SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING PROGRESSIVE BEAMFORMING

摘要

A progressive beamformer in an imaging system includes a number of stages. A first stage delays and combines a number of received data streams to align the streams to a point of interest on a first beamline. The first stage feeds a number of subsequent stages that operate to buffer and re-delay at least a portion of the data streams received from a previous stage in order to align the data streams to a point of interest on a new beamline. In one embodiment, each stage operates to reduce the number of data streams that are passed to a subsequent stage without suffering from grating lobes. A beam reclamation process includes a number of stages that receive data streams from end elements in order to produce reclaimed beams that are added to beamline produced in a mainline beamforming process in order to produce output beamlines.

主权项

1. An imaging system, comprising:
memory for buffering a number of data streams of signals produced by transducer elements; and a number of stages, each including processor electronics operable to delay and combine at least a portion of data in the buffered data streams to align data to a point on a beamline within a field of view, wherein the processor electronics for stages after a first stage are operable to buffer and re-delay at least a portion of the data streams from a previous stage to align the data to a point on a new beamline, reduce the number of data streams that are aligned to a point on a beamline in a subsequent stage and increase an effective size of the transducer elements.