Ultrasonic high-frame-rate acquisition system

Abstract

The invention provides an ultrasonic high-frame-rate acquisition system, and the system comprises a probe which is used for transmitting an ultrasonic wave to a target region and receiving an echo signal returned by the target region; the linear transmitting module is used for configuring specific transmitting conditions, generating different ultrasonic electric signals and transmitting scanning control instructions to the probe; the receiving hardware module is used for carrying out front-end preprocessing on the received echo signal acquired by the probe; and the algorithm processing module is used for carrying out ultrasonic digital signal processing and image processing on the received echo signal preprocessed by the front end to generate a medical ultrasonic image. According to the system, medical ultrasonic imaging with high signal-to-noise ratio and high resolution is realized, and clear and reliable high-quality images of human heart tissue gray scale, coronary artery capillary and spectrum Doppler are provided for clinicians at the same time.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of ultrasonic imaging, and in particular to an ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system. Background Art

[0002] Ultrasound imaging is widely used in clinical diagnosis because of its advantages of real-time rapidity, non-invasiveness and radiation-free. In conventional ultrasound imaging, the focused ultrasound energy beam after transmit beam synthesis is sent to the body tissue to be examined by the probe array, and the returned echo signal is detected and mapped by the same probe array to form a medical ultrasound image. However, the current traditional single-row array ultrasound probe has insufficient penetration and low focusing accuracy, resulting in conventional ultrasound being greatly limited by problems such as scanning depth, poor resolution, low signal-to-noise ratio and tissue occlusion. At the same time, conventional focused scanning color blood flow imaging requires splicing the results obtained from multiple locations to cover the full coverage of the target area, and each location requires multiple scans, which severely limits the acquisition frame rate and integration size.

[0003] In ultrasonic color flow imaging, an acquisition frame rate of more than 2000Hz is usually required to better capture high-speed arterial blood flow (blood flow velocity higher than 60cm / s), and a long-term gaze acquisition (i.e., long integration size) is required to ensure sensitivity to slow micro-vessels. In particular, when observing a real-time beating heart, the heart has fast blood flow signals, medium- and low-speed tissue motion signals, and lower-speed micro-blood flow signals and high-frequency noise interference. It is necessary to effectively separate the heart tissue, high-speed blood flow, and low-speed micro-blood flow structures. Currently, the common coronary angiography in medicine can only see large blood vessels with a diameter greater than 400-500μm, but the coronary micro-vessels that account for more than 90% of the entire coronary tree cannot be displayed by coronary angiography and most current ultrasound imaging systems.

[0004] Therefore, the current ultrasonic micro-blood flow imaging has low signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution, insufficient penetration, and low focusing accuracy, resulting in less than ideal micro-blood flow extraction and the inability to obtain richer microvascular images, especially for real-time beating heart imaging, and is unable to effectively capture and separate the low-speed coronary microvascular images in the coronary arteries. Summary of the invention

[0005] The present invention mainly solves the problem that the current ultrasonic micro-blood flow imaging cannot effectively capture and separate the low-speed coronary microvascular images in the coronary artery. The present invention mainly combines high parallel algorithm processing to complete the separation of tissue, blood flow and noise signals, and realizes high signal-to-noise ratio and high-resolution medical ultrasonic imaging.

[0006] The technical means adopted by the present invention are as follows:

[0007] An ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system, a probe, for transmitting ultrasonic waves to a target area and receiving echo signals returned from the target area;

[0008] A linear transmitting module is used to configure specific transmitting conditions and generate different ultrasonic electrical signals and transmit scanning control instructions to the probe;

[0009] A receiving hardware module is used to perform front-end preprocessing on the received echo signal collected by the probe;

[0010] A raw data memory, used to store received echo signal data pre-processed by the front end;

[0011] The algorithm processing module is used to perform ultrasonic digital signal processing and image processing on the received echo signal after front-end preprocessing to generate a medical ultrasonic image.

[0012] Furthermore, it also includes:

[0013] A switch module is used to control the switching of the transmitting or receiving mode of the probe, and to control the switching of the connection mode between each ultrasonic element and the system control channel, so as to realize the division of the probe into multiple sub-arrays;

[0014] The probe is connected to the linear transmitting module via a switch switching module, and the receiving hardware module is connected to the probe via a switch switching module.

[0015] Furthermore, it also includes:

[0016] The display module is used to display and store the medical ultrasound images generated by the algorithm processing module.

[0017] Furthermore, the probe is provided with a plurality of ultrasonic elements, and the switching of the transmitting or receiving mode of each ultrasonic element is realized by a switch switching module. The plurality of ultrasonic elements first convert the ultrasonic electrical signal sent by the transmitting module into an acoustic signal based on the inverse piezoelectric effect, and generate an ultrasonic sound beam to scan the target area of ​​the human body; when the ultrasonic sound beam passes through the target area, it is reflected to form echo signals of different intensities and return to the probe, and the probe then converts the echo signal into an electrical signal through the positive piezoelectric effect, and collects a total of multiple groups of channel echo signals.

[0018] Furthermore, the probe is one of a one-dimensional linear array probe, a one-dimensional convex array probe, a one-dimensional phased array probe, a 1.X-dimensional probe, a dual probe and an ultra-long array probe.

[0019] Further, the linear transmission module includes a transmission condition preset module, a parameter generation module and a transmission scanning control module;

[0020] The launch condition preset module obtains the currently selected probe, scanning position and launch condition information through a human-computer interaction interface based on software, generates a launch condition preset information table, and sends the launch condition preset information table to the parameter generation module and the launch scanning control module at the same time;

[0021] The parameter generation module first generates different excitation waveform design information, an emission delay parameter table and an emission apodization parameter table according to the emission condition preset information table, further generates an emission excitation signal according to the generated excitation waveform design information, the emission delay parameter table and the emission apodization parameter table, and sends the emission excitation signal to the emission scanning control module;

[0022] The emission scanning control module is provided with a plurality of independent system control channels, and each independent system control channel is connected to each independent ultrasonic emission element in the probe through a switch switching module;

[0023] The transmission scanning control module selects different connection methods of the probe and the system control channel according to the preset information table of the transmission conditions, generates a transmission scanning control instruction for each channel, and generates an ultrasonic electrical signal according to the transmission excitation signal, and sends the ultrasonic electrical signal to the transmitting element according to the transmission scanning control instruction of each channel. The ultrasonic signals emitted by multiple transmitting elements are combined together to generate an ultrasonic beam, which is emitted outward through the probe.

[0024] Further, the linear transmission module divides the target area into X sub-areas according to the preset transmission condition information table, determines the connection mode of the probe and the system control channel, and evenly divides the probe into X sub-arrays, each sub-array includes multiple ultrasonic transmission elements connected to the system control channel, and according to the generated transmission scanning control instructions of each channel, the ultrasonic signals transmitted by the multiple transmission elements of each sub-array are combined to generate a single transmission line, and X transmission lines can be simultaneously transmitted in the X sub-areas by controlling the X sub-arrays of the probe, and multiple reception lines are generated after the reception echo signals of each sub-area are processed by receiving beam synthesis;

[0025] The acquisition frequency of the received echo signal is calculated as follows:

[0026]

[0027] Where c is the speed of sound, Z is the sampling depth, and Tx is the number of transmissions.

[0028] Furthermore, the receiving hardware module includes a low noise amplifier LNA, a voltage controller attenuator VCAT, a programmable gain amplifier PGA, a low pass filter LPF, an analog-to-digital converter ADC and a continuous wave CW mixer which are connected in sequence.

[0029] Further, the algorithm processing module includes a receiving beam synthesis module and an image processing module;

[0030] The receiving beam synthesis module receives the gain-amplified receiving echo signal preprocessed by the hardware module, and uses a point-by-point dynamic focusing beam synthesis method to calculate the receiving delay and superimpose and sum the receiving echo signals of different channels of the probe according to the receiving delay parameter to generate a scan line in the ultrasound image. The above process is repeated for each transmission in the receiving beam module to finally form a medical ultrasound image;

[0031] The image processing module is used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, contrast and resolution of the image through image filtering, smoothing, denoising, grayscale remapping and afterglow processing technology, and to generate grayscale tissue images, color blood flow images and spectral Doppler images as needed.

[0032] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following advantages:

[0033] The present invention can achieve high frame rate ultrasound signal acquisition higher than 2000 Hz, provide stronger penetration and more accurate focusing accuracy for the scanned tissue and blood vessels, and obtain color blood flow images with high signal-to-noise ratio, high resolution, and sensitivity to low-speed micro-blood flow, especially for real-time imaging observation of the human beating heart, and the anterior arterioles and arteriolar micro-vessels with a diameter of less than 400 μm will be effectively visualized.

[0034] First, through the linear transmission module, the system can select the corresponding connection method of the probe and the system control channel according to different probes, and can realize the independent control of 1.X-dimensional array probe. At the same time, the transmission delay parameter table is generated according to the transmission condition preset information table. By configuring the corresponding transmission delay value for each channel of the currently connected probe sub-array, the focus adjustment in the z-axis direction can be realized, the dynamic focusing range can be expanded, and the focusing accuracy on the xz plane can be improved, the penetration ability can be enhanced, and the near-field imaging effect can be improved.

[0035] At the same time, the system can select the corresponding connection method of the probe and system control channel according to different probes through the linear transmission module, support the synchronous acquisition of dual probes and independent control of multiple arrays of ultra-long array probes, and generate a transmission delay parameter table according to the transmission condition preset information table. By configuring the corresponding transmission delay value for each channel of the currently connected probe sub-array, the scanning angle is expanded, the penetration of the focus area is enhanced, the focusing accuracy is improved, and the image signal-to-noise ratio and resolution are improved.

[0036] In addition, the parameter generation module in the linear transmission module of the present system can generate a transmission apodization parameter table corresponding to different excitation waveform designs according to the preset information table of the transmission conditions. The generated transmission apodization parameter table can support flexible transmission waveform linear coding windowed apodization modulation and transmission aperture windowed apodization function, which can effectively reduce the main lobe width, reduce the side lobe level, eliminate the grating lobe, generate high-quality ultrasonic sound beam, and ensure that each transmission line does not interfere with or affect each other; support horizontal grouping and vertical grouping, multi-position grouping transmission and reception control, and the received echo signal of each sub-area generates multiple receiving lines after receiving beam synthesis processing, that is, supports multi-transmission and multi-reception transmission and reception mode, which can effectively expand the coverage of each transmission, reduce the number of transmissions, and increase the acquisition frame rate to achieve high frame rate ultrasonic signal acquisition of more than 2000Hz, further improving the imaging effect of fine blood flow. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0037] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are some embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without paying creative labor.

[0038] Figure 1 It is a schematic diagram of the structure of the system of the present invention.

[0039] Figure 2 This is a functional module connection diagram of the receiving hardware module of the present invention.

[0040] Figure 3 This is an example diagram of probes that can be supported by the present invention.

[0041] Figure 4 The following are examples of transmit and receive modes supported by the present invention, where a is a single-transmit single-receive mode, b is a single-transmit multiple-receive mode, and c is a multiple-transmit multiple-receive mode.

[0042] Figure 5 The figure is an example diagram of the connection mode of different probes and system control channels supported by the present invention.

[0043] In the figure: 1. Probe, P30. One-dimensional linear array probe, P31. One-dimensional convex array probe, P32. One-dimensional phased array probe, P33. 1.X-dimensional probe, P34. Dual probe, P35. Extra-long multi-array probe, T40. Single transmission line, R41. Single receiving line, C51. System control channel, 2. Switch switching module, 3. Linear transmission module, 31. Transmission condition preset module, 32. Parameter generation module, 33. Transmission scanning control module, 4. Receiving hardware module, 41. Low noise amplifier, 42. Voltage controller attenuator, 43. Programmable gain amplifier, 44. Low-pass filter, 45. Analog-to-digital converter, 46. Continuous wave mixer, 5. Raw data storage, 6. Algorithm processing module, 61. Receiving beam synthesis module, 62. Image processing module, 7. Display module, 71. Display, 72. Image storage. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0044] It should be noted that, in the absence of conflict, the embodiments of the present invention and the features in the embodiments can be combined with each other. The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and in combination with the embodiments.

[0045] In order to make the purpose, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. The following description of at least one exemplary embodiment is actually only illustrative and is by no means intended to limit the present invention and its application or use. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without creative work are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0046] It should be noted that the terms used herein are only for describing specific embodiments and are not intended to limit exemplary embodiments according to the present invention. As used herein, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the singular form is also intended to include the plural form. In addition, it should be understood that when the terms "comprising" and / or "including" are used in this specification, it indicates the presence of features, steps, operations, devices, components and / or combinations thereof.

[0047] Unless otherwise specifically stated, the relative arrangement of the parts and steps described in these embodiments, the numerical expressions and numerical values ​​do not limit the scope of the present invention. At the same time, it should be clear that, for ease of description, the sizes of the various parts shown in the drawings are not drawn according to the actual proportional relationship. The technology, methods and equipment known to ordinary technicians in the relevant field may not be discussed in detail, but in appropriate cases, the technology, methods and equipment should be regarded as part of the authorization specification. In all examples shown and discussed here, any specific value should be interpreted as merely exemplary, rather than as a limitation. Therefore, other examples of exemplary embodiments may have different values. It should be noted that similar numbers and letters represent similar items in the following drawings, so once an item is defined in one drawing, it does not need to be further discussed in subsequent drawings.

[0048] The present invention belongs to the medical ultrasound industry and the field of ultrasound imaging technology. In this industry, it is specifically used for high frame rate acquisition of ultrafast ultrasound micro-blood flow data, combined with high parallel algorithm processing to complete the separation of tissue, blood flow and noise signals, to achieve high signal-to-noise ratio and high resolution medical ultrasound imaging, and to provide clinicians with clear and reliable high-quality images of human heart tissue grayscale, coronary artery microvessels, and spectral Doppler.

[0049] The present invention mainly solves the problem that the current ultrasonic micro-blood flow imaging has low signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution, insufficient penetration, and low focusing accuracy, resulting in unsatisfactory micro-blood flow extraction effect and inability to obtain richer microvascular images, especially for real-time beating heart imaging, and cannot effectively capture and separate the low-speed coronary microvascular images in the coronary arteries.

[0050] The present invention can support 1.X-dimensional array probes, realize dual-probe synchronous acquisition, improve probe penetration and focusing accuracy, expand dynamic focusing range, and improve image signal-to-noise ratio and resolution; at the same time, the present invention can support linear emission, support horizontal grouping and vertical grouping, multi-position grouping transmission and reception control, reduce the number of transmissions, and increase the acquisition frame rate, achieving high frame rate ultrasound signal acquisition of more than 2000Hz, further improving the micro blood flow imaging effect.

[0051] like Figure 1As shown, the present invention provides an ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system, including: a probe, used to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to a target area; a switch, used to control the switching of the probe's transmission or reception mode, and the switching of the connection mode between each ultrasonic element of the probe and the system control channel, so as to realize the division of the probe into multiple sub-arrays; a linear transmission module, used to configure specific transmission conditions and generate different ultrasonic signals and transmit scanning control instructions; a receiving hardware module, used to perform front-end preprocessing on the received echo signals collected by the probe; a raw data storage device, used to store the raw received echo channel data that has been preprocessed by the front end; an algorithm processing module, used for ultrasonic digital signal processing and image processing, to generate medical ultrasonic images; and a display module, used to display and store medical ultrasonic images.

[0052] Probe 1, which is provided with multiple ultrasonic transmitting and receiving elements. The transmission or receiving mode switching of each ultrasonic element is realized by a switch switching module, and is used to transmit and receive ultrasonic waves to the target area. Each probe element first converts the electrical signal into an acoustic signal based on the inverse piezoelectric effect, and generates an ultrasonic beam to scan the target area of ​​the human body; when the ultrasonic beam passes through the target area, it is reflected, forming echo signals of different intensities and returning to the probe. The probe then converts the echo signal into an electrical signal through the positive piezoelectric effect, and collects a total of multiple groups of channel echo signals. Examples of probe types supported by the ultrasonic acquisition device system are as follows: Figure 3 As shown, it includes a traditional one-dimensional linear array probe P30, a traditional one-dimensional convex array probe P31, a traditional one-dimensional phased array probe P32, a 1.X-dimensional probe P33, a dual probe P34 and an ultra-long array probe P35. The traditional one-dimensional probe includes N independent array elements (N is a positive integer) arranged in a single row. The 1.X-dimensional probe P33 specifically includes 1.25D, 1.5D, and 1.75D probes, including M*N independent array elements (M and N are both positive integers, M≤8, N≥M), arranged in M ​​rows.

[0053] Figure 5 The following are examples of how to connect different probes and system control channels. Figure 5 a is a conventional probe P52 (including three probes: P30, P31, and P32), each ultrasonic element of the conventional probe P52 is directly connected to each channel of each system control channel C51; Figure 5 bd is the connection mode between 1.X-dimensional probe (three-row array) P33 and system control channel C51, and is further subdivided according to 1.25D probe, 1.5D probe and 1.75D probe. Figure 5b is a 1.25D probe. The system control channel C51 uses a switch switching module to realize whether it is connected to the middle single row of the probe or to the outer continuous rows (the two outer rows of the 1.25D probe that are symmetrical with the midline are fixedly connected together and receive the same set of emission delay parameters). For example, when the first focus point is reached (corresponding to a set of emission delay parameter tables), the scanning control instruction causes the channel to switch to connect to the middle single row array through the switch, and send the emission excitation signal to it through the system control channel; then when it is dynamically adjusted to the second focus point (corresponding to another set of emission delay parameter tables), it will connect to the two outer rows at this time and send another set of emission excitation signals. Figure 5 c is a 1.5D probe, which divides the system control channel into two sub-channel groups. C51-1 is connected to the middle row of the probe, and C51-2 is connected to the two outer rows of the probe. At this time, different transmission delay parameters can be sent to the two sub-channel groups at the same time to generate a sound beam symmetrical along the midline and expand the focusing range. Figure 5 d is a 1.75D probe, which divides the system control channel into three sub-channel groups, which are connected to three rows of sub-arrays respectively. The three rows of sub-arrays can be controlled independently to generate a sound beam without midline symmetry restrictions. Figure 5 e is a dual-probe P34, which divides the system control channel into two sub-channel groups, which are connected to two probes respectively. At this time, the two probes can be controlled independently, and different transmission delay parameter tables can be sent to the two probes at the same time, so that the ultrasonic beams emitted by the two probes are focused on the same point, expanding the scanning angle, enhancing the penetration of the ultrasonic beam, and improving the focusing accuracy. Figure 5 f is an ultra-long multi-array probe P35 (the number of probe elements is greater than the number of system control channels). At this time, the ultra-long array can be divided into several sub-arrays. By switching the switch, the system control channel is selected to connect to a certain sub-array. Each connected sub-array can be independently controlled.

[0054] The linear transmission module 3 includes a transmission condition preset module 31, a parameter generation module 32 and a transmission scanning control module 33;

[0055] The launch condition preset module 31 obtains the currently selected probe, scanning part and launch condition information through a human-computer interaction interface based on software, generates a launch condition preset information table, and sends the launch condition preset information table to the parameter generation module 32 and the launch scanning control module 33 at the same time;

[0056] The parameter generation module 32 first generates different excitation waveform design information, emission delay parameter table and emission apodization parameter table according to the emission condition preset information table, further generates an emission excitation signal according to the generated excitation waveform design information, emission delay parameter table and emission apodization parameter table, and sends the emission excitation signal to the emission scanning control module 33;

[0057] Among them, the excitation waveform design information is realized by a system hardware configuration chip with a linear point-tracing emission function. The chip determines the waveform design configuration parameters according to a preset information table of emission conditions to generate a linear waveform.

[0058] The transmit apodization parameter table generates weighted apodization windows of different transmit waveforms and transmit subarrays according to the generated transmit waveform and transmit condition preset information table, thereby realizing flexible transmit waveform linear coding windowed apodization modulation and transmit aperture windowed apodization functions, which can effectively reduce the main lobe width, lower the side lobe level, eliminate the grating lobe, generate high-quality ultrasonic sound beams, and ensure that each transmit line does not interfere with or affect each other.

[0059] Traditional systems usually adopt a three-level transmission mode. The three-level transmission does not support adjusting the sound beam quality through the transmission apodization parameters. The side lobes and grating lobes of the generated ultrasonic beam have a greater impact. At this time, if the three-level transmission is used to support multi-position grouped transmission and reception, each transmission line will interfere with each other, reducing the imaging quality. In the three-level transmission mode, in order not to sacrifice image quality, a single-transmission and multiple-reception method in sequence is usually selected, but this transmission method will increase the number of transmissions and reduce the acquisition frame rate. The linear waveform generated by the flexible transmission apodization parameter modulation can effectively reduce the main lobe width of the ultrasonic beam, reduce the side lobe level, eliminate the grating lobe, generate a high-quality ultrasonic beam, suppress the interference between each transmission line, support the system's horizontal grouping and vertical grouping transmission, multi-position grouping transmission and reception control, realize the simultaneous multi-transmission and multi-reception transmission and reception mode, and improve the acquisition frame rate.

[0060] The emission scanning control module 33 is provided with a plurality of independent system control channels, each independent system control channel is connected to each independent ultrasound emission element in the probe 1 through a switch switching module;

[0061] The transmission scanning control module 33 selects different connection methods of the probe and the system control channel according to the preset information table of the transmission conditions, generates a transmission scanning control instruction for each channel, and generates an ultrasonic electrical signal according to the transmission excitation signal, and sends the ultrasonic electrical signal to the transmitting element according to the transmission scanning control instruction of each channel. The ultrasonic signals emitted by multiple transmitting elements are combined together to generate an ultrasonic beam, which is emitted outward through the probe 1.

[0062] like Figure 4As shown, since the linear transmission module 3 supports independent control of linear transmission and multi-array probes, the device system for ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition can support a transmission and reception mode of multiple transmissions and multiple receptions. The traditional transmission and reception mode includes a single transmission and single reception mode and a single transmission and multiple reception mode, that is, the probe transmits a transmission line to the target area each time, and the received echo signal is processed by receiving beam synthesis to generate one or more receiving lines. The imaging area covered by each transmission is small, and multiple transmissions are required to achieve full coverage of the target area, which seriously limits the ultrasonic acquisition frame rate. The linear transmission module divides the target area into X sub-areas according to the transmission condition preset information table, determines the connection mode of the probe and the system control channel, and evenly divides the probe into X sub-arrays, each sub-array includes multiple ultrasonic transmission elements connected to the system control channel, and according to the generated transmission scanning control instructions of each channel, the ultrasonic signals emitted by the multiple transmission elements of each sub-array are combined to generate a single transmission line. By controlling the X sub-arrays of the probe, X transmission lines can be emitted simultaneously in the X sub-areas, and the received echo signals of each sub-area are processed by receiving beam synthesis to generate multiple receiving lines; the acquisition frequency of the ultrasonic signal is calculated as follows:

[0063]

[0064] Wherein, c is the speed of sound, Z is the sampling depth, and Tx is the number of transmissions. The device system for ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition can realize high frame rate ultrasonic signal acquisition higher than 2000 Hz within 4 transmission cycles.

[0065] like Figure 2As shown, the receiving hardware module 4 further includes a low noise amplifier 41 (Low noise amplifier, LNA), a voltage controller attenuator 42 (Voltage controller attenuator, VCAT), a programmable gain amplifier 43 (Programmable gain amplifier, PGA), a low pass filter 44 (Low pass filter, LPF), an analog-to-digital converter 45 (Analog-to-digital converter, ADC), and a continuous wave mixer 46, continuous wave (Continuous wave, CW). The receiving hardware module is connected to the probe through a switch switching module, and is used to perform front-end preprocessing on the received echo signal. The front-end preprocessing module is used to filter out high-frequency noise, gain amplification, and compensate for weak ultrasonic signals that are severely attenuated as the scanning depth increases. The continuous wave mixer can support orthogonal demodulation processing of the received echo signal, move the signal from high frequency to baseband, and effectively reduce the channel data bandwidth. The LNA 41 is an amplifier with a very low noise coefficient, which is used to amplify the weak received echo signal while ensuring that the output signal-to-noise ratio is equal to the input signal-to-noise ratio. The VCAT 42 can improve the overall low-gain signal-to-noise ratio of the received echo signal by adjusting the attenuation control value, which helps to improve the near-field imaging quality. The PGA 43 receives the echo signal through a gain adjustment method to compensate for the attenuation of the received signal as the scanning depth increases. The LPF 44 is used to filter out high-frequency noise in the received echo signal. The ADC 45 is used to convert the analog signal into a digital signal. The continuous wave mixer 46 can support orthogonal demodulation processing of the received echo signal, move the signal from the high frequency to the baseband, and effectively reduce the channel data bandwidth. The received report signal collected by the probe is generated into a baseband received echo signal after front-end preprocessing and is directly stored in the raw data storage 5. At the same time, the receiving hardware module 4 is connected to the algorithm processing module 6, and the baseband received echo signal is processed by the algorithm processing module 6 to realize signal processing and image processing to generate a medical ultrasound image.

[0066] The raw data storage is connected to the receiving hardware module and is used to store the raw received echo channel data that has been preprocessed by the front end.

[0067] The algorithm processing module 6 further includes a receiving beam synthesis module 61 and an image processing module 62. The receiving beam synthesis module 61 adopts a point-by-point dynamic focusing beam synthesis method, which mainly includes dynamic focusing, apodization, dynamic aperture and other technologies. The receiving delay is calculated by the algorithm and the receiving echo signals of different channels of the probe are superimposed and summed according to the receiving delay parameters to generate a scan line in the ultrasound image. The above process is repeated for each transmission in the receiving beam module 61, and a medical ultrasound image is finally formed. The image processing module 62 mainly includes image filtering, smoothing, denoising, grayscale remapping, afterglow processing and other image processing technologies, which are used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, contrast and resolution of the image, and generate high-quality grayscale tissue images, color blood flow images, spectral Doppler images, etc. as needed. The algorithm processing module 6 includes three achievable processing paths: hardware processing path, software processing path and a combination of the two.

[0068] The display module 7 further includes a display 71 and an image storage 72. The display module 7 is connected to the algorithm processing module 6. The display module 7 is used to display the medical ultrasound image generated by the algorithm processing module 6 on the display 71. The image storage 72 is used to store the generated medical ultrasound image, which is convenient for video playback operation, generation of examination report, and backup archiving.

[0069] Finally, it should be noted that the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention, rather than to limit it. Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the aforementioned embodiments, those skilled in the art should understand that they can still modify the technical solutions described in the aforementioned embodiments, or replace some or all of the technical features therein with equivalents. However, these modifications or replacements do not cause the essence of the corresponding technical solutions to deviate from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. An ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system, characterized in that: include: A probe, used for transmitting ultrasonic waves to a target area and receiving echo signals returned from the target area; A linear transmitting module is used to configure specific transmitting conditions and generate different ultrasonic electrical signals and transmit scanning control instructions to the probe; A receiving hardware module is used to perform front-end preprocessing on the received echo signal collected by the probe; A raw data memory, used to store received echo signal data pre-processed by the front end; The algorithm processing module is used to perform ultrasonic digital signal processing and image processing on the received echo signal after front-end preprocessing to generate a medical ultrasonic image.

2. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also includes: A switch module is used to control the switching of the transmitting or receiving mode of the probe, and to control the switching of the connection mode between each ultrasonic element of the probe and the system control channel, so as to realize the division of the probe into multiple sub-arrays; The probe is connected to the linear transmitting module via a switch switching module, and the receiving hardware module is connected to the probe via a switch switching module.

3. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also includes: The display module is used to display and store the medical ultrasound images generated by the algorithm processing module.

4. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The probe is provided with multiple ultrasonic elements, and the switching of the transmitting or receiving mode of each ultrasonic element is realized by a switch switching module. The multiple ultrasonic elements first convert the ultrasonic electrical signal sent by the transmitting module into an acoustic signal based on the inverse piezoelectric effect, and generate an ultrasonic sound beam to scan the target area of ​​the human body; when the ultrasonic sound beam passes through the target area, it is reflected to form echo signals of different intensities and return to the probe, and the probe then converts the echo signal into an electrical signal through the positive piezoelectric effect, and collects a total of multiple groups of channel echo signals.

5. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 4, characterized in that: The probe is one of a one-dimensional linear array probe, a one-dimensional convex array probe, a one-dimensional phased array probe, a 1.X-dimensional probe, a dual probe and an ultra-long array probe.

6. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The linear transmission module includes a transmission condition preset module, a parameter generation module and a transmission scanning control module; The launch condition preset module obtains the currently selected probe, scanning position and launch condition information, generates a launch condition preset information table, and sends the launch condition preset information table to the parameter generation module and the launch scanning control module at the same time; The parameter generation module first generates different excitation waveform design information, an emission delay parameter table and an emission apodization parameter table according to the emission condition preset information table, further generates an emission excitation signal according to the generated excitation waveform design information, the emission delay parameter table and the emission apodization parameter table, and sends the emission excitation signal to the emission scanning control module; The transmission delay parameter table determines the focus point of the currently desired transmission ultrasonic beam according to the transmission condition preset information table. Each ultrasonic transmitting element on the probe will transmit an ultrasonic wave, and the ultrasonic waves emitted by all ultrasonic elements are combined together at the physical level to form a transmission ultrasonic beam; The propagation time of each ultrasonic element to the focal point is calculated through geometric relationships, and the transmission delay parameter table of all ultrasonic elements is inversely derived, so that all ultrasonic elements reach the focal point at the same time after different initial transmission delay controls and the same propagation time; Different focus points correspond to different transmission delay values. Different transmission delay values ​​are sent to different probe ultrasonic elements through transmission scanning control instructions to achieve transmission focus adjustment on the z-axis of the probe, thereby expanding the dynamic focusing range; The transmit apodization parameter table generates weighted apodization windows of different transmit waveforms and weighted apodization windows of transmit subarrays according to the generated transmit waveforms and the transmit condition preset information table; The emission scanning control module is provided with a plurality of independent system control channels, and each independent system control channel is connected to each independent ultrasonic emission element in the probe through a switch switching module; The transmission scanning control module selects different connection methods of the probe and the system control channel according to the preset information table of the transmission conditions, generates a transmission scanning control instruction for each channel, and generates an ultrasonic electrical signal according to the transmission excitation signal, and sends the ultrasonic electrical signal to the transmitting element according to the transmission scanning control instruction of each channel. The ultrasonic signals emitted by multiple transmitting elements are combined together to generate an ultrasonic beam, which is emitted outward through the probe.

7. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 6, characterized in that: The linear transmission module divides the target area into X sub-areas according to the transmission condition preset information table, determines the connection mode of the probe and the system control channel, and evenly divides the probe into X sub-arrays, each sub-array includes multiple ultrasonic transmission elements connected to the system control channel, and according to the generated transmission scanning control instructions of each channel, the ultrasonic signals transmitted by the multiple transmission elements of each sub-array are combined to generate a single transmission line, and the X transmission lines are simultaneously transmitted in the X sub-areas by controlling the X sub-arrays of the probe, and the received echo signals of each sub-area are processed by receiving beam synthesis to generate multiple receiving lines; The acquisition frequency of the received echo signal is calculated as follows: Where c is the speed of sound, Z is the sampling depth, and Tx is the number of transmissions.

8. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The receiving hardware module comprises a low noise amplifier LNA, a voltage controller attenuator VCAT, a programmable gain amplifier PGA, a low pass filter LPF, an analog to digital converter ADC and a continuous wave CW mixer which are connected in sequence.

9. The ultrasonic high frame rate acquisition system according to claim 1, characterized in that: The algorithm processing module includes a receiving beam synthesis module and an image processing module; The receiving beam synthesis module receives the gain-amplified receiving echo signal preprocessed by the hardware module, and uses a point-by-point dynamic focusing beam synthesis method to calculate the receiving delay and superimpose and sum the receiving echo signals of different channels of the probe according to the receiving delay parameter to generate a scan line in the ultrasound image. The above process is repeated for each transmission in the receiving beam module to finally form a medical ultrasound image; The image processing module is used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, contrast and resolution of the image through image filtering, smoothing, denoising, grayscale remapping and afterglow processing technology, and to generate grayscale tissue images, color blood flow images and spectral Doppler images as needed.

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