Method for dynamic focus control

摘要

Methods perform dynamic focusing of a coherent array imaging system are invented. Dynamic focusing in ultrasonic array imaging involves extensive real-time computations and data communication. Particularly for real-time three-dimensional imaging using fully-sampled two-dimensional arrays, implementation of dynamic focusing can be extremely complicated. The invention described in this disclosure greatly simplifies the delay control mechanism by exploiting both spatial and temporal characteristics of the focusing delay patterns. The simplification primarily results from (1) grouping adjacent channels into sub-apertures for the range dependent focusing component, and (2) non-uniform quantization of the delay values.