ASDR Ultrasound Beamforming Architecture for Compact Probe Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current ultrasound beamforming technologies face challenges in reducing the size and power consumption of diagnostic ultrasound imaging systems while maintaining image quality, with analog beamformers offering simplicity but poor time discrimination and limited dynamic capabilities, and digital beamformers providing precision but at the cost of increased complexity and power consumption.
Innovation Solution
The Analog Store Digital Read (ASDR) ultrasound beamforming architecture uses a matrix of sample/hold cells to capture and process instantaneous samples from ultrasound array elements, allowing for significant reduction in power consumption and size, enabling the entire system to be integrated into one or few Application Specific Integrated Chips (ASICs) near the ultrasound array.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If digital beamformers are used, then measurement precision and dynamic capabilities are improved, but device complexity and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the beamforming process into two distinct stages: analog beamforming for initial signal processing and digital post-processing for enhanced precision. This segmentation allows each stage to optimize for its specific function, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining high measurement precision in the digital domain.
Solution Approach 2:
An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) serves as an intermediary component between the analog beamforming stage and digital post-processing. This mediator enables seamless transition from analog to digital domain, allowing the system to leverage both analog simplicity and digital precision without requiring a fully complex digital beamformer from the start.
2Measurement precision
If digital beamformers are used, then measurement precision is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The beamforming process is segmented into analog and digital stages, with the computationally intensive operations performed in the analog domain where power consumption is lower. Only final precision-critical operations are moved to digital processing, reducing overall power consumption while maintaining measurement precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses periodic sampling and discrete-time processing instead of continuous digital processing. By processing signals at specific sampling intervals rather than continuously, the system achieves necessary measurement precision while significantly reducing power consumption compared to continuous digital beamforming.
3Device complexity
If analog beamformers are used, then device complexity is reduced, but time discrimination and dynamic capabilities worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments beamforming operations into analog time-delay operations for simplicity and digital processing for precision. The analog stage handles coarse time alignment with simple hardware, while the digital stage refines time discrimination accuracy, combining the advantages of both approaches.
Solution Approach 2:
The ADC acts as an intermediary that bridges the analog beamforming stage and digital post-processing. This allows the system to maintain simple analog hardware for time-delay operations while using digital processing to enhance time discrimination precision, resolving the trade-off between complexity and precision.
4Ease of operation
If system size is reduced for portability, then ease of operation is improved, but manufacturing precision and signal quality may worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes bulk processing electronics from the probe, placing only essential analog front-end components and a small ASIC in the portable probe. Complex digital processing is extracted and performed externally, enabling probe miniaturization while maintaining signal quality through careful extraction of non-essential components.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a simplified analog front-end in the portable probe that captures essential signal characteristics, then copies and processes the full signal digitally in an external unit. This copying approach allows the small probe to maintain signal quality while achieving portability, as the external unit performs the precision-critical processing.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach results in improved signal-to-noise ratio, scalability, and reduced hardware complexity, enabling compact, portable ultrasound systems with preserved functionality and lower production costs, while allowing for multiple beamforming strategies on the same data volume.
Implementation Method 1
a matrix of sample/hold cells to capture and process instantaneous samples from ultrasound array elements
Data Source
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AI summary
An ultrasound beamformer architecture performs the task of signal beamforming using a matrix of analog random access memory cells to capture, store and process instantaneous samples of analog signals from ultrasound array elements and this architecture provides significant reduction in power consumption and the size of the diagnostic ultrasound imaging system such that the hardware build upon this ultrasound beamformer architecture can be placed in one or few application specific integrated chips (ASIC) positioned next to the ultrasound array and the whole diagnostic ultrasound imaging system could fit in the handle of the ultrasonic probe while preserving most of the functionality of a cart-based system. The ultrasound beamformer architecture manipulate analog samples in the memory in the same fashion as digital memory operates that can be described as an analog store-digital read (ASDR) beamformer. The ASDR architecture provides improved signal-to-noise ratio and is scalable.