ACOUSTIC BEAM FORMING IN PHASED ARRAYS INCLUDING LARGE NUMBERS OF TRANSDUCER ELEMENTS

摘要

A focused ultrasound system (10) includes a transducer array (4) having a plurality of "n" transducer elements (22al) and a controller (18) having a plurality of "m" (with "m" < "n") output channels (34all) providing sets of drive signals having respective phase shift values. A switch (20) is configured for connecting the output channels to respective transducer elements. The controller (28) may assign the transducer elements to respective output channels based upon a size and/or shape of a desired focal zone (27) within the target region (92), to steer or otherwise move a location of the focal zone, and/or to compensate for tissue aberrations caused by tissue between the transducer array and the focal zone, geometric tolerances and/or impedance variations of the transducer elements.