Blood flow velocity vector imaging method, ultrasonic imaging method and ultrasonic imaging apparatus

Abstract

The embodiment of the present application discloses a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, an ultrasonic imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging device. At least two groups of ultrasonic array elements on an ultrasonic probe are controlled to emit non-focused ultrasonic waves in different emission directions, and echo signals are received. Blood flow velocity components are obtained according to the echo signals and are reconstructed to obtain blood flow velocity vectors of a target region. Each group of ultrasonic array elements includes a plurality of array elements distributed at different positions. Compared with blood flow velocity vector detection by emitting ultrasonic waves at different angles using the same group of ultrasonic array elements, in the embodiment of the present application, the array elements of the ultrasonic array elements corresponding to different emission directions are distributed at different positions on the ultrasonic probe, so that the range of overlap of the non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted by each group of ultrasonic array elements can be increased, and the coverage of blood flow velocity vector imaging can be improved.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] Embodiments of the present application relate to the field of ultrasonic imaging, and in particular to a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, an ultrasonic imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging device. BACKGROUND

[0002] Medical ultrasonic imaging diagnosis equipment utilizes the propagation of ultrasonic waves in the human body to obtain ultrasonic characteristic information of human tissue and organ structure, has the advantages of non-invasiveness, real-time, low cost, etc., and is widely used in the field of auxiliary diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, etc. In order to more accurately evaluate the blood flow state of patients with cardiovascular diseases, a commonly used method is blood flow velocity vector imaging, that is, the actual size and direction of blood flow velocity are calculated by using a blood flow velocity vector imaging method to display a blood flow velocity vector image. Among them, multi-angle ultrasonic wave emission scanning can be used to obtain velocity components in different directions of the target position, and then the blood flow vector is obtained by vector synthesis of these velocity components.

[0003] At present, ultrasonic waves of different angles are emitted by the same ultrasonic array element on the ultrasonic probe, so the detection range of blood flow velocity vector is the range covered by ultrasonic waves of different angles, and to expand the coverage range of ultrasonic waves of different angles, the number of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe needs to be increased. However, since there is an upper limit to the number of system channels supported by the ultrasonic imaging system, when the number of ultrasonic probe array elements exceeds the number of ultrasonic system channels, the scanning area, especially the multi-angle overlapping scanning area, will be greatly reduced compared to the full array element emission, thereby causing the imaging area to become smaller, which affects clinical research and diagnosis. SUMMARY

[0004] The following is a summary of the subject matter of the detailed description herein. This summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims. Embodiments of the present application provide a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, an ultrasonic imaging method and an ultrasonic imaging device, which can expand the coverage range of blood flow velocity vector imaging under the condition that full array element emission cannot be achieved.

[0005] In a first aspect, embodiments of the present application provide a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, which comprises:

[0006] transmitting, by a front-end transceiver circuit, non-focused ultrasound waves to a target region from at least two groups of ultrasound elements on an ultrasound probe in different transmitting directions, wherein the angle between the transmitting direction and the normal direction of the plane in which the elements of the ultrasound probe are located is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the number of all elements distributed on the ultrasound probe; wherein each group of the ultrasound elements corresponds to one transmitting direction, and each group of the ultrasound elements includes a plurality of elements distributed on the ultrasound probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiving channels, and each group of the ultrasound elements has a plurality of elements at the same position and at least one element at a different position on the ultrasound probe;

[0007] receiving, by the front-end transceiver circuit, echoes of the non-focused ultrasound waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves corresponding to different transmitting directions, wherein each group of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves includes the non-focused ultrasound waves transmitted at least twice in one transmitting direction;

[0008] obtaining, according to the at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves, at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different transmitting directions, wherein one transmitting direction corresponds to one blood flow velocity component;

[0009] reconstructing the at least two blood flow velocity components in different transmitting directions to obtain blood flow velocity vector data of the target region;

[0010] obtaining, based on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region, a blood flow velocity vector image of the target region;

[0011] displaying the blood flow velocity vector image.

[0012] In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, and the method comprises:

[0013] transmitting, by a front-end transceiver circuit, non-focused ultrasound waves to a target region from at least two groups of ultrasound elements on an ultrasound probe in different transmitting directions, wherein the angle between the transmitting direction and the normal direction of the plane in which the elements of the ultrasound probe are located is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the number of all elements distributed on the ultrasound probe; wherein each group of the ultrasound elements includes a plurality of elements distributed on the ultrasound probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiving channels, and the plurality of elements included in at least two groups of the ultrasound elements are completely different in position on the ultrasound probe;

[0014] control the front-end transceiver circuit to control the ultrasonic probe to receive echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different transmission directions, wherein one group of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves comprises the non-focused ultrasonic waves transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction;

[0015] obtain at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different transmission directions according to the at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves, wherein one transmission direction corresponds to one blood flow velocity component;

[0016] perform velocity reconstruction on the at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different transmission directions, to obtain blood flow velocity vector data of the target region;

[0017] obtain a blood flow velocity vector image of the target region based on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region;

[0018] display the blood flow velocity vector image.

[0019] In a third aspect, an ultrasonic imaging method is provided in the embodiments of the present application, and the method comprises:

[0020] control the front-end transceiver circuit to control at least two groups of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to transmit non-focused ultrasonic waves to a target region in different transmission directions, wherein an angle between the transmission direction and a normal direction of a plane in which the array elements of the ultrasonic probe are located is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and a number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than a number of all array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe; wherein each group of ultrasonic array elements comprises a plurality of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiver channels, and each group of ultrasonic array elements has a plurality of array elements at the same position and at least one array element at a different position distributed on the ultrasonic probe;

[0021] control the front-end transceiver circuit to control the ultrasonic probe to receive echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different transmission directions, wherein one group of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves comprises the non-focused ultrasonic waves transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction;

[0022] combine the at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves to obtain a combined echo signal;

[0023] obtain an ultrasonic image or blood flow velocity according to the combined echo signal.

[0024] In a fourth aspect, an ultrasonic imaging method is provided in the embodiments of the present application, and the method comprises:

[0025] transmitting, by a front-end transceiver, non-focused ultrasound waves to a target region in different directions by controlling at least two groups of ultrasound elements on an ultrasound probe, wherein the angle between the direction and the normal direction of the plane on which the elements are located is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver is less than the number of all elements distributed on the ultrasound probe, wherein each group of the ultrasound elements includes a plurality of elements distributed on the ultrasound probe and the number of the plurality of elements in at least two groups of the ultrasound elements is different;

[0026] receiving, by the front-end transceiver, echoes of the non-focused ultrasound waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves corresponding to different directions, wherein one group of the echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves includes the non-focused ultrasound waves transmitted at least twice in one direction;

[0027] combining at least two groups of the echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound waves to obtain a combined echo signal;

[0028] obtaining an ultrasound image or a blood flow velocity according to the combined echo signal.

[0029] In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an ultrasound imaging device, including:

[0030] an ultrasound probe;

[0031] a transmitting / receiving circuit, configured to control the ultrasound probe to transmit ultrasound waves to a blood vessel region of a target object and receive echoes of the ultrasound waves;

[0032] a processor, configured to process the echoes of the ultrasound waves to obtain a tissue image and / or a blood flow velocity vector image of the blood vessel region;

[0033] a display, configured to display the tissue image and / or the blood flow velocity vector image;

[0034] The processor is further configured to perform the blood flow velocity vector imaging method in any one of the above embodiments, or perform the ultrasound imaging method in any one of the above embodiments.

[0035] In a sixth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an electronic device, including a memory and a processor, the memory stores a computer program, and the processor executes the computer program to implement the blood flow velocity vector imaging method in any one of the above embodiments, or implement the ultrasound imaging method in any one of the above embodiments.

[0036] In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer storage medium, which stores a computer program, and is applied to an ultrasonic imaging device. The computer program is executed by a processor to implement the ultrasonic transmitting method in the first aspect, the third aspect or the fifth aspect, or to implement the blood flow velocity vector imaging method in any one of the embodiments, or to implement the ultrasonic imaging method in any one of the embodiments.

[0037] In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides a computer program product or a computer program, which includes computer instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium. A processor of a computer device reads the computer instructions from the computer readable storage medium, and executes the computer instructions to cause the computer device to execute the blood flow velocity vector imaging method in any one of the embodiments, or to execute the ultrasonic imaging method in any one of the embodiments.

[0038] In some embodiments of the present application, the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the number of all array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe. At least two groups of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe are controlled by the front-end transceiver circuit to respectively emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to a target region in different emission directions. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different emission directions. At least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different emission directions are obtained according to the at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves. The at least two blood flow velocity components are reconstructed to obtain a blood flow velocity vector of the target region. Each group of the ultrasonic array elements includes a number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiving channels, and each group of the ultrasonic array elements has a number of array elements with the same position and at least one array element with different positions distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Compared with the blood flow velocity vector detection by emitting ultrasonic waves in different directions by using the same ultrasonic array element group, in the embodiments of the present application, the array elements of the ultrasonic array element groups corresponding to different emission directions are staggered in position on the ultrasonic probe. Therefore, the range of overlap of the non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted by each ultrasonic array element group in different emission directions can be increased without increasing the number of array elements of the ultrasonic array element group and the number of transceiving channels, and the coverage of the blood flow velocity vector imaging is improved.

[0039] In some embodiments of the present application, the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the number of all array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe, at least two groups of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe are controlled by the front-end transceiver circuit to emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to a target region in different directions, the front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different directions are obtained, at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different directions are obtained according to the at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves, and the at least two blood flow velocity components are reconstructed to obtain a blood flow velocity vector of the target region. Wherein, each group of the ultrasonic array elements includes a plurality of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiving channels, and the plurality of array elements included in at least two groups of the ultrasonic array elements are completely different in position distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Compared with the blood flow velocity vector detection by emitting ultrasonic waves in different directions by using the same ultrasonic array element group, in the embodiments of the present application, the positions of the array elements of the ultrasonic array element groups corresponding to different directions are staggered, so that the range of overlap of the non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted by each ultrasonic array element group in different directions is increased without increasing the number of array elements of the ultrasonic array element group and the number of transceiving channels, and the coverage of the blood flow velocity vector imaging is improved. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0040] The accompanying drawings are used to provide a further understanding of the technical solutions of the present application, and constitute a part of the specification, and are used to explain the technical solutions of the present application together with the embodiments of the present application, and do not constitute a limitation to the technical solutions of the present application.

[0041] Figure 1 FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of ultrasonic wave emission by an ultrasonic probe in a scenario;

[0042] Figure 2 FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of ultrasonic wave emission by an ultrasonic probe in another scenario;

[0043] Figure 3 FIG. 3 is a structural schematic diagram of an ultrasonic imaging device provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0044] Figure 4 FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0045] Figure 5a FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of ultrasonic wave emission by an ultrasonic probe provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0046] Figure 5b FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of ultrasonic wave emission by an ultrasonic probe provided by another embodiment of the present application;

[0047] Figure 5c is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by another embodiment of the present application;

[0048] Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of the blood flow velocity component performing velocity reconstruction provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0049] Figure 7 is a timing diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by another embodiment of the present application;

[0050] Figure 8 is a specific step flowchart of step 412 provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0051] Figure 9a is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0052] Figure 9b is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0053] Figure 9c is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0054] Figure 9d is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0055] Figure 9e is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0056] Figure 10 is a specific step flowchart of step 412 provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0057] Figure 11a is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0058] Figure 11b is a schematic diagram of the ultrasound probe emitting ultrasound waves provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0059] Figure 12 is a flowchart of the ultrasound imaging method provided by an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0060] The present application will be further described by way of illustration with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments. The described embodiments should not be considered limiting to the present application, and all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative effort under the premise of the described embodiments are within the scope of protection of the present application.

[0061] In the following description, reference is made to "some embodiments", which describe a subset of all possible embodiments, but it is to be understood that "some embodiments" can be the same subset or different subsets as each other and as other subsets of all possible embodiments, and can be combined with each other and with other subsets of all possible embodiments without contradiction.

[0062] Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this application belongs. The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing embodiments of this application only and is not intended to be limiting of this application.

[0063] Medical ultrasonic imaging diagnostic equipment utilizes the propagation of ultrasonic waves in the human body to obtain ultrasonic characteristic information of human tissue and organ structure, has the advantages of non-invasive, real-time, low cost, etc., and is widely used in the field of auxiliary diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, etc. In order to more accurately evaluate the blood flow state of patients with cardiovascular diseases, a commonly used method is blood flow velocity vector imaging, that is, the actual size and direction of blood flow velocity are calculated by using blood flow velocity vector imaging method to display blood flow velocity vector image. Among them, multi-angle ultrasonic wave emission scanning can be used to obtain velocity components in different directions of the target position, and then the blood flow vector is obtained by vector synthesis of these velocity components.

[0064] At present, ultrasonic waves of different angles are emitted through the same ultrasonic array element on the ultrasonic probe, so the detection range of blood flow velocity vector is the range covered by ultrasonic waves of different angles, and to expand the coverage range of ultrasonic waves of different angles, the number of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe emitting ultrasonic waves needs to be increased. However, since there is an upper limit to the number of system channels supported by the ultrasonic imaging system, when the number of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe exceeds the number of ultrasonic system channels, the scanning area, especially the multi-angle overlapping scanning area, will be greatly reduced compared with the emission of all array elements, thereby causing the imaging area to become smaller, which affects clinical research and diagnosis.

[0065] Exemplarily, a blood flow velocity vector imaging method is described below, wherein Figure 1 An ultrasonic probe 100 scanning scene is shown in FIG. 1, wherein a plurality of array elements are arranged on the ultrasonic probe 100, the array element is also called a transducer, which is an important component for the ultrasonic probe 100 to emit ultrasonic waves, and the array elements are arranged on the ultrasonic probe 100 in a certain order, so the array elements on the ultrasonic probe 100 can be numbered. Referring to FIG. 1, Figure 1 As shown in FIG. 1, the numbers on the upper side of the ultrasonic probe 100 represent the numbers of the array elements, for example, the number 1 represents the first array element (i.e., the array element numbered "1") on the ultrasonic probe 100, Figure 1The ultrasound probe 100 shown has a total of 256 array elements, so the last array element on the ultrasound probe 100 is numbered 256. In an ultrasound imaging device, a front-end transceiver circuit is used to drive the ultrasound probe to emit ultrasound waves, where the front-end transceiver circuit has M transceiver channels, M being a positive integer. Each channel in the front-end transceiver circuit is used to drive one array element on the ultrasound probe 100. However, in some cases, the transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit do not correspond one-to-one with the array elements on the ultrasound probe 100, and there can be cases where the number of transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the number of array elements on the ultrasound probe 100, for example Figure 1 The ultrasound probe 100 shown has a total of 256 array elements, but the front-end transceiver circuit has only 192 transceiver channels.

[0066] In blood flow velocity vector imaging, the ultrasound probe 100 needs to be used to emit ultrasound waves to a target region in multiple emission directions, so as to obtain blood flow velocity components in different emission directions, and by reconstructing the blood flow velocity components, blood flow velocity vector data of the target region is obtained. When each array element is excited at the same time, the ultrasound waves emitted by the ultrasound probe 100 are perpendicular to the surface of the ultrasound probe 100 (i.e., the emission direction is the normal direction of the plane in which the array elements of the ultrasound probe are located, or the emission direction of the ultrasound waves has an angle of 0 degrees with the normal). If the emission direction of the ultrasound waves is to be changed, only a time delay process needs to be performed on the emission excitation, i.e., the excitation time of adjacent array elements on the ultrasound probe 100 is separated by a certain interval, so as to realize deflection of the emission angle of the ultrasound waves.

[0067] Since only time delay adjustment needs to be performed on different array elements on the ultrasound probe 100 to change the emission direction of the ultrasound waves, it can be seen that, in order to realize ultrasound waves in different emission directions required for blood flow velocity vector imaging, the most direct way is to keep the original emission array elements unchanged and change the time interval of excitation of each emission channel. It can also be understood as adjusting the time parameter of each emission channel, or superimposing a time delay function on the original emission parameter.

[0068] That is, in blood flow velocity vector imaging, different angle ultrasound waves are emitted on the basis of keeping the emission array elements on the ultrasound probe 100 unchanged.

[0069] Referring to Figure 1 As shown, the ultrasound probe 100 has 256 array elements, and the front-end transceiver circuit has 192 transceiver channels, i.e., the front-end transceiver circuit cannot use all the array elements on the ultrasound probe 100 to emit ultrasound waves. In order to facilitate control, array elements distributed in the middle of the ultrasound probe 100 are usually selected as an ultrasound array element group to emit ultrasound waves. For example, Figure 1The 33rd array element to the 224th array element are shown as an ultrasound array element group. The 33rd array element and the 224th array element are the boundaries of the transmitted ultrasound waves. For example Figure 1 In the figure, the coverage range of the first transmitted direction ultrasound wave is represented between the two arrows ①, the coverage range of the second transmitted direction ultrasound wave is represented between the two arrows ②, and the coverage range of the third transmitted direction ultrasound wave is represented between the two arrows ③. As can be seen, Figure 1 In the figure, the same ultrasound array element group is used for the ultrasound waves of the three different transmitted directions. By processing the echoes of the ultrasound waves of the three different transmitted directions, the blood flow velocity components of the three different transmitted directions can be obtained, and the blood flow velocity vector can be calculated. Since Figure 1 The blood flow velocity vector is imaged by using the ultrasound waves of the three different transmitted directions. Therefore, in the figure, Figure 1 In the figure, only the region covered by the ultrasound waves of the three different transmitted directions can be reconstructed by the blood flow velocity components of the three different transmitted directions, and therefore the region of interest 20 (ROI) in the ultrasound detection can only be set in the detection region 30 covered by the ultrasound waves of the three different transmitted directions. The range covered by the blood flow velocity vector imaging is small, and cannot meet the current clinical research and diagnosis requirements.

[0070] In order to expand the ROI region, the most ideal way is to increase the number of array elements of the ultrasound array element group. For example, refer to Figure 2 As shown in the figure, all the array elements on the ultrasound probe 100 are used to transmit ultrasound waves, which can increase the detection region 30 and set a larger region of interest 20. However, the system channel number supported by the ultrasound imaging system has an upper limit, and does not support such a large number of transceiving channel numbers. In addition, if the transceiving channel number of the front-end transceiving circuit is to be increased, not only the old equipment needs to be replaced, causing waste, but also the ultrasound imaging system needs to be redesigned and developed, which is very costly.

[0071] Based on this, the embodiments of the present application provide a blood flow velocity vector imaging method, an ultrasound imaging method and an ultrasound imaging device, which can expand the coverage range of the blood flow velocity vector imaging without increasing the transceiving channel data of the front-end transceiving circuit under the condition that full-array element transmission cannot be achieved.

[0072] Figure 3 The figure is a structural schematic diagram of the ultrasound imaging device in the embodiments of the present application. The ultrasound imaging device 10 can include an ultrasound probe 100, a transmitting circuit 101, a transmitting / receiving selection switch 102, a receiving circuit 103, a beam synthesis circuit 104, a processor 105, a display 106 and a memory 107.

[0073] The ultrasound probe 100 includes a transducer (not shown) composed of a plurality of array elements arranged in an array, which can be arranged in a linear array, a two-dimensional matrix or other shapes, or a convex array. The array elements are used to emit an ultrasound beam according to an excitation electrical signal, or to transform a received ultrasound beam into an electrical signal. Therefore, each array element can be used to realize the mutual conversion between an electrical pulse signal and an ultrasound beam, so as to emit an ultrasound wave to a target region (for example, the target region in the embodiment) of human tissue, and also can be used to receive the echo of the ultrasound wave reflected by the tissue. When performing ultrasound detection, the array elements used for emitting an ultrasound beam or receiving an ultrasound beam can be controlled by the transmit / receive selection switch 102, or the array elements can be controlled to be used for emitting an ultrasound beam or receiving an echo of an ultrasound beam in time slots. The array elements participating in the emission of an ultrasound wave can be excited by electrical signals at the same time, so as to emit an ultrasound wave at the same time; or the array elements participating in the emission of an ultrasound wave can be excited by electrical signals with a certain time interval, so as to continuously emit an ultrasound wave with a certain time interval.

[0074] The transmit circuit 101 is used to generate a transmit sequence according to the control of the processor 105, the transmit sequence being used to control part or all of the plurality of array elements to emit an ultrasound wave to biological tissue, wherein the transmit circuit 101 includes a plurality of transmit channels, one transmit channel corresponding to one array element on the ultrasound probe 100, and the transmit sequence parameters including the array element position, the number of array elements and the ultrasound beam emission parameters (for example, amplitude, frequency, emission times, emission interval, emission angle, waveform, focus position, etc.) for emission. In some cases, the transmit circuit 101 is also used to perform phase delay on the emitted beam, so that different array elements emit an ultrasound wave at different times, so that each emitted ultrasound beam can be focused in a predetermined region of interest or the emission direction of the ultrasound wave can be changed. In some cases, by adjusting the transmit sequence parameters of the transmit circuit 101, dynamic focusing, time delay stacking, apodization and other required ultrasound emission signal modulation of the ultrasound emission signal can be realized. Different working modes, such as B image mode, C image mode and D image mode (Doppler mode), can have different transmit sequence parameters. After the echo signal is received by the receive circuit 320 and processed by subsequent modules and corresponding algorithms, a B image reflecting the anatomical structure of the tissue, a C image reflecting the anatomical structure of the tissue and blood flow information, and a D image reflecting a Doppler spectrum image can be generated.

[0075] The receiving circuit 103 is configured to receive the electrical signals of the ultrasound echoes from the ultrasound probe 100 and process the electrical signals of the ultrasound echoes. The receiving circuit 103 includes a plurality of receiving channels, one receiving channel corresponding to one array element on the ultrasound probe 100. The receiving circuit 103 can include one or more amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), etc. The amplifiers are configured to amplify the received electrical signals of the ultrasound echoes after appropriate gain compensation. The analog-to-digital converters are configured to sample the analog echo signals at predetermined time intervals, thereby converting the analog echo signals into digitized signals, which still retain the amplitude information, frequency information, and phase information. The data output by the receiving circuit 103 can be output to the beamforming circuit 104 for processing or to the memory 107 for storage.

[0076] The beamforming circuit 104 is connected to the receiving circuit 103 and configured to perform beamforming processing, such as appropriate delay and weighted summation, on the signals output by the receiving circuit 103. Because the distances from the ultrasound receiving points in the measured tissue to the receiving array elements are different, the channel data of the same receiving point output by different receiving array elements have a delay difference, and thus need to be delayed, phase-aligned, and weighted summed to obtain the ultrasound image data after beamforming. The ultrasound image data output by the beamforming circuit 104 is also referred to as radio frequency (RF) data. In some cases, the beamforming circuit 104 can also synthesize different ultrasound receiving signals according to different requirements, such as dynamic focusing, delay stacking, apodization, etc., to obtain the ultrasound data after beamforming (for example, blood flow velocity vector data). The beamforming circuit 104 outputs the RF data to the IQ demodulation circuit. In some embodiments, the beamforming circuit 104 can also output the RF data to the memory 107 for buffering or saving, or directly output the RF data to the image processing module of the processor 105 for image processing.

[0077] The beamforming circuit 104 can be implemented in hardware, firmware, or software, and can include a central controller circuit (CPU) capable of processing input data according to specific logic instructions, one or more microprocessor chips, or any other electronic components. When the beamforming circuit 104 is implemented in software, it can execute instructions stored in a tangible and non-transitory computer-readable medium (for example, the memory 107) to perform beamforming calculation using any appropriate beamforming method.

[0078] The processor 105 is configured to be a central controller circuit (CPU), one or more microprocessors, a graphics controller circuit (GPU), or any other electronic component capable of processing input data according to certain logical instructions, which can perform control on peripheral electronic components or read and / or save data from the memory 107 according to input or predetermined instructions, and can also process input data by executing programs in the memory 107, such as performing one or more processing operations on collected ultrasonic data according to one or more working modes, the processing operations including but not limited to adjusting or limiting the form of ultrasonic waves emitted by the ultrasonic probe 100, generating various image frames for subsequent display on the display 106 of the human-computer interaction device, or adjusting or limiting the content and form displayed on the display 106, or adjusting one or more image display settings (such as ultrasonic images, interface components, positioning of regions of interest) displayed on the display 106.

[0079] The signal processing module of the processor 105 is configured to process data output by the beam synthesis circuit 104 or data output by the IQ demodulation circuit to obtain ultrasonic detection data. In an embodiment, the power spectrum of the Doppler signal over time can be obtained by performing spectral analysis, where the spectral analysis can be implemented using spectral algorithms such as short-time Fourier transform (STFT) or fast Fourier transform (FFT). In another embodiment, the velocity vector of the measurement point can be output after filtering, heterodyne demodulation, autocorrelation processing, and other operations.

[0080] The image processing module of the processor 105 is configured to process the data outputted by the beamforming circuit 104 or the data outputted by the IQ demodulation circuit to generate a gray scale image of signal intensity variation in the scanning range, which reflects the anatomical structure inside the tissue and is referred to as a B image. The image processing module can output the B image to the display 106 of the human-computer interaction device for display. The human-computer interaction device is configured to perform human-computer interaction, i.e., receive user input and output visualized information; the user input can be received by using a keyboard, operation buttons, a mouse, a trackball, or a touch screen integrated with the display; and the visualized information can be output by using the display 106. In some cases, the image processing module of the processor 105 can further process the ultrasound detection data outputted by the signal processing module to form image data for display. For example, in an embodiment, the image processing module of the processor 105 processes the power spectrum data outputted by the signal processing module to display a spectrum image and spectrum envelope and spectrum measurement information on the display. In another embodiment, the image processing module of the processor 105 processes the blood flow velocity vector data outputted by the signal processing module to generate a blood flow velocity profile and display the blood flow velocity profile on the display.

[0081] The blood flow velocity vector has a velocity value that is or is close to the actual velocity value of the blood flow (e.g., red blood cells in the blood flow), and has a direction that is or is close to the actual flow direction of the blood flow (e.g., red blood cells in the blood flow). The direction of the blood flow velocity vector can be in the range of 0° to 360° in the imaging plane, and the direction can represent the actual flow direction of the blood flow in the two-dimensional imaging plane.

[0082] The processor 105 can also obtain an ultrasound echo signal based on the ultrasound echo, and obtain an ultrasound image of the target position based on the ultrasound echo signal. The ultrasound image can be an ultrasound gray scale image (referred to as a B image) representing a blood vessel or other tissue structure, or a color Doppler blood flow image (referred to as a color image) representing blood flow information. The signal processing method for the ultrasound echo signal includes but is not limited to beamforming, quadrature demodulation, wall filtering, color encoding, etc. The ultrasound image obtained by the processor 105 can be stored in the memory 107. The ultrasound image can also be displayed on the display 106. In a conventional color Doppler processing, a wall filter is used to obtain a blood flow signal with high signal-to-noise ratio, and then the blood flow signal is processed to obtain the blood flow velocity.

[0083] The memory 107 may be a tangible and non-transitory computer-readable medium, such as a flash memory card, solid-state memory, hard disk, etc., for storing data or programs. For example, the memory 107 may be used to store acquired ultrasound data or image frames generated by the processor 105 that are not immediately displayed, or the memory 107 may store a graphical user interface, one or more default image display settings, or programming instructions for the processor, beamforming circuit, or IQ demodulation circuit.

[0084] It should be noted that, Figure 3 The structure shown is for illustrative purposes only and may include more... Figure 3 The more or fewer components shown, or having the same Figure 3 The different configurations shown. Figure 3 The components shown can be implemented in hardware and / or software.

[0085] In one embodiment of this application, the display 106 of the aforementioned ultrasonic imaging device 10 may be a touch screen, a liquid crystal display, or an independent display device such as a liquid crystal display or a television set, separate from the ultrasonic imaging device 10, or a display screen on an electronic device such as a mobile phone or tablet computer.

[0086] In one embodiment of this application, the memory 107 of the aforementioned ultrasound imaging device 10 may be a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, a hard disk, etc. In another embodiment of this application, a computer-readable storage medium is also provided. This computer-readable storage medium stores multiple program instructions, which, after being called and executed by the processor 105, can execute some or all of the steps, or any combination of the steps, in the blood flow velocity processing method of various embodiments of this application. In one embodiment, the computer-readable storage medium may be the memory 107, which may be a non-volatile storage medium such as a flash memory card, a solid-state memory, or a hard disk.

[0087] In one embodiment of this application, the processor 105 of the aforementioned ultrasound imaging device 10 can be implemented by software, hardware, firmware, or a combination thereof. It can use circuits, one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), one or more general-purpose integrated circuits, one or more microprocessors, one or more programmable logic devices, or a combination of the aforementioned circuits or devices, or other suitable circuits or devices, so that the processor 105 can execute the corresponding steps of the blood flow velocity processing method in the various embodiments of this application.

[0088] Combination Figure 3 The schematic diagram of the structure of the ultrasound imaging device 10 shown is for reference only. Figure 4The blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided in one embodiment of this application may include, but is not limited to, the following steps 410 to 460:

[0089] Step 410: Control at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions through the front-end transceiver circuit.

[0090] In this step, the front-end transceiver circuit includes a transmitting circuit 101, and the processor 105 controls the transmitting circuit 101 to sequentially transmit ultrasonic waves in different directions. In one embodiment, the processor 105 controls the ultrasonic imaging device 10 to be in ultrasonic transmission or ultrasonic reception state through a transmit / receive selection switch 102. The number of transmit / receive channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe 100, that is, the number of transmit channels of the transmitting circuit 101 is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe 100.

[0091] In this step, each ultrasonic array element group includes multiple array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe, fewer than or equal to the total number of transmit and receive channels. Furthermore, each ultrasonic array element group has multiple array elements at the same positions on the ultrasonic probe and at least one array element at a different position. Each ultrasonic array element group corresponds to a transmission direction, and the angle between the transmission direction of the unfocused ultrasonic wave and the normal direction of the plane containing the array elements of the ultrasonic probe is less than or equal to 45 degrees.

[0092] In another embodiment, the multiple elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements are distributed in completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe. That is, the positions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe 100 do not overlap.

[0093] In one embodiment, see Figure 5a The image shows a scanning scene using an ultrasound probe 100. The ultrasound probe 100 has two sets of ultrasound array elements: a first ultrasound array element set 501 and a second ultrasound array element set 502. Both the first and second ultrasound array element sets 501 and 502 contain 192 elements. The elements in the first ultrasound array element set 501 are numbered from 65 to 256 on the ultrasound probe 100. The elements in the second ultrasound array element set 502 are numbered from 1 to 192 on the ultrasound probe 100. It can be seen that for elements in the first ultrasound array element set 501 and the second ultrasound array element set 502 that have the same number, see [reference needed]. Figure 5a As shown, the array elements numbered 65 to 192 are array elements in the same position shared by the first ultrasonic array element group 501 and the second ultrasonic array element group 502. The array elements numbered 1 to 64 in the first ultrasonic array element group 501 and the array elements numbered 193 to 256 in the second ultrasonic array element group 502 are array elements in different positions. Figure 5aIn the illustrated embodiment, each ultrasonic array element group has the same number of elements. In reality, the number of elements between different ultrasonic array elements groups can be different.

[0094] The first ultrasonic array element 501 emits unfocused ultrasonic waves in the first direction. Figure 5a In the diagram, the area between the two arrows ① represents the coverage area of ​​the ultrasound emitted by the first ultrasonic array element 501, and the direction indicated by arrow ① is the first direction. Correspondingly, the second ultrasonic array element 502 emits unfocused ultrasound waves in the second direction. Figure 5a In the diagram, the area between the two arrows ② represents the coverage area of ​​the ultrasound waves emitted by the second ultrasound array 502, and the direction indicated by arrow ② is the second direction. It can be seen that the first target area 510 covered by the ultrasound waves emitted by the first ultrasound array 501 and the second ultrasound array 502 is the detection area for blood flow velocity vector data.

[0095] For comparison, see Figure 5b As shown, if the ultrasound probe 100 is equipped with only a first target ultrasound array 500, and the number of elements in the first target ultrasound array 500 is also 192, and ultrasound waves are emitted in the first emission direction indicated by arrow ① and the second emission direction indicated by arrow ②, the second target area 520 covered by the two ultrasound waves is the detection area for blood flow velocity vector data. Figure 5b and Figure 5a The comparison shows that, Figure 5a The area of ​​the first target region 510 is larger than Figure 5b The second target area, 520, is larger.

[0096] Figure 5a The diagram illustrates two scenarios for ultrasonic array elements. In practice, a much larger number of ultrasonic array elements can be configured, for example, see [link to relevant documentation]. Figure 5c As shown, the ultrasonic probe 100 is equipped with three sets of ultrasonic array elements. Figure 5a A third ultrasonic array element 503 was added to the existing array; see [link / reference]. Figure 5c As shown, the direction in which the ultrasonic waves emitted by the third ultrasonic array element 503 are emitted is the third emission direction ( Figure 5c (The direction indicated by arrow ③) The area between the two arrows ③ is the coverage area of ​​the ultrasonic waves emitted by the third ultrasonic array element 503. In one embodiment, the third emission direction is perpendicular to the plane of the ultrasonic probe, and the angle between the first emission direction and the second emission direction and the third emission direction is greater than 0 degrees and less than or equal to 45 degrees. The first emission direction and the second emission direction are respectively offset to the left and right sides of the third emission direction.

[0097] In one embodiment of step 410, the ultrasonic waves emitted by each group of ultrasonic array elements are unfocused ultrasonic waves, for example, see [link to example]. Figure 5a and Figure 5cAs shown, the ultrasound element group emits a plane wave. In another embodiment, the non-focused ultrasound wave emitted by the ultrasound element group can also be a divergent wave. Since a non-focused wave is used in this step to measure the blood flow velocity vector of the target position of the target region of the target object, the sampling frame rate is relatively high. In an embodiment, the highest imaging frame rate of the blood flow velocity vector imaging is greater than 100 Hz.

[0098] In an embodiment, the number of elements of the ultrasound element group corresponds to the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit. For example, if the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit is 192, then the number of elements of the ultrasound element group is at most 192. Of course, the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit is related to the hardware and performance of the ultrasound imaging device 10. In an embodiment, the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit is greater than or equal to 96 and less than or equal to 192.

[0099] In step 420, the front-end transceiving circuit controls the ultrasound probe to receive the echo of the non-focused ultrasound wave returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasound wave corresponding to different transmission directions.

[0100] In this step, the target region returns the echo of the corresponding ultrasound wave after receiving the ultrasound wave emitted by the ultrasound probe 100, wherein the ultrasound wave of different transmission directions corresponds to different echoes of the ultrasound wave, and the echo of the ultrasound wave returned by the target region is received by the ultrasound probe 100 and sent to the receiving circuit 103 to convert the echo signal. Among them, the echo received by the ultrasound probe 100 corresponds to the ultrasound wave emitted in step 410 in different transmission directions. For example, two different transmission directions of ultrasound wave are emitted in step 410, then two different transmission directions of echo will be correspondingly received in this step, and two echo signals corresponding to different transmission directions are obtained.

[0101] In an embodiment, the ultrasound probe 100 obtains the echo signals of different transmission directions in a sequential manner. For example, after controlling the first ultrasound element group 501 to emit a non-focused ultrasound wave in a first direction, the processor 105 controls the transmission / reception selection switch 102 to be in a receiving state to receive the echo of the ultrasound wave in the first transmission direction. Then, after controlling the second ultrasound element group 502 to emit the next non-focused ultrasound wave in a second direction, the processor 105 controls the transmission / reception selection switch 102 to be in a receiving state to receive the echo of the ultrasound wave in the second transmission direction, and further obtains the echo signals of the ultrasound wave in the first transmission direction and the second transmission direction. In another embodiment, the first ultrasound element group 501 and the second ultrasound element group 502 can be controlled to emit non-focused ultrasound waves to the target region in turn, and then the processor 105 controls the transmission / reception selection switch 102 to be in a receiving state to receive the echo of the ultrasound wave in the first transmission direction and the echo of the ultrasound wave in the second transmission direction in turn.

[0102] In this step, the echo of multiple unfocused ultrasound waves in the same transmission direction can be obtained by the ultrasound probe 100, for example, the echo of the unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted by the first ultrasound element group 501 to the first transmission direction at t1 and the echo of the unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted by the first ultrasound element group 501 to the first transmission direction at t2. The unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted by the same ultrasound element group and the same transmission direction but at different times can be classified as a group of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves, that is, one transmission direction corresponds to a group of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves, and a group of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves includes at least twice the unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted in one transmission direction. After the echo of the unfocused ultrasound waves obtained by the ultrasound probe 100 is processed by the receiving circuit 103, at least two groups of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves corresponding to different transmission directions can be obtained, for example, three groups of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves can be obtained when there are three ultrasound element groups.

[0103] In step 430, at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different transmission directions are obtained according to the at least two groups of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves.

[0104] In this step, the processor 105 respectively calculates the blood flow velocity of each group of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves in different transmission directions obtained by the receiving circuit 103 to obtain the blood flow velocity component corresponding to different transmission directions of each target position in the target region, wherein one transmission direction corresponds to one blood flow velocity component. In an embodiment, since the frequency shift of the target point in the target region can reflect the blood flow velocity, the blood flow velocity component in the current transmission direction can be calculated according to the echo signals of the unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted in the same transmission direction but at different times and the receiving time interval of the echo signals (or the transmission time interval of the unfocused ultrasound waves in the same transmission direction). In addition, since at least two blood flow velocity components are required for calculating the blood flow velocity vector in the subsequent step, at least two groups of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves are required, and the blood flow velocity component corresponding to the transmission direction of each group is calculated.

[0105] For example, the first blood flow velocity component in the first transmission direction is obtained by calculating the echo of a group of unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted by the first ultrasound element group 501, and the second blood flow velocity component in the second transmission direction is obtained by calculating the echo of a group of unfocused ultrasound waves transmitted by the second ultrasound element group 502.

[0106] In an embodiment, the blood flow velocity component in one transmission direction can be calculated according to a group of echo signals of unfocused ultrasound waves. For example, for a certain transmission direction, the echo of multiple ultrasound waves in the same transmission direction can also be received, and the blood flow velocity component in one transmission direction can be calculated according to the echo of the ultrasound waves in the same transmission direction but at different receiving time intervals.

[0107] In one embodiment, the blood flow velocity component in one emission direction can be calculated using an autocorrelation method:

[0108]

[0109]

[0110] Among them, v z The velocity components calculated under different transmission directions are represented by f0, which represents the center frequency of the probe's transmitted signal, and T. prf Let N be the time interval between two transmissions at the same angle, N represent the number of transmissions, x(i) represent the real part of the processed signal after the i-th transmission and reception, and y(i) represent the imaginary part of the processed signal after the i-th transmission and reception. It is the operator that takes the imaginary part. It is the operator for taking the real part, and j is the imaginary unit.

[0111] Step 440: Reconstruct the velocity of at least two blood flow velocity components in different emission directions to obtain blood flow velocity vector data of the target area.

[0112] In this step, the processor 105 reconstructs the blood flow velocity vectors from different emission directions to obtain blood flow velocity vector data for the target area. Here, one blood flow velocity vector represents the velocity vector of a target location within the target area, and multiple target locations can be set within the target area. The blood flow velocity vectors of multiple target locations within the target area constitute the blood flow velocity vector data for the target area.

[0113] In this step, the blood flow velocity vector at a target location can be reconstructed by using the blood flow velocity components from different emission directions at that target location. The following example illustrates the reconstruction using blood flow velocity components from three different emission directions. (See [link to documentation]). Figure 6 As shown, the velocity component of the blood flow velocity vector at the target location in the first launch direction is the first blood flow velocity v1, the velocity component in the second launch direction is the second blood flow velocity v2, and the velocity component in the second launch direction is the second blood flow velocity v3. Through velocity reconstruction, perpendicular lines are drawn to the velocity components in the three different launch directions. The first velocity vector at the target location can be determined based on the intersection of the three perpendicular lines. The above velocity reconstruction of velocity components corresponding to three different launch directions is only illustrative. It can be used as a reference for reconstructing velocity components corresponding to different launch directions. Figure 6The above-mentioned related descriptions can be understood. The number of velocity components is not limited in the present application. For velocity reconstruction corresponding to two or more than three transmitting directions, the above-mentioned related descriptions can be understood.

[0114] At step 450, the blood flow velocity vector image of the target region is obtained based on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region.

[0115] In this step, the processor 105 performs image processing on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region to obtain the blood flow velocity vector image of the target region. In an embodiment, the blood flow velocity vector image includes blood flow velocity vector identification of each target position of the target region, i.e., the blood flow velocity vector is represented by dynamic or static identification on the ultrasound image, wherein the direction of the identification indicates the velocity direction of the blood flow velocity vector, and the size or transparency of the identification indicates the velocity size of the blood flow velocity vector. The blood flow velocity vector is represented by dynamic identification on the ultrasound image, which includes that the position of the identification is dynamically updated on adjacent two frames of ultrasound images to form a flowing effect over time, wherein the position of the identification represents the corresponding position of the blood flow in the vascular tissue.

[0116] In an embodiment, it is necessary to note that the dynamic display of the blood flow velocity vector image can be presented by displaying dynamic identification on the ultrasound image, and the specific implementation can be referred to the following description: first, the size and direction of the blood flow velocity vector of the current frame of blood flow are obtained, and then some identification is randomly displayed in the ultrasound image of the vascular tissue. These identifications can be arrow, triangle, circle, etc. According to the size and direction of the blood flow velocity vector corresponding to the position of each identification in the current frame, and combining the time interval of adjacent two frames, the position of the identification in the next frame is calculated, and then the identification is displayed. In this way, if several frames of images are displayed together, the flowing effect of the blood flow can be visually presented.

[0117] At step 460, the blood flow velocity vector image is displayed.

[0118] In this step, the processor 105 displays the blood flow velocity vector image obtained after the processing of step 450 through the display 106. It can be a static blood flow velocity vector image, or a dynamic blood flow velocity vector image (i.e., a video image presenting the flowing effect of the blood flow).

[0119] The blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided by the embodiments of the present application is characterized in that: the number of all transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit is less than the number of all array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe; at least two groups of ultrasonic array element groups on the ultrasonic probe are controlled by the front-end transceiving circuit to respectively emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to a target region in different emission directions; the front-end transceiving circuit is used to control the ultrasonic probe to receive echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, so as to obtain echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different emission directions; the blood flow velocity components corresponding to different emission directions are obtained according to the echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different emission directions; and the blood flow velocity components are reconstructed to obtain the blood flow velocity vector of the target region. Each group of ultrasonic array elements includes a plurality of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe and less than or equal to the number of all transceiving channels, and each group of ultrasonic array elements has a plurality of array elements at the same position and at least one array element at different positions distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Compared with the blood flow velocity vector detection by emitting ultrasonic waves at different angles by using the same group of ultrasonic array elements, in the embodiments of the present application, the array elements of the ultrasonic array element groups corresponding to different emission directions are staggered in position, so that the range of overlap of the non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted by each ultrasonic array element group in different emission directions is increased without increasing the number of array elements of the ultrasonic array element group and the number of transceiving channels, and the coverage of the blood flow velocity vector imaging is improved.

[0120] In an embodiment, the positions of each group of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe 100 can be assigned by the following method. The distribution of one group of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe 100 can be numbered by the position of the first array element and the position of the last array element. For example, for the first group of ultrasonic array elements in the first emission direction, there can be:

[0121] E1 = 1; E 1L = L,

[0122] wherein E1 represents the number of the first array element of the first group of ultrasonic array elements, E1 = 1 represents that the first array element of the first group of ultrasonic array elements is the array element numbered 1 on the ultrasonic probe 100, when the length of the first group of ultrasonic array elements is known to be L, the number of the last array element of the first group of ultrasonic array elements is represented as L, and E 1L = L. We can use {E1 = 1; E 1L = L} to represent the distribution of the array elements of the first group of ultrasonic array elements.

[0123] For the second group of ultrasonic array elements, the distribution of the array elements can be represented as:

[0124] E 2L = L + E2 - 1;

[0125] wherein E2and E 2L denote the first and last element of the second group of ultrasound elements, wherein K denotes the total number of elements on the ultrasound probe 100, and N denotes the number of different transmit directions used in blood flow velocity vector imaging, wherein K and N are positive integers.

[0126] Similarly, for the third group of ultrasound elements, the element distribution can be expressed as:

[0127] E 3L = L + E3-1;

[0128] For the i-th group of ultrasound elements, the element distribution can be expressed as:

[0129] E iL = L + E i -1; wherein i is a positive integer, 0≤i≤N;

[0130] Similarly, for the N-th group of ultrasound elements, the element distribution can be expressed as:

[0131] E NL = L + E N -1.

[0132] In the above embodiments, the number of elements in the group of ultrasound elements is equal to the maximum number of transceiving channels supported in the front-end transceiver circuit. The performance of blood flow velocity vector imaging of the target region in the ultrasound imaging device 10 can be improved as much as possible. When the value of E i is not an integer, rounding up or rounding down or rounding can be used. In some embodiments, the number of groups of ultrasound elements can also be less than the maximum number of transceiving channels supported in the front-end transceiver circuit. The above method of distributing the groups of ultrasound elements is symmetrical with respect to the center of the ultrasound probe 100, so the ROI region is preferably also set at the position of the central axis of the ultrasound probe 100.

[0133] In an embodiment, the processor 105 can control the groups of ultrasound elements on the ultrasound probe 100 to repeatedly transmit non-focused ultrasound waves in the transmit directions calculated according to the preset or other conditions (described below) in sequence, for example, see Figure 7As shown, arrow ① represents non-focused ultrasound waves emitted by the first ultrasonic array element group 501 in a first emission direction, arrow ② represents non-focused ultrasound waves emitted by the second ultrasonic array element group 502 in a second emission direction, and arrow ③ represents non-focused ultrasound waves emitted by the third ultrasonic array element group 503 in a third emission direction. As can be seen, the first ultrasonic array element group 501, the third ultrasonic array element group 503, and the second ultrasonic array element group 502 emit non-focused ultrasound waves in the first emission direction, the third emission direction, and the second emission direction, respectively, in turn.

[0134] Based on the above embodiments, the blood flow velocity vector of the target position can be detected within the coverage range of the ultrasound waves emitted by different ultrasonic array element groups. Therefore, in an embodiment, the positions of different ultrasonic array element groups on the ultrasonic probe 100 and the emission directions of the ultrasound waves emitted by different ultrasonic array element groups can be fixed, so that the measurement range of the blood flow velocity vector in the target region can be fixed. Of course, different working modes can also be set, and in different working modes, the emission directions of the ultrasound waves emitted by the ultrasonic array element groups and / or the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups on the ultrasonic probe 100 are different. In addition, before or during the emission of the ultrasound waves by the ultrasonic array element groups, the controller 105 can control the display 106 to display a first target region 510 for indicating the range of the ultrasonic examination in the display 106. Figure 5a In an embodiment, the user can set a region of interest (ROI region) within the coverage range of the ultrasound waves emitted by different ultrasonic array element groups, and further perform blood flow velocity vector measurement using the region of interest.

[0135] In an embodiment, in addition to fixing or presetting (user setting, working mode setting, etc.) the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups and the emission directions, the emission directions of the ultrasound waves emitted by the ultrasonic array element groups and / or the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups on the ultrasonic probe 100 can be dynamically changed according to target conditions. The target conditions can be the detection results of the ultrasonic imaging device 10 or intermediate detection parameters in the measurement process, or other user-configured measurement parameters in addition to directly setting the emission directions and / or the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups, such as dynamically adjusting the emission directions of the ultrasound waves emitted by the ultrasonic array element groups and / or the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups on the ultrasonic probe 100 according to the ROI region set by the user.

[0136] In an embodiment, the step 410 in the above embodiment specifically includes the following steps 411 to 412,

[0137] Step 411: Acquire a region of interest of the target region.

[0138] In this step, the user can set the region of interest through a man-machine interaction device (not shown in the figure) provided in the ultrasonic imaging device 10, wherein the man-machine interaction device is used for human-computer interaction, i.e., receiving the input of the user and outputting visual information; the input of the user can be received by using a keyboard, an operation button, a mouse, a trackball, etc., or a touch screen integrated with a display; and the visual information is output by using the display 106. For example, the ultrasonic imaging device 10 performs ultrasonic imaging on the target region, displays a B image through the display 106, and then the user can set the ROI region in the B image displayed by the display 106 through the man-machine interaction device.

[0139] In step 412, the front-end transceiver circuit is controlled to control at least two groups of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to respectively emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the target region in different emission directions according to the region of interest. The non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted by different groups of ultrasonic array elements all cover the region of interest.

[0140] In this step, the processor 105 controls the transmission circuit 101 to drive different groups of ultrasonic array elements to sequentially emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the ROI region in different emission directions. How different groups of ultrasonic array elements emit non-focused ultrasonic waves in different emission directions is described in the above step 410 and the related embodiments, which will not be repeated here.

[0141] In an embodiment, the ROI region in step 411 is obtained through steps 610 to 630 as follows:

[0142] In step 610, the ultrasonic probe is controlled to send first ultrasonic waves to the target region, receive echoes of the first ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, and obtain echo signals of the first ultrasonic waves.

[0143] In this step, the transmitting circuit 101 is configured to generate a transmit sequence according to the control of the processor 105, the transmit sequence being configured to control part or all of the array elements to emit ultrasound waves to the target tissue, the transmit sequence parameters including the array element positions for transmission, the number of array elements, and the ultrasound beam transmission parameters (e.g., amplitude, frequency, transmission times, transmission interval, transmission angle, waveform, focus position, etc.). In some cases, the transmitting circuit 101 is also configured to perform phase delay on the transmitted beams, so that different array elements emit ultrasound waves at different times, so that each transmitted ultrasound beam can be focused in a predetermined region of interest. Different operating modes, such as B-mode or C-mode, correspond to different transmit sequence parameters. The first ultrasound wave can be a plane wave, a focused wave, or a divergent wave. After receiving the first ultrasound wave, the target region (e.g., a target tissue such as a blood vessel) returns an echo of the first ultrasound wave, so that the returned echo of the first ultrasound wave is received by the ultrasonic probe 100 and sent to the receiving circuit 103 to be converted into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is subjected to beam synthesis processing by the beam synthesis circuit 104, and a first ultrasonic echo signal is obtained. In one embodiment, the first ultrasonic echo signal can be stored in the memory 107 for subsequent further processing. In another embodiment, the first ultrasonic echo signal can also be subjected to image processing and displayed by the image processing module of the processor 105.

[0144] In step 620, a tissue image of the target region is obtained according to the echo signal of the first ultrasonic wave.

[0145] In this step, the first ultrasonic echo signal output by the beam synthesis circuit 104 can be processed by the image processing module of the processor 105 to generate a gray-scale image of the signal intensity variation in the scanning range, which reflects the tissue structure of the target tissue, such as a tissue image of a blood vessel. In one embodiment, the tissue image can be a B image reflecting only the anatomical structure inside the tissue, an E image, or a C image reflecting the anatomical structure inside the tissue and blood flow information. In one embodiment, the processor 105 can store the tissue image of the target tissue in the memory 107 for subsequent further processing. In another embodiment, the tissue image of the target tissue can also be displayed in real time by the display 106.

[0146] In step 630, the tissue image is displayed, and the region of interest set in the tissue image is obtained.

[0147] In this step, the processor 105 can display the tissue image of the target tissue and the identified tissue structure in the display 106. In an embodiment, the display of the identified tissue structure can be performed in a set of identified tissue structures as a processing unit. For example, the tissue image of the target tissue displayed in the display 106 can be a B image, a C image, an E image or an M image. After the user sets the ROI region through the human-computer interaction device, the processor 105 can obtain the position (e.g., depth), boundary (e.g., shape and size) or area of the ROI region set by the user.

[0148] In an embodiment, the scanning range of the ultrasound probe 100, the emission direction of the ultrasound array element group and / or the position of the ultrasound array element group on the ultrasound probe 100 can be determined according to the ROI region set by the user, so that the ultrasound waves emitted by the ultrasound array element group can cover the ROI region set by the user.

[0149] In an embodiment, referring to FIG. 8, the step 412 can include the following steps 810-820. Figure 8

[0150] In the step 810, the distribution position of the array element of each ultrasound array element group on the ultrasound probe can be determined according to the boundary of the ROI region and the different preset emission directions of the at least two ultrasound array element groups.

[0151] In this step, the processor 105 can obtain the ROI region set by the user according to the step 411 and the related embodiments thereof, determine the boundary of the ROI region according to the related parameters (e.g., center position, shape or size of the boundary) of the ROI region, and then determine the position of each ultrasound array element group on the ultrasound probe (i.e., the distribution position of the array element of each ultrasound array element group on the ultrasound probe) according to the boundary of the ROI region and the preset emission direction of the different ultrasound array element groups.

[0152] ​In an embodiment, the processor 105 acquires a preset transmitting direction of the current ultrasound element group to be determined in position and a preset number of elements of the ultrasound element group (which can be understood as the aperture size of the ultrasound element group), and according to the aperture size of the ultrasound element group and the preset transmitting direction, the area size of the ultrasound wave coverage range of the current aperture element group can be determined, and by changing the position of the ultrasound element group, the determined ultrasound wave coverage range can cover the ROI region, and the current position of the ultrasound element group is the target position. There are various ways to change the position of the ultrasound element group so that the coverage range of the ultrasound wave can cover the ROI region, and the present application does not limit this. For example, the center of the ROI region can be taken as an example, a straight line is determined in the preset transmitting direction, the intersection of the straight line and the ultrasound probe 100 is the center of the ultrasound element group, and then the position of the first element and the position of the last element of the ultrasound element group are determined according to the aperture size of the current ultrasound element group, so that the position of the ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe 100 can be determined. In an embodiment, if the ultrasound wave emitted by the ultrasound element group at the current position cannot cover the ROI region (i.e., the region determined by the first element, the last element and the preset transmitting direction cannot cover the ROI region), the number of elements of the ultrasound element group can be increased (i.e., the number of the first element is reduced and / or the number of the last element is increased), and the user can be prompted to reset the ROI region (i.e., return to step 411). By presetting the number of elements of the ultrasound element group, the aperture size of the ultrasound element group at different transmitting directions can be kept consistent, and the complexity of the control algorithm of the ultrasound probe 100 is reduced.

[0153] In another embodiment, the number of elements of the target element group can not be preset in advance, but the position of the ultrasound element group can be directly determined on the ultrasound probe 100 according to the boundary of the region of interest and the preset transmitting direction. Instead, two boundary lines with only one intersection point with the region of interest are first determined according to the preset transmitting direction, and the two boundary lines are located on the two sides of the ROI region, and then the position of the first element and the position of the last element of the ultrasound element group are determined according to the intersection points of the two boundary lines and the ultrasound probe 100, and the position of the elements on the ultrasound probe 100 (i.e., the position of the ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe 100) is determined.

[0154] The boundary of the ROI region can be of different shapes, for example, it can be a polygon, a circle or an ellipse, and among the polygons, it can also be a quadrilateral, a rectangle or a trapezoid, etc.

[0155] In an embodiment, taking the ROI region as a polygon as an example, the position with only one intersection point with the ROI region is the vertex of the polygon, and thus the boundary line located on both sides of the ROI region can be determined according to the vertex of the ROI region and the preset transmission direction of the current ultrasonic array element group, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group is determined in turn. That is, the position of the array elements of each ultrasonic array element group in the ultrasonic probe is determined according to the vertex of the region of interest and the different preset transmission directions of at least two ultrasonic array element groups.

[0156] In another embodiment, taking the ROI region as a circle as an example, two tangent lines of the circle can be determined according to the preset transmission direction, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe can be determined by taking the two tangent lines as boundary lines.

[0157] In an embodiment, the ROI region is a quadrilateral, and thus the position with only one intersection point with the ROI region is the diagonal of the quadrilateral, and thus the boundary line located on both sides of the ROI region can be determined according to the diagonal of the ROI region and the preset transmission direction of the current ultrasonic array element group, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group is determined in turn. The position of the array elements of each ultrasonic array element group in the ultrasonic probe is determined according to the diagonal of the region of interest and the different preset transmission directions of at least two ultrasonic array element groups. For example, referring to FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example. Figure 9a As shown in FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example. Figure 9a As shown in FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example. Figure 9a As shown in FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example. As shown in FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example. As shown in FIG. 9, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the position of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe 100 is determined by taking the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the ROI region 910 as an example.

[0158] Figure 9aIn some embodiments, the same diagonal is used to determine the position of the first and last elements of the different element groups on the ultrasound probe 100. In another embodiment, different diagonals can be used to determine the position of the different element groups on the ultrasound probe 100, for example, see Figure 9b As shown in FIG. 9, the first element group 501 uses the left lower corner and the right upper corner of the ROI region 910 to determine the position of the element distribution, and the second element group 502 uses the left upper corner and the right lower corner of the ROI region 910 to determine the position of the element distribution. The first element group 501 is distributed on the ultrasound probe 100 at elements numbered 1 to 160. The second element group 502 is distributed on the ultrasound probe 100 at elements numbered 65 to 256.

[0159] In another embodiment, if the preset transmission direction is perpendicular to the ultrasound probe 100 (or the angle between the preset transmission direction and the normal of the plane of the elements of the ultrasound probe 100 is 0 degrees), the position of the elements of the element group on the ultrasound probe can be directly determined according to the projection of the region of interest on the plane of the elements of the ultrasound probe, wherein the element group includes the elements covered by the projection of the region of interest on the plane of the elements of the ultrasound probe. For example, see Figure 9a and Figure 9b As shown in FIG. 10, the third transmission direction of the third element group 503 is indicated by arrow ③, and the third transmission direction is perpendicular to the plane of the ultrasound probe 100. Therefore, the distribution range of the elements of the third element group 503 can be determined according to the projection of the ROI region 910 on the ultrasound probe 100, which is elements numbered 21 to 166.

[0160] In the embodiment of FIG. 8, the coverage range of the first element group 501 is the region between the two arrows ①, that is, the same as the region covered between the first boundary line 920 and the second boundary line 930. When the coverage range of the transmitted ultrasound wave is close to the ROI region, the number of elements of the element group can be reduced, which not only reduces the burden of the ultrasound imaging device 10 and energy consumption, but also reduces the temperature when the ultrasound probe 100 transmits ultrasound waves, thereby improving the safety of the ultrasound imaging device 10 and the user's comfort. Figure 9a However, in order to avoid the loss of measurement data at the ROI boundary position, in some embodiments, a certain margin distance can be reserved, that is, the coverage range of the transmitted ultrasound wave of the element group can be appropriately expanded, for example, see Figure 9c As shown in FIG. 11, taking the first element group 501 as an example, the coverage range of the two arrows ① of the first element group 501 is larger than the region covered between the first boundary line 920 and the second boundary line 930, so as to achieve Figure 9cAs shown in the effect, in an embodiment, the position of the original determined ultrasonic array element group can be appropriately expanded by a certain distance, for example, the number of the first array element of the ultrasonic array element group is shifted to the left (the number is reduced), and the number of the last array element is shifted to the right (the number is increased). In another embodiment, the ROI region 910 can also be expanded, that is, the area of the ROI region 910 is increased, and then the first boundary line 920 and the second boundary line 930 are determined according to the diagonal of the ROI region 910 after the area is increased. Therefore, the coverage range of the ultrasonic wave emitted by the finally determined ultrasonic array element group will be larger than that of the ultrasonic wave emitted by the original ultrasonic array element group. Figure 9a

[0161] In an embodiment, a certain margin can be left for the coverage range of the ultrasonic wave emitted by each ultrasonic array element group relative to the ROI region 910. In another embodiment, only a part of the coverage range of the ultrasonic wave emitted by the ultrasonic array element group can be left, for example, see FIG. 5. Figure 9d As shown in FIG. 5, the coverage range of the ultrasonic wave emitted by the first ultrasonic array element group 501 and the second ultrasonic array element group 502 leaves a certain margin relative to the ROI region 910, while the coverage range of the ultrasonic wave emitted by the third ultrasonic array element group 503 perpendicular to the ultrasonic probe 100 is close to the ROI region 910. This is because, compared with the first emission direction and the second emission direction, the third emission direction perpendicular to the ROI region 910 is not easy to produce errors, so the number of array elements of the third ultrasonic array element group 503 can be reduced as much as possible, thereby saving energy consumption and reducing the surface temperature of the ultrasonic probe 100.

[0162] Step 820: controlling the ultrasonic probe through the front-end transceiver circuit to make the ultrasonic array element groups at different distribution positions of the ultrasonic probe emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the target region in different preset emission directions.

[0163] In this step, after the positions of the ultrasonic array element groups in different emission directions on the ultrasonic probe 100 are determined through the above step 810, the processor 105 controls the transmission circuit 101 to drive these different ultrasonic array element groups to emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the ROI region in different emission directions in turn. How the different ultrasonic array element groups emit non-focused ultrasonic waves in different emission directions is described in the above step 410 and the related embodiments, which will not be repeated here.

[0164] In an embodiment, referring to FIG. 5, the above step 412 specifically includes the following steps 1010 to 1020 Figure 10

[0165] Step 1010: determining the target emission direction of each ultrasonic array element group in the ultrasonic probe according to the boundary of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of the at least two groups of ultrasonic array element groups distributed on the ultrasonic probe. ​​

[0166] In this step, the processor 105 obtains the ROI region set by the user according to the above step 411 and its related embodiments, and determines the boundary of the ROI region according to the related parameters of the ROI region (such as the center position, the shape or size of the boundary, etc.), and then determines the target emission direction of the ultrasound wave emitted by the different ultrasound element groups according to the boundary of the ROI region and the position of the different ultrasound element groups on the ultrasound probe (i.e. the distribution position of the elements of the ultrasound element groups on the ultrasound probe).

[0167] In an embodiment, the processor 105 obtains the position of the ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe 100, i.e. the distribution position of the elements of the ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe 100, which is currently needed to be determined. Then the target emission direction of the ultrasound wave emitted by the ultrasound element group is determined according to the boundary of the ROI region. In an embodiment, the boundary position of the distribution of the elements of the ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe can be determined first, i.e. the position (or number) of the first element of the ultrasound element group and the position (or number) of the last element, and then the boundary line located at least one side of the ROI region is determined according to the boundary position of the ultrasound element group, wherein the boundary line has and only has one intersection with the ROI region, for example, according to the first element of the ultrasound element group and one point of the boundary of the ROI region, a boundary line is determined which does not intersect with the ROI region except for the point, and the direction of the boundary line relative to the plane of the ultrasound probe 100 is the target emission direction. Wherein, if the non-focused ultrasound wave emitted by the ultrasound element group is a plane wave, the target emission direction of the current ultrasound element group can be determined after determining a boundary line, and for the case of divergent wave, the target emission direction of the current ultrasound element group can be determined according to the boundary lines on both sides of the ROI region.

[0168] In an embodiment, it is needed to determine whether the target emission direction determined according to the boundary line is applicable or not, for example, the angle of the determined target emission direction does not conform to a preset angle range, for example, the angle between the target emission direction and the normal direction of the plane where the elements of the ultrasound probe are located is greater than 45 degrees. For another example, the emission direction corresponding to the first boundary line determined using the first element position of the ultrasound element group and the first point of the ROI region boundary can only ensure that the ultrasound wave emitted by the first element according to the emission direction can cover one side of the ROI region. For the last element of the ultrasound element group, the ultrasound wave emitted according to the emission direction can still intersect with the ROI region. Therefore, it is needed to confirm whether the ultrasound wave emitted by the last element of the ultrasound element group according to the emission direction can cover the ROI region. If not, another target emission direction needs to be determined, for example, the last element of the ultrasound element group and the second point of the ROI region boundary are used to determine a boundary line, and then the target emission direction is determined again according to the new boundary line and the coverage range is verified. If all the boundary lines determined by the current ultrasound element group and the ROI region boundary are not applicable, the user is prompted to reselect the ROI region or change the position of the current ultrasound element group on the ultrasound probe 100.

[0169] The boundary of the ROI region can be of different shapes, for example, it can be a polygon, a circle or an ellipse, and in the polygon, it can also be a quadrilateral, a rectangle or a trapezoid, etc.

[0170] In an embodiment, taking the ROI region as a polygon as an example, the position with only one intersection point with the ROI region is the vertex of the polygon. Therefore, the boundary line located on at least one side of the ROI region can be determined according to the vertex of the ROI region and the position of the current ultrasound element group, for example, the position of the first element or the last element, and then the target emission direction is determined.

[0171] In another embodiment, taking the ROI region as a circle as an example, at least one tangent line of the circle can be determined according to the first element or the last element of the ultrasound element group, and the target emission direction can be determined according to the tangent line as the boundary line.

[0172] In an embodiment, the ROI region is a quadrilateral, and therefore, the position with only one intersection point with the ROI region is the diagonal of the quadrilateral. Therefore, the boundary line can be determined according to the diagonal of the ROI region and the position of the current ultrasound element group, and then the target emission direction is determined. That is, the target emission direction corresponding to each ultrasound element group in the ultrasound probe is determined according to the diagonal of the ROI region and the position of the elements of at least two ultrasound element groups distributed on the ultrasound probe.

[0173] For example, referring to Figure 9aAs shown, the boundary of the ROI region 910 is a quadrilateral, and the elements of the first ultrasound element group 501 are respectively elements numbered 51 to 210 of the ultrasound probe 100. Then, the element numbered 51 is connected with the top left corner of the ROI region 910 to obtain the first boundary line 920, and the direction indicated by the arrow ① of the first boundary line 920 is the target emission direction corresponding to the first ultrasound element group 501. Similarly, for the second ultrasound element group 502, the elements thereof are distributed in the range of elements numbered 65 to 256 of the ultrasound probe 100. According to the first element (element numbered 65) of the second ultrasound element group 502 and the top left corner of the ROI region 910, the third boundary line 940 is obtained, and the direction indicated by the arrow ② of the third boundary line 940 is the target emission direction corresponding to the second ultrasound element group 502. Of course, the bottom right corner of the ROI region 910 can also be used to connect, for example, the element numbered 210 is connected with the bottom right corner of the ROI region 910 to obtain the second boundary line 930, and the direction indicated by the arrow ① of the second boundary line 930 is the target emission direction corresponding to the first ultrasound element group 501.

[0174] Figure 9a In some embodiments, different ultrasound element groups can use the same diagonal to determine the boundary line and then determine the target emission direction of the ultrasound element group. In another embodiment, different ultrasound element groups can use different diagonals to determine the target emission direction of the ultrasound element group, for example, see Figure 9b As shown, the first ultrasound element group 501 uses the left bottom corner or the right top corner of the ROI region 910 to determine the boundary line, and the second ultrasound element group 502 uses the top left corner or the bottom right corner of the ROI region 910 to determine the boundary line.

[0175] In an embodiment, in order to avoid the loss of measurement data at the boundary position of the ROI region 910, in some embodiments, a certain margin distance can be reserved to appropriately cover the range of the emitted ultrasound waves of the ultrasound element group, for example, see Figure 9e As shown, taking the first ultrasound element group 501 as an example, the first boundary line 920 is determined according to the element numbered 51 of the first ultrasound element group 501 and the top left corner of the ROI region 910, and the second boundary line 930 is determined according to the element numbered 210 of the first ultrasound element group 501 and the bottom right corner of the ROI region 910. Figure 9eIn the embodiment, the direction of the first boundary line 920 is not directly used as the target emission direction, but is offset by a certain angle (i.e., the angle with the normal direction of the plane where the elements of the ultrasonic probe are located is increased) based on the direction of the first boundary line 920, so that the ultrasonic wave emission boundary indicated by the arrow ① and the ROI region 910 leave a certain distance. Of course, in addition to increasing the angle with the normal direction of the plane where the elements of the ultrasonic probe are located, the ROI region 910 can also be expanded when the diagonal of the ROI region 910 is determined, i.e., the area of the ROI region 910 is increased, and then the first boundary line 920 is determined according to the diagonal of the ROI region 910 after the area is increased, so that the coverage range of the ultrasonic waves emitted by the ultrasonic element group and the boundary of the ROI region 910 can also leave a certain distance.

[0176] In step 1020, the front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two groups of ultrasonic element groups to emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the target region in different target emission directions, respectively.

[0177] In this step, after the target emission directions of different ultrasonic element groups are determined through the above step 1010, the processor 105 controls the transmission circuit 101 to drive these different ultrasonic element groups to emit non-focused ultrasonic waves to the ROI region in different target emission directions in turn. How different ultrasonic element groups emit non-focused ultrasonic waves in different emission directions is described in the above step 410 and the related embodiments, which will not be repeated here.

[0178] In an embodiment, in the process of performing the above steps 420 to 430, the following steps are specifically included:

[0179] The echo signals of the at least one group of non-focused ultrasonic waves are subjected to beam synthesis in different directions for at least two times to obtain at least two groups of receiving signals corresponding to different beam synthesis directions of one emission direction, and at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to one emission direction are obtained according to the at least two groups of receiving signals, wherein each group of receiving signals includes at least two times of non-focused ultrasonic waves emitted in one emission direction.

[0180] In one embodiment of the step, the ultrasound probe 100 receives the echo of the ultrasound wave of one transmission direction, and if the echo of the ultrasound wave of the transmission direction is directly subjected to beamforming, the receiving signal (echo signal) corresponding to the direction can be obtained, and thus the beamforming direction of the beamforming is the transmission direction of the ultrasound wave of the ultrasound element group. For example, the ultrasound wave transmitted by the first ultrasound element group 501 is subjected to beamforming in the first beamforming direction, and the first beamforming direction is the same as the first transmission direction, and thus the first receiving signal after the beamforming corresponds to the first transmission direction, and the first receiving signal is subjected to the operation of the step 430 as described above, and thus the blood flow velocity component of the first transmission direction can be obtained.

[0181] In addition, if the ultrasound wave transmitted by the same first ultrasound element group 501 is subjected to beamforming in another beamforming direction, for example, the ultrasound wave transmitted by the first ultrasound element group 501 is subjected to beamforming in the second beamforming direction, and the second beamforming direction is different from the first transmission direction, and thus the second receiving signal after the beamforming, that is, corresponding to the first transmission direction (because it is obtained according to the echo of the ultrasound wave of the first transmission direction), also corresponds to the second beamforming direction, and the second receiving signal is subjected to the operation of the step 430 as described above, and thus the blood flow velocity component of the second beamforming direction can be obtained. Through the above steps, the blood flow velocity components of multiple angles can be obtained, which helps to improve the speed measurement accuracy of blood flow velocity vector imaging.

[0182] By controlling the apodization parameters of the beamforming of the beamforming circuit 104, the position of the ultrasound element group receiving the ultrasound wave echo and / or the beamforming direction can be adjusted. For example, at least two times of beamforming of the echo signals of at least one group of non-focused ultrasound waves are performed in different beamforming directions and / or using different elements, at least two receiving signals corresponding to different beamforming directions of one transmission direction are obtained, and at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to one transmission direction are obtained according to the at least two receiving signals.

[0183] Referring to Figure 11a As shown in the figure, taking the first ultrasound element group 501 as an example, the arrow ① indicates the first transmission direction of the first ultrasound element group 501, and by applying the apodization function 1110 to the beamforming circuit 104, the coverage range of the apodization function 1110 is the position range of the ultrasound element group receiving the ultrasound wave on the ultrasound probe 100, and the curve of the apodization function 1110 indicates the receiving delay control of each element in the position range, and the principle of adjusting the transmission direction is the same as described above, and by changing the receiving time of each element, the receiving angle of the ultrasound wave can be changed, that is, the beamforming direction described above is adjusted, for example Figure 11a The direction indicated by the straight line ④ is the beamforming direction adjusted by the apodization function 1110. By Figure 1The apodization function 1110 in the first ultrasound array element group 501 is used to control the position of the ultrasound array element group receiving the echo of the transmitted unfocused ultrasound wave, and to control the beamforming direction.

[0184] In one embodiment, the ultrasound array elements of the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the unfocused ultrasound wave and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasound wave have the same distribution of positions on the ultrasound probe corresponding to the same transmission direction. That is, the same ultrasound array element group is used for transmitting the ultrasound wave and for receiving the ultrasound wave.

[0185] In another embodiment, the ultrasound array elements of the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasound wave have a distribution of positions on the ultrasound probe falling within the range of the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the unfocused ultrasound wave corresponding to the same transmission direction. That is, the ultrasound array element group for receiving the ultrasound wave is a subset of the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the ultrasound wave. For example Figure 11a As shown, the ultrasound array element group 1120 for receiving the ultrasound wave is still within the range of the first ultrasound array element group 501.

[0186] In another embodiment, the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the unfocused ultrasound wave and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasound wave corresponding to the same transmission direction have a plurality of ultrasound array elements having the same distribution of positions on the ultrasound probe and at least one ultrasound array element having a different distribution of positions. That is, the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the ultrasound wave and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the ultrasound wave partially overlap on the ultrasound probe 100. For example Figure 11b As shown, the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the ultrasound wave corresponding to the first ultrasound array element group 501 (i.e., the ultrasound array elements covered by the apodization function 1110) partially overlaps with the first ultrasound array element group 501, and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the ultrasound wave corresponding to the second ultrasound array element group 502 (i.e., the ultrasound array elements covered by the apodization function 1120) partially overlaps with the second ultrasound array element group 502.

[0187] In another embodiment, the ultrasound array elements of the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the unfocused ultrasound wave and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasound wave have completely different distributions of positions on the ultrasound probe corresponding to the same transmission direction. That is, the ultrasound array element group for transmitting the ultrasound wave and the ultrasound array element group for receiving the ultrasound wave have completely different distributions of positions on the ultrasound probe 100 (i.e., the two ultrasound array element groups do not overlap at all).

[0188] For the case that the groups of ultrasonic elements for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves are completely different or partially overlapped, there can be potential problems. Since the activation of an element requires a certain time, for example, there is a target element for receiving ultrasonic waves that is not in the group of ultrasonic elements for transmitting ultrasonic waves. After the group of ultrasonic elements transmits ultrasonic waves, a certain time is required to activate the target element so that the target element can receive the echo of the ultrasonic waves. Assuming that the time for activating the target element is T1, the time from transmitting the ultrasonic waves to receiving the ultrasonic waves is T2. When T2 is greater than T1, the target element receives the echo of the ultrasonic waves after being activated. Therefore, the echo of the ultrasonic waves can be normally received. When T2 is less than T1, the echo of the ultrasonic waves reaches the ultrasonic probe 100 before the target element is activated. This can result in the loss of part of the echo signal of the ultrasonic waves.

[0189] Therefore, in one embodiment, when the group of ultrasonic elements for transmitting non-focused ultrasonic waves and the group of ultrasonic elements for receiving the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to the same transmission direction have multiple elements with the same position and at least one element with a different position distributed on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to the first threshold. By controlling the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe 100, the echo time T2 described above can be adjusted so that T2 is greater than T1. In this way, the echo signal of the ultrasonic waves can be normally received.

[0190] Similarly, in another embodiment, when the elements of the group of ultrasonic elements for transmitting non-focused ultrasonic waves and the group of ultrasonic elements for receiving the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to the same transmission direction are distributed at completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to the first threshold. In the above embodiment, the available range of the ROI region set by the user can be limited according to different control modes of the ultrasonic imaging device 10. For example, when the groups of ultrasonic elements for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves are the same or contain each other, the range of the ROI region set by the user is not limited. In addition, the available range of the ROI region set by the user is controlled so that the distance between the ROI region and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to the first threshold.

[0191] Referring to Figure 12 An embodiment of the present application provides an ultrasonic imaging method, which can include but is not limited to the following steps 1210 to 1240:

[0192] Step 1210: Control at least two groups of ultrasonic elements on the ultrasonic probe to respectively transmit non-focused ultrasonic waves to a target region in different transmission directions through the front-end transceiver circuit.

[0193] The angle between the transmission direction and the normal direction of the plane where the elements of the ultrasonic probe are located is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the number of all the transceiving channels of the front-end transceiving circuit is less than the number of all the elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe; each group of ultrasonic elements includes a plurality of elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe and less than or equal to the number of all the transceiving channels, and each group of ultrasonic elements has a plurality of elements at the same position and at least one element at a different position distributed on the ultrasonic probe.

[0194] In another embodiment, the plurality of elements included in the at least two groups of ultrasonic element groups are distributed at completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe. That is, the positions of the at least two groups of ultrasonic element groups on the ultrasonic probe 100 do not overlap.

[0195] In this step, how different groups of ultrasonic elements transmit non-focused ultrasonic waves in different transmission directions is described in step 410 and the related embodiments above, which will not be repeated here.

[0196] In step 1220, the front-end transceiving circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive the echoes of the non-focused ultrasonic waves returned by the target region, to obtain at least two groups of echo signals of non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different transmission directions.

[0197] In this step, the echo signal of a group of non-focused ultrasonic waves includes at least two non-focused ultrasonic waves transmitted in one transmission direction. How the ultrasonic probe receives the echoes of non-focused ultrasonic waves is described in step 420 and the related embodiments above, which will not be repeated here.

[0198] In step 1230, the at least two groups of echo signals of non-focused ultrasonic waves are compounded to obtain a compounded echo signal.

[0199] In this step, the processor 105 compounds the at least two groups of echo signals of non-focused ultrasonic waves corresponding to different transmission directions obtained by the receiving circuit 103 to obtain a compounded echo signal. In one embodiment, a beam synthesis algorithm can be used to compound the echo signals of ultrasonic waves in different transmission directions, wherein different beam synthesis parameters can be set to process the blood flow velocity component data in different transmission directions in the beam synthesis process. For example, by setting matrix parameters, the reconstruction of blood flow velocity components in different transmission directions can be completed in the signal compounding process, so that the obtained echo signal can reflect the blood flow velocity vector information of the target region. In another embodiment, the echo signals of non-focused ultrasonic waves in different transmission directions can also be input into a pre-trained machine learning model for compounding to obtain a compounded echo signal.

[0200] In step 1240, an ultrasonic image or blood flow velocity is obtained according to the compounded echo signal.

[0201] In this step, the processor 105 processes the compounded echo signal to obtain an ultrasound image or a blood flow velocity. The B image and the blood flow image can be superimposed and displayed. Alternatively, the blood flow velocity parameter can be displayed.

[0202] In an embodiment, the blood flow velocity vector image includes blood flow velocity vector identification for each target position in the target region, i.e., the blood flow velocity vector is represented by a dynamic or static identifier on the ultrasound image, wherein the direction of the identifier represents the velocity direction of the blood flow velocity vector, and the size or transparency of the identifier represents the velocity size of the blood flow velocity vector. The blood flow velocity vector is represented by a dynamic identifier on the ultrasound image, including that the position of the identifier is dynamically updated on adjacent two frames of ultrasound images to form a flowing effect over time, wherein the position of the identifier represents the corresponding position of the blood flow in the vascular tissue.

[0203] In an embodiment, it should be noted that the dynamic display of the blood flow velocity vector image can be presented by displaying dynamic identifiers on the ultrasound image, and the specific implementation can be referred to the following description: first, the size and direction of the blood flow velocity vector of the current frame of blood flow are obtained, and then some identifiers are randomly displayed in the ultrasound image of the vascular tissue. These identifiers can be arrowheads, triangles, circles, or other symbols. According to the size and direction of the blood flow velocity vector corresponding to the position of each identifier in the current frame, and in combination with the time interval of adjacent two frames, the position of the identifier in the next frame is calculated, and then the identifier is displayed. In this way, if a plurality of frames of images are displayed together, the flowing effect of the blood flow can be visually presented.

[0204] One embodiment of the present application provides an ultrasound imaging device, which includes:

[0205] an ultrasound probe;

[0206] a transmitting / receiving circuit configured to control the ultrasound probe to transmit ultrasound waves to a vascular region of a target object and receive echoes of the ultrasound waves;

[0207] a processor configured to process the echoes of the ultrasound waves to obtain a tissue image and / or a blood flow velocity vector image of the vascular region;

[0208] a display configured to display the tissue image and / or the blood flow velocity vector image;

[0209] The processor is further configured to perform the blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments, or perform the ultrasound imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments.

[0210] The embodiment of the present application provides an electronic device, including a memory and a processor, the memory stores a computer program, and the processor implements the blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments when executing the computer program, or executes the ultrasonic imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments.

[0211] The embodiment of the present application provides a computer storage medium, which stores a computer program, and is applied to an ultrasonic imaging device, and the computer program is executed by a processor to implement the blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments, or to execute the ultrasonic imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments.

[0212] The embodiment of the present application provides a computer program product or a computer program, which includes computer instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium. A processor of a computer device reads the computer instructions from the computer readable storage medium, and the processor executes the computer instructions, so that the computer device executes the blood flow velocity vector imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments, or executes the ultrasonic imaging method provided in any one of the above embodiments.

[0213] In several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, device and method can be implemented in other manners. For example, the above-described device embodiments are merely schematic, and the division of units is merely a logical function division, and there can be another division manner in actual implementation, for example, a plurality of units or components can be combined or integrated into another system, or some features can be ignored or not executed. In addition, the displayed or discussed mutual couplings or direct couplings or communication connections between different units can be indirect couplings or communication connections through some interfaces, devices or units, and can be electrical, mechanical or other forms.

[0214] The units described as separated components can or can not be physically separated, and the components displayed as units can or can not be physical units, that is, can be located in one place, or can be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purposes of the embodiments.

[0215] In addition, each functional unit in the embodiments of the present application can be integrated in one processing unit, or each unit can be a physical unit, or two or more units can be integrated in one unit. The integrated unit can be in the form of hardware, or in the form of software functional units.

[0216] If the integrated unit is implemented in the form of a software function unit and sold or used as an independent product, it can be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the present application essentially or say the part that contributes to the prior art or the whole or part of the technical solutions can be embodied in the form of a software product. The computer software product is stored in a storage medium and includes a plurality of instructions for causing a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the various embodiments of the method of the present application. The aforementioned storage medium includes: a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a magnetic disk or an optical disk, and various media that can store program codes.

[0217] It should also be appreciated that the various embodiments provided by the embodiments of the present application can be combined arbitrarily to achieve different technical effects.

[0218] The above is a specific description of the preferred embodiments of the present application, but the present application is not limited to the above embodiments. Those skilled in the art can make various equivalent modifications or replacements without departing from the spirit of the present application, and these equivalent modifications or replacements are all included in the scope defined by the claims of the present application.

Claims

1. A blood flow velocity vector imaging method, characterized in that, The method includes: The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions. The angle between the emission direction and the normal direction of the plane containing the array elements of the ultrasonic probe is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Each set of ultrasonic array elements corresponds to one emission direction. Each set of ultrasonic array elements includes multiple array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe that are less than or equal to the total number of transceiver channels. Furthermore, each set of ultrasonic array elements has multiple array elements at the same position on the ultrasonic probe and at least one array element at a different position. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic wave returned from the target area, thereby obtaining at least two sets of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave corresponding to different transmission directions. One set of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave includes the non-focused ultrasonic wave that is transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction. Based on the echo signals of at least two sets of the unfocused ultrasound, at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different emission directions are obtained, wherein one of the emission directions corresponds to one of the blood flow velocity components. Velocity reconstruction is performed on at least two blood flow velocity components in different emission directions to obtain blood flow velocity vector data of the target region; Based on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region, a blood flow velocity vector image of the target region is obtained; The blood flow velocity vector image is displayed.

2. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The method of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions via a front-end transceiver circuit includes: Obtain the region of interest (ROI) of the target region; Based on the region of interest, the front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions, wherein the unfocused ultrasonic waves emitted by different ultrasonic array elements all cover the region of interest.

3. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 2, characterized in that, The region of interest is obtained through the following steps: The ultrasonic probe is controlled to send a first ultrasonic wave to the target area, and the echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned from the target area is received to obtain the echo signal of the first ultrasonic wave. A tissue image of the target region is obtained based on the echo signal of the first ultrasound. Display the tissue image and obtain the region of interest set in the tissue image.

4. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 2, characterized in that... The step of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions via the front-end transceiver circuit according to the region of interest includes: Based on the boundary of the region of interest and the different preset emission directions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements, the distribution position of each element of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe is determined. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe, causing the ultrasonic array elements at different distribution positions on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different preset emission directions.

5. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 4, characterized in that, In at least two groups of ultrasonic array elements, the positions of the array elements in each group of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe are obtained through the following steps: Two boundary lines are determined on both sides of the boundary of the region of interest based on the preset emission direction corresponding to the ultrasonic array element, wherein the boundary lines have one and only one intersection point with the region of interest; The positions of the array elements on the ultrasonic array group distributed on the ultrasonic probe are determined based on the two boundary lines.

6. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 4, characterized in that, Determining the position of each element of the ultrasonic array group on the ultrasonic probe based on the boundary of the region of interest and the different preset emission directions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements includes at least one of the following: Based on the vertices of the region of interest and the different preset emission directions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements, the positions of the array elements of each ultrasonic array element in the ultrasonic probe are determined on the ultrasonic probe, wherein the region of interest is a polygon; Alternatively, the positions of the array elements of each ultrasonic array group in the ultrasonic probe are determined based on the diagonal of the region of interest and the different preset emission directions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements, wherein the region of interest is a quadrilateral, and the diagonals corresponding to different ultrasonic array elements are the same or different. Alternatively, the positions of the array elements on the ultrasonic probe can be determined based on the projection of the region of interest onto the plane where the array elements of the ultrasonic probe are located, wherein the ultrasonic array element group includes the array elements covered by the projection of the region of interest onto the plane where the array elements of the ultrasonic probe are located.

7. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 2, characterized in that... The step of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions via the front-end transceiver circuit according to the region of interest includes: Based on the boundary of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe, the target emission direction of each ultrasonic array element in the ultrasonic probe is determined. The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different target emission directions.

8. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 7, characterized in that, In at least two sets of said ultrasonic array elements, the target emission direction of the unfocused ultrasonic waves emitted by each set of said ultrasonic array elements is obtained through the following steps: Determine the boundary positions of the array elements of the ultrasonic array group distributed on the ultrasonic probe. A boundary line located on at least one side of the region of interest is determined based on the boundary position of the ultrasonic array elements, wherein the boundary line intersects the region of interest at one and only one point; The target launch direction is determined based on at least one of the boundary lines.

9. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 7, characterized in that, Determining the target emission direction of each ultrasonic array element group in the ultrasonic probe based on the boundary of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe includes at least one of the following: Based on the vertices of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe, the target emission direction corresponding to each ultrasonic array element in the ultrasonic probe is determined, wherein the region of interest is a polygon; Alternatively, the target emission direction corresponding to each ultrasonic array element in the ultrasonic probe can be determined based on the diagonal of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe, wherein the region of interest is a quadrilateral, and the diagonals corresponding to different ultrasonic array elements are the same or different.

10. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to any one of claims 1 to 2 and 8 to 9, characterized in that, The number of array elements in different ultrasonic array elements is the same.

11. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 1, characterized in that, It includes three sets of ultrasonic array elements, wherein the three sets of ultrasonic array elements emit the unfocused ultrasonic waves in a first emission direction, a second emission direction, and a third emission direction, respectively. The third emission direction is perpendicular to the plane where the ultrasonic probe is located. The angle between the first and second emission directions and the third emission direction is greater than 0 degrees and less than or equal to 45 degrees. The first and second emission directions are respectively offset to the left and right sides of the third emission direction.

12. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The number of array elements on the ultrasonic probe is 256, and the number of all transceiver channels in the front-end transceiver circuit is more than or equal to 96 and less than or equal to 192.

13. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 2, characterized in that, It also includes at least one of the following: When the ultrasonic array elements for emitting the unfocused ultrasonic waves and the ultrasonic array elements for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasonic waves, which correspond to the same emission direction, have multiple array elements at the same position and at least one array element at a different position distributed on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to a first threshold. Alternatively, when the array elements of the ultrasonic array for emitting the unfocused ultrasonic waves and the ultrasonic array for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasonic waves, which correspond to the same emission direction, are distributed at completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to a first threshold.

14. A blood flow velocity vector imaging method, characterized in that, The method includes: The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions. The angle between the emission direction and the normal direction of the plane containing the array elements of the ultrasonic probe is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the total number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Each set of ultrasonic array elements includes multiple array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe that are less than or equal to the total number of transceiver channels, and the multiple array elements in at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements are distributed in completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic wave returned from the target area, thereby obtaining at least two sets of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave corresponding to different transmission directions. One set of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave includes the non-focused ultrasonic wave that is transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction. Based on the echo signals of at least two sets of the unfocused ultrasound, at least two blood flow velocity components corresponding to different emission directions are obtained, wherein one of the emission directions corresponds to one of the blood flow velocity components. Velocity reconstruction is performed on at least two blood flow velocity components in different emission directions to obtain blood flow velocity vector data of the target region; Based on the blood flow velocity vector data of the target region, a blood flow velocity vector image of the target region is obtained; The blood flow velocity vector image is displayed.

15. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 14, characterized in that, The method of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions via a front-end transceiver circuit includes: Obtain the region of interest (ROI) of the target region; Based on the region of interest, the front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions, wherein the unfocused ultrasonic waves emitted by different ultrasonic array elements all cover the region of interest.

16. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that, The region of interest is obtained through the following steps: The ultrasonic probe is controlled to send a first ultrasonic wave to the target area, and the echo of the first ultrasonic wave returned from the target area is received to obtain the echo signal of the first ultrasonic wave. A tissue image of the target region is obtained based on the echo signal of the first ultrasound. Display the tissue image and obtain the region of interest set in the tissue image.

17. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that, The step of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions via the front-end transceiver circuit according to the region of interest includes: Based on the boundary of the region of interest and the different preset emission directions of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements, the distribution position of each element of the ultrasonic array element group on the ultrasonic probe is determined. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe, causing the ultrasonic array elements at different distribution positions on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different preset emission directions.

18. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that, The step of controlling at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target region in different emission directions via the front-end transceiver circuit according to the region of interest includes: Based on the boundary of the region of interest and the positions of the array elements of at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe, the target emission direction of each ultrasonic array element in the ultrasonic probe is determined. The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different target emission directions.

19. The blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to claim 15, characterized in that, It also includes at least one of the following: When the ultrasonic array elements for emitting the unfocused ultrasonic waves and the ultrasonic array elements for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasonic waves, which correspond to the same emission direction, have multiple array elements at the same position and at least one array element at a different position distributed on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to a first threshold. Alternatively, when the array elements of the ultrasonic array for emitting the unfocused ultrasonic waves and the ultrasonic array for receiving the echo of the unfocused ultrasonic waves, which correspond to the same emission direction, are distributed at completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe, the distance between the region of interest and the ultrasonic probe is greater than or equal to a first threshold.

20. An ultrasound imaging method, characterized in that, The method includes: The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions. The angle between the emission direction and the normal direction of the plane containing the array elements of the ultrasonic probe is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the total number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Each set of ultrasonic array elements includes multiple array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe that are less than or equal to the total number of transceiver channels. Each set of ultrasonic array elements also includes multiple array elements at the same position on the ultrasonic probe and at least one array element at a different position. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic wave returned from the target area, thereby obtaining at least two sets of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave corresponding to different transmission directions. One set of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave includes the non-focused ultrasonic wave that is transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction. The echo signals of at least two sets of non-focused ultrasound waves are combined to obtain a combined echo signal. An ultrasound image or blood flow velocity is obtained from the composite echo signal.

21. An ultrasound imaging method, characterized in that, The method includes: The front-end transceiver circuit controls at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements on the ultrasonic probe to emit unfocused ultrasonic waves toward the target area in different emission directions. The angle between the emission direction and the normal direction of the plane containing the array elements of the ultrasonic probe is less than or equal to 45 degrees, and the total number of all transceiver channels of the front-end transceiver circuit is less than the total number of array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe. Each set of ultrasonic array elements includes multiple array elements distributed on the ultrasonic probe that are less than or equal to the total number of transceiver channels, and the multiple array elements in at least two sets of ultrasonic array elements are distributed in completely different positions on the ultrasonic probe. The front-end transceiver circuit controls the ultrasonic probe to receive the echo of the non-focused ultrasonic wave returned from the target area, thereby obtaining at least two sets of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave corresponding to different transmission directions. One set of echo signals of the non-focused ultrasonic wave includes the non-focused ultrasonic wave that is transmitted at least twice in one transmission direction. The echo signals of at least two sets of non-focused ultrasound waves are combined to obtain a combined echo signal. An ultrasound image or blood flow velocity is obtained from the composite echo signal.

22. An ultrasonic imaging device, characterized in that, include: Ultrasonic probe; A transmitting / receiving circuit is used to control the ultrasound probe to transmit ultrasound waves to the vascular region of the target object and receive the echoes of the ultrasound waves. A processor, configured to process the echoes of the ultrasound waves to obtain tissue images and / or blood flow velocity vector images of the vascular region; A display for displaying the tissue image and / or blood flow velocity vector image; The processor is also used to perform the blood flow velocity vector imaging method according to any one of claims 1 to 19, or to perform the ultrasound imaging method according to any one of claims 20 to 21.

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