0090] 3) Ultrasonic signal emission and reception control

[0091] ​The emission of the probe is according to the inherent frequency of the probe itself, the FPGA control processor generates corresponding pulse width of the emission pulse output to the probe emission circuit, the emission circuit sends the emission pulse to the probe wafer after corresponding amplification, the probe wafer is actually an energy conversion device, the emission is to convert the emission pulse (electric energy) into mechanical energy and then into ultrasonic energy, the reception is to convert the ultrasonic energy into mechanical energy and then into electric energy, the signal reception is that the ultrasonic preamplifier circuit amplifies the ultrasonic electrical signal transmitted by the transducer and sends it to the A / D conversion circuit to convert it into an ultrasonic digital signal and send it to the image processor for processing. The emission pulse is given by the programmable logic control device FPGA control processor, sent to the input end of the emission drive UCC37323 chip, the output end of the chip sends the power field effect tube for power amplification and then sends the probe wafer for emission, the probe emission circuit is composed of emission drive chip and field effect tube and other devices, the probe receiving circuit is composed of preamplifier and A / D conversion circuit, and the control pulse is given by the programmable logic control device FPGA control processor.

[0092] 4) ultrasonic imaging, image processing and gradient calculation processing

[0093] Ultrasonic Imaging and Image Processing: The received digital ultrasound signals undergo digital scanning transformation. In practice, due to the differences in the scanning imaging method of the transmitted signal and the scanning imaging display direction of the TFT, as well as the difference in imaging speed, a digital scan converter (DSC) is designed in the image processing and gradient calculation process to transform the ultrasound transmission scanning mode into the TFT (display) scanning mode in order to achieve real-time imaging of two-dimensional sections. We know that ultrasound scanning methods are mainly divided into linear array and sector array methods. The DSC principle of the linear array scanning method is relatively simple. The array elements in its probe transmit and receive ultrasound echoes sequentially. These ultrasound scan lines correspond to the column addresses of the image memory, and the sample points on each scan line correspond to the row addresses of the image memory. The sampled values ​​are written to the row addresses of the image memory column by column, and the data is read from the memory row by row during display. Since this embodiment uses a sector scanning method, the DSC (Dynamic Signal Transformation) of this method is relatively complex, requiring coordinate transformation. Generally, the polar coordinates of the sector are calculated and transformed into rectangular coordinates. The echo information is then written into an image memory corresponding to a display pixel according to the given rectangular coordinate addresses. During display, data is read from the memory row by row. While this method is simple, it consumes a large amount of storage resources and significantly limits image post-processing. Most importantly, the storage addresses of the sample points obtained using this method have accuracy issues, making high-precision interpolation difficult and directly affecting image quality. In the device of this invention, a coordinate transformation method of variable-angle emission and variable-frequency sampling is used. That is, the vertical coordinate transformation is completed during the sampling and storage process of each scan line, and the sampling frequency of each line is different. The horizontal coordinate transformation is completed during the row-by-row reading from the memory. The biggest advantage of this method is that it retains all echo data, enabling higher accuracy in the data interpolation stage. Image quality has been greatly improved, but high processing speed is required. We use a programmable logic device (FPGA) to implement coordinate transformation for variable angle transmission and variable frequency sampling. Another important function of the DSC is to perform digital image processing and compensation. For example, image signal averaging, enhancement, correlation, gamma correction, digital amplification, detection, logarithmic compression, smoothing interpolation of image information, bandpass filtering, and a series of other processing steps are all performed within the DSC, ultimately displaying the image on the screen.

[0094] Gradient calculation process: the gradient calculation of the utility model is realized by hardware in the DSC. The first and last sampling lines have little significance for image edge enhancement, and their gradients are set to 0. The first and last sampling points of the sampling line have little significance for image edge enhancement, and their gradients are also set to 0. Thus, in the gradient calculation process, the data of the first two sampling lines are saved first, and when the third sampling line starts sampling, the horizontal and vertical gradients of the second sampling point of the second line can be calculated from the third sampling point. The first and last sampling lines have little significance for the overall image gradient, and their gradients are set to 0. The specific implementation of horizontal gradient calculation and vertical gradient calculation is shown in Figure 5 . After obtaining the horizontal and vertical gradients, square and square root operations are needed, which consume a lot of time. The advantage of FPGA implementation is that the calculation result can be obtained by querying the table, with almost no delay, greatly reducing the time of software implementation. The horizontal and vertical gradient values of each sampling point of the image are calculated, and the specific implementation steps are as follows:

[0095] 1. Gradient matrix: a frame of ultrasonic original image is sampled longitudinally by 400 points and transversely by 201 lines, as shown in Figure 6 , and a 400*201 original ultrasonic data matrix is obtained. Assuming that the sampling value of the xth point on the yth emission line (horizontal direction) is z (x,y) , the Sobel operator shown in Figure 7 is used as the x direction (vertical direction) gradient operator and the y direction (horizontal direction) gradient operator. When the Sobel operator is used to calculate the gradient of the 400*201 region, the x direction gradient G x and the y direction gradient G y components of the sampling point marked as z (x,y) are as follows:

[0096] G x =(z (x+1,y-1) +2*z (x+1,y) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x-1,y) +z (x-1,y+1) )

[0097] G y =(z (x-1,y+1) +2*z (x,y+1) +z (x+1,y+1) )-(z (x-1,y-1) +2*z (x,y-1) +z (x+1,y-1) )

[0098] marked as z(x,y) The formula for calculating the gradient of the sampling points is:

[0099] 2. In threshold processing, a basic global threshold is used: when the gradient value of a pixel (x, y) reaches a certain threshold value, the threshold is set to a certain threshold. When the value is greater than or equal to the set threshold T, the grayscale value of that point is set to 255; otherwise, it is 0. That is:

[0100]

[0101] After sampling one frame of image, a 400*201 ultrasound data matrix and a 400*201 gradient data matrix are obtained. After hardware interpolation processing, a 400*500 ultrasound image data matrix and a 400*500 image gradient data matrix are obtained. For example... Figure 8 As shown.

[0102] As shown in the formula above, calculating the gradient value of a sampling point requires only 4 shift operations, 8 additions, 2 subtractions, 2 squaring operations, and 1 square root operation. For FPGAs, addition and subtraction operations are very fast, and squaring and square root operations can be implemented using a lookup table, such as... Figure 9 As shown. This is because it is computationally faster than software implementation. Since we perform edge enhancement on data before imaging, the computational load is further reduced, resulting in a faster implementation speed.

[0103] The FPGA control processor sends the processed image information and gradient values ​​to the Cofex-A9 processor. The Cofex-A9 processor performs fast edge-drawing operations on the bladder image to obtain the bladder boundary data and key data of the bladder boundary segmentation points.

[0104] 5) Quick outline calculation and bladder volume calculation

[0105] Fast edge delineation: The Cofex-A9 processor, based on the gradient matrix of the image, starts from the center scan line of an image and determines the boundary points of the bladder from bottom to top. After finding the maximum gradient value followed by five consecutive minimum gradient values, the maximum gradient value represents the lowermost wall of the bladder. Conversely, when the gradient values ​​are consecutively minimum followed by five consecutive maximum gradient values, the minimum and maximum gradient values ​​represent the upper wall of the bladder. The same method is used to find the boundary values ​​(i.e., bladder wall) of the entire bladder image, moving left or right. After completing the bladder wall (edge ​​delineation) calculation, the inflection points of the X and Y coordinate changes of the bladder wall are determined. These inflection points, regardless of whether the coordinates increase or decrease (i.e., the key data for bladder boundary segmentation points), are then stored in the internal DDR3 memory.

[0106] 6) Bladder volume calculation: The Cofex-A9 processor calculates the bladder volume based on the bladder boundary data and key data of the bladder boundary segment points, using a point integration method that simultaneously draws the boundary points and performs point integration.

[0107] 1. First, the right bladder curve is divided into L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5 based on the key points of the bladder boundary segmentation. For example... Figure 10 As shown.

[0108] 2. Calculate the integral value of each curve segment using the integral system of one surface. Taking segment L1 as an example, curve L1 is formed by points p0, p1, p2…p… n Composition (e.g.) Figure 11 As shown in the figure, the area value corresponding to each point is (like Figure 12 As shown in the figure, tan 15°*i is the length of each line segment, and the sum of these values ​​is the area value.

[0109] 3. The sum of the area values ​​corresponding to all points in segment L1 gives the volume value of segment L1. V is obtained using the same method. L2 V L3 V L4 V L5 Then, the volume values ​​are judged as positive or negative based on the key points of the segmentation (see...). Figure 10 (Below the lowest point A on the central axis, a downward trend is negative, and an upward trend is positive. Above the highest point B, an upward trend is negative, and a downward trend is positive; the trend between A and B is positive.) Then the volume value V1 on the right side of the graph is... 右 =-V L1 +V L2 +V L3 +V L4 -V L5 Similarly, calculate the volume value V1 on the left side of the image. 左 Then the volume value corresponding to the first image is V1 = V1 右 +V1 左 .

[0110] 4. The formula for calculating the volume (i.e., bladder capacity) of a solid composed of 12 faces is: Where index is the ratio of the actual size of the bladder cross-section to the image size.

[0111] This invention not only breaks through the single-shape mathematical model for bladder volume measurement, but also solves the problem of over-calculation of volume caused by the central axis offset of the flap-type superimposed volume measuring instrument. Furthermore, it solves the problem of over-calculation of volume caused by the central axis of the 3D imaging superimposed volume measuring instrument appearing outside the cross-sectional area, thereby fundamentally ensuring the measurement accuracy of bladder volume value.

[0112] In order to realize the method of calculating the bladder volume by drawing the boundary point and carrying out the point integral operation, the device realizes the Sobel algorithm by hardware, and the gradient matrix of each pixel point of the corresponding image is calculated (the gradient matrix is calculated by software before), so that the bladder volume calculation speed is accelerated, and the Cofex-A9 processor responsible for the method of calculating the bladder volume by drawing the boundary point and carrying out the point integral operation needs to calculate the volume (i.e. the volume) of each pixel point in the bladder according to the point integral, and the volume calculation speed also needs to be ensured, in order to meet and ensure the implementation of the algorithm, the device adopts the mode of controlling and calculating mainly by the Cofex-A9 processor and controlling and acquiring the image by the FPGA controller, realizes the coordinated work of an Android system and an FPGA at the same time, and the control ability, operation ability and reliability of the whole machine are determinedly improved, especially the calculation speed can meet the method of calculating the bladder volume by drawing the boundary point and carrying out the point integral operation, so that the calculation precision and the maximum limit of the error measurement and error judgment are fundamentally changed.

[0113] The device has the following beneficial effects and advantages:

[0114] 1. Can convenient painless bladder volume accurate quantitative measurement and the determination of bladder volume is used in wider field. The utility model adopts the algorithm of drawing boundary point on one side, point integration on one side to carry out bladder capacity determination, avoids the calculation error caused by the image deviation from the central axis in the scanning process of mechanical probe; and the calculation error caused by the image deviation from the central axis in the operation process of operator; also avoids the calculation error and misjudgment caused by the central axis appearing outside the section area; makes the accuracy of measurement more accurate, changes the strict requirement to the skill of operator; the most important is to avoid the harm to the patient caused by the research and diagnosis error which is caused by the test result error ratio of 1%, such as the radiotherapy of tumor, as the deformable target organ in bladder cancer or the important organ affecting the target area position in cervical / cervix cancer, the bladder volume and its repeatability exist certain change between every minute treatment. The change of bladder volume will cause the movement of target position, thereby affecting the distribution of target and surrounding organ dose. In order to minimize the influence, the certain bladder volume must be kept before every radiotherapy. How to control the pelvic radiotherapy under the condition of bladder filling to 350ml can avoid the displacement of viscera, therefore, the accurate determination of bladder volume in the process of pelvic radiotherapy can cause little damage to normal tissue, and achieve the effect of accurate radiotherapy; in addition, spinal cord injury is a serious trauma, about 100,000 new patients occur every year in the world. Neurogenic bladder is a common bladder dysfunction after spinal cord injury, mostly caused by the damage of central or peripheral nerve controlling bladder, and the serious urine retention can cause urinary tract infection, vesicoureteral reflux and renal failure, which is the first cause of late death of paraplegic patients after spinal cord injury. Therefore, controlling or eliminating urinary tract infection, establishing independent urination rhythm, reducing bladder pressure and protecting kidney function are the ultimate goal of treating neurogenic bladder of paraplegic patients. Domestic and foreign experts unanimously believe that the application of bladder scanner to guide intermittent catheterization for rehabilitation nursing and training of neurogenic bladder patients is the most effective treatment method; in addition, if the patient is in the perioperative period after surgery, the catheter is indwelled for a long time. Clinically, after the catheter is removed, the patient has urine retention, especially the long-term indwelling catheter patients, because the catheter stimulates the urethral orifice and causes inflammatory reaction and edema, which changes the bladder filling sensation, or the indwelling catheter time is too long, which causes the disappearance of bladder detrusor tension. The incidence of urine retention is significantly increased. And reindwelling catheter can cause local damage to the urethra, increase the pain of patients and the opportunity of urinary tract infection, therefore, determining the residual urine volume of bladder is a complete evaluation method for patients suspected of having urine retention. Urinary incontinence, urine retention and urinary tract infection are the most common diseases in the elderly, accurate quantitative determination of residual urine volume after urination of patients provides accurate quantitative basis for medical staff to correctly monitor and diagnose the bladder state and evaluate the bladder function, and changes the original serious influence on the evaluation of postoperative bladder function.

[0115] 2. Eliminate the harm of misjudgment to patients, while reducing the pain of patients. The device and method can quantitatively catheterize the patients who need to be catheterized, change the original open catheterization or rely on the urine storage feeling of the patients and the experience of the medical staff to catheterize, thereby reducing iatrogenic urinary system infection and reducing the pain of frequent catheterization. In addition, since the requirement of the operation method of the utility model is not strict, in addition to meeting the needs of the pelvic cavity radiotherapy process in terms of measurement accuracy, the most critical is to avoid the damage to the internal organs of the human body caused by misjudgment during the radiotherapy process, so that the bladder filling can be well controlled during the pelvic cavity radiotherapy process, accurate radiotherapy is achieved, the damage to the normal tissues of the patients during the radiotherapy process is reduced, and the radiotherapy reaction is obviously reduced, the curative effect of radiotherapy is obviously improved, and a series of pains and organ damage of the patients caused by ordinary radiotherapy are reduced.

[0116] 3. Quickly and accurately detect the bladder volume value, improve the work efficiency of medical staff, since the improved Sobel algorithm for accelerating the calculation result of the bladder volume is realized by using FPGA hardware, the gradient value matrix of the ultrasonic image is obtained at the same time as the ultrasonic imaging matrix is obtained, and the software method is used to combine the image and the gradient to quickly obtain the calculation result of the bladder.

[0117] The bladder volume measurement not only breaks through the single shape mathematical model, but also solves the volume overestimation problem caused by the center axis offset of the petal type superimposed volume meter, and solves the volume overestimation problem caused by the center axis of the superimposed volume meter appearing outside the cross-sectional area according to the ultrasonic depth through 3D imaging, thereby fundamentally ensuring the measurement accuracy of the bladder volume value.

[0118] 4. Quickly and accurately measure the bladder volume value, improve the work efficiency of medical staff. Since a variety of image processing techniques and algorithms are used to automatically and quickly calculate the bladder volume value in the ultrasonic image. This utility model breaks through the defect that the bladder capacity measuring instrument in the world has no automatic calculation function of the bladder volume, so that the bladder capacity measuring instrument not only has the catheterization function demand, but also further enables doctors to measure the thickness of the bladder wall to early detect the disease and have the auxiliary diagnosis function. And make early diagnosis and early treatment of patients, reduce the physical pain and financial pressure of patients. In addition, the problems of complex operation and inaccurate precision of manual measurement of bladder volume by B-ultrasound are solved. At the same time, the ultrasonic principle is used to replace the previous CT examination method for measuring the thickening of the bladder wall, which solves the problem of radiation caused to the human body by CT examination.

[0119] 5. The device can adopt the Android operation platform, adopt the Android operation system and the FPGA parallel work in the device interior, select the FPGA chip of dual-core CPU, guarantee the technology of one side drawing the boundary point of bladder, one side carries out the point integral operation to carry out the bladder capacity determination to realize. The operator can very conveniently carry out the system setting, patient information input, image display, button function operation, information storage, printing, information management on the Android APP. The Android operation system is as the main control and calculation, in addition, the kernel of the large-scale programmable logic device FPGA is used as the slave control in the device, the main and slave control makes the computing, control ability and the running reliability of the whole machine have been improved, the computing speed of the system has been fundamentally improved, the instrument realizes the fast automatic bladder capacity measurement and the function of the side wall thickness measurement.

[0120] The above examples are only for illustrating the technical concept and characteristics of the present application. The purpose is to enable those skilled in the art to understand the content of the present application and implement it, and it cannot limit the protection scope of the present application. Any equivalent changes or modifications made according to the spirit and essence of the present application shall be covered within the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. An automatic measuring device for bladder volume, characterized by, The application relates to an ultrasonic probe module and a control method thereof. The ultrasonic probe module comprises an ultrasonic probe, a probe driving circuit and a probe signal transceiver circuit. A microprocessor is connected with a power supply and an FPGA main control processor. The FPGA main control processor is connected with the probe driving circuit and the probe signal transceiver circuit, and is used for controlling the ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and performing rapid groove edge and volume calculation. The power supply is connected with the microprocessor. An input module is connected with the microprocessor. The FPGA main control processor generates a driving signal of the ultrasonic probe to the probe driving circuit according to an instrument starting pre-scanning or scanning signal sent by the input module, and the probe driving circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to perform scanning and rotation. The probe signal transceiver circuit receives ultrasonic signals reflected by the ultrasonic probe, amplifies and A / D converts the ultrasonic signals, converts the ultrasonic signals into digital signals, and transmits the digital signals to the FPGA main control processor to perform ultrasonic imaging and image processing, and rapid groove edge and volume calculation.

2. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 1, wherein The microprocessor is a Cofex-A9 processor, and is connected with the FPGA main control processor through a control line, an SPI bus and an EIM bus.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein The FPGA main control processor is an FPGA programmable logic device, which comprises a main control processor, an ultrasonic imaging and image processor, and a gradient calculation processor.

4. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 3, characterized in that The ultrasonic probe comprises a probe module, an upper motor and a lower motor. The lower motor is fixed at a starting position of a scanning range when starting scanning, the upper motor drives the probe module to swing back and forth within a specified angle range, and the ultrasonic probe obtains ultrasonic images of a first section. Then, the lower motor rotates by a specified angle and is fixed, the upper motor swings back and forth within the specified angle range to obtain ultrasonic images of a second section, and the process is repeated until the lower motor rotates to a terminal position, the upper motor swings back and forth within the specified angle range to obtain ultrasonic images of an n-th section, and the process is stopped.

5. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 4, characterized in that The FPGA main control processor generates a transmission pulse output to the probe transmission circuit, the probe transmission circuit amplifies the transmission pulse and sends the transmission pulse to the probe wafer, the probe signal transceiver circuit comprises an ultrasonic preamplification circuit and an A / D signal conversion circuit, the ultrasonic preamplification circuit amplifies ultrasonic electrical signals transmitted by the probe wafer, sends the ultrasonic electrical signals to the A / D signal conversion circuit, converts the ultrasonic electrical signals into ultrasonic digital signals, and sends the ultrasonic digital signals to the ultrasonic imaging and image processor for processing.

6. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 5, characterized in that The probe transmission circuit comprises a UCC37323 chip and an amplification circuit; the transmission pulse is sent to an input end of the UCC37323 chip by the FPGA main control processor, an output end of the UCC37323 chip outputs a signal which is amplified by the amplification circuit and then sent to the probe wafer for transmission.

7. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 5, characterized in that The ultrasonic imaging and image processor adopts a coordinate transformation mode of variable-angle transmission and variable-frequency sampling to perform digital scan conversion on the received ultrasonic digital signals.

8. The automatic bladder volume measuring device according to claim 7, characterized in that The coordinate transformation mode of variable-angle transmission and variable-frequency sampling completes the coordinate transformation in the vertical direction in the process of sampling and storing each scanning line, and completes the coordinate transformation in the horizontal direction in the process of reading data from the memory by row.

Citation Information

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