ULTRASONIC DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING SYSTEM TRANSDUCER ARRAY WITH MULTILINE PATCHES

摘要

An ultrasonic imaging method and apparatus are described for imaging a volumetric region using a two dimensional array transducer. The ultrasonic probe includes the 2D array transducer and microbeamformers for beamforming signals from groups of elements of the array in the probe. The microbeamformers are capable of producing multilines (differently steered receive beams) in response to a single transmit event. The multiline patch signals are coupled to an ultrasound system processor where scanlines are produced by multiline beamforming or multiline interpolation.