CN105559819A

CN105559819A - Ultrasonic imaging system based on simple hardware

Info

Publication number: CN105559819A
Application number: CN201410631184.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 谭伟
Original assignee: 谭伟
Current assignee: Kunshan Lei Sheng Medical Technology Co., Ltd.
Priority date: 2014-11-11
Filing date: 2014-11-11
Publication date: 2016-05-11

Abstract

The invention relates to an ultrasonic imaging system based on simple hardware. A simple hardware structure, which only comprises an ultrasonic pulse transmitting circuit, a receiving circuit and a signal transmitting circuit, is adopted; a graphic processing unit (GPU) on a general-purpose computer serves as a major computing unit; and beam forming and image reconstruction are achieved by virtue of software. By adopting the structure of the simple hardware and by solving the problem on data transmission caused by a new frame, the hardware cost of the ultrasonic imaging system can be greatly reduced under same configurations including the number of channels, sampling rate, the number of digital-to-analogue conversion bits and the like, the transmitting sequence of ultrasonic beams can be directly controlled by the computer, and meanwhile the original data of an ultrasonic transducer array can be directly obtained, so that the capacity of achieving more imaging functions is guaranteed.

Description

Based on the ultrasonic image-forming system of simplifying hardware

Technical field

This patent belongs to technical field of medical instruments, is specifically related to for ultrasonic imaging technique.

Background technology

Traditional ultrasonic image-forming system product, also i.e. most product in the market, be the echoing characteristic imaging for tissue, derive B-mode thus, doppler mode, M-mode etc.These products are also substantially identical in mechanism, and form focus emission wave beam by Acoustic focusing, carry out reception synthesis, form a line in imaging plane to the echo that each launching beam receives with hardware.So with a fixed step size successively inswept imaging region, the line assembling formed these received beams synthesis received or reconstruction, form two-dimension picture after extracting echo signal envelope.

Above imaging mechanism determines the following shortcoming of conventional imaging techniques:

1. hardware is too fat to move stiff, expensive.The structure of a typical ultrasonic machine amplifies change-over circuit, received beam synthesis chip by mission controller, launching beam synthesis chip, transmitting drive circuit, launch and accept switch, Received signal strength, in image reconstruction DSP, image, processing DSP and the computer system for post processing of image form, because above imaging mechanism is with a lot of processing capacity on hardware, mass data is processed also information extraction within hardware.

2. what another aspect computer received is the data highly processed, and can not obtain useful information further according to initial data.Initial data can not be obtained in real time, thus acoustically calculating more accurately can not be utilized on software to improve picture quality, market such as, be both the portable ultrasonic of 64 passages, because the similar picture quality of hardware architecture there is no significant difference.Hardware architecture traditional in addition can not according to initial data to tissue other characteristics, as elasticity, the imagings such as acousto-optic performance.

Summary of the invention

This patent adopt only comprise ultrasound pulse transmission circuit, receiving circuit and signal sending circuit simplify hardware configuration, utilize the GPU on general purpose PC as main computing unit, with software simulating Beam synthesis and image reconstruction.

First object of this patent is by adopting the structure of simplifying hardware, significantly reduces hardware cost under the condition that ultrasonic image-forming system is configured in equal port number, sample rate and digital-to-analogue conversion figure place etc.The method that this patent proposes takes new data acquisition and data to calculate framework, and solve the problem of the data transmission that new framework produces.

Second object of this patent is by simplifying hardware platform, allow computer directly can control the transmitting sequence of ultrasonic beam, directly obtain the initial data of ultrasound transducer array simultaneously, thus obtain and realize multi-purpose ability, traditional frameworks such as such as acousto-optic imaging, thermal acoustic imaging, synthetic aperture imaging cannot the function of real-time implementation.

Accompanying drawing explanation

Fig. 1 is the signal of conventional ultrasound imaging system framework

Fig. 2 is the framework signal of simplifying hardware

Fig. 3 is the signal of GPU software Beam synthesis algorithm

Fig. 4 is ultrasonic compressing original data and decompress(ion) signal

Fig. 5 is the signal of plane of ultrasound ripple occurring mode

Detailed description of the invention

Fig. 1 is the conventional ultrasound imaging system framework for contrast.Fig. 2 is the structure chart of this patent embodiment.It has ultrasound transducer array 1, impulse ejection circuit 2, launch and accept switch 3, emission control chip 4, signal amplifies and analog to digital conversion circuit 5, data acquisition and compression chip 6, several parts such as usb data connects 7, the GPU graphic process unit 9 in computer 8 and computer.

Control signal is sent by the software on computer 8 during work, connect 7 by usb data and be sent to emission control chip 4, produce multichannel, as the pulse signal of 128 passages, driving pulse radiating circuit 2 produces multiplex pulse and is sent to ultrasound transducer array 1, produces the ultrasound wave of specifying.Because this framework has very strong data-handling capacity at receiving terminal, radiating portion can not need complicated launching beam synthesis, and only has simple plane wave to launch, as schematically shown in Figure 5.Can produce multichannel Late phase with or postpone isometric drive singal, just can realize as CPLD by simple chip, avoid the launching beam synthesis chip of complexity in use traditional design.

After ultrasonic emitting, reflection and scattered signal is received equally by ultrasound transducer array 1, to be amplified by signal and signal to amplify and to be converted to digital signal by analog to digital conversion circuit 5, data acquisition and compression chip 6. digital signal is sent to be assembled into packet again in data acquisition and compression chip 6, then with the packet of the ultrasound data compression method lossless compress Cheng Geng little illustrated in Fig. 4, connect 7 by USB and be sent to computer 8.Then by the software transfer computational threads on computer 8, GPU graphic process unit 9 completes software Beam synthesis and calculates, produce ultrasonoscopy.

The mode of image is produced as Fig. 3 according to plane wave Received signal strength.Be different from the account form of traditional C PU, can set up GPU internal thread from each point of imaging plane, then in GPU, these threads can parallel computation, the wire harness echo signal after each point of imaging plane reconstructs Beam synthesis.The method of general Beam synthesis, for improving temporal resolution, needs the interpolation of signal being carried out to 4 times even higher, increases amount of calculation.This patent adopts 4 spot beam synthetic methods, namely signal sampling rate controls 4 times for ultrasonic signal mid frequency, interpolation is not needed when Beam synthesis, but the quadrature demodulated signal component after adopting dot interlace extracting method to obtain Beam synthesis, after envelope extracts, form image.

The lossless compression method for ultrasonic signal feature in Fig. 4 is the key that whole system realizes.Because ultrasonic primary signal is comparatively large, do not compress when 64 channel reception and be just difficult to send in real time by the such economy of USB, general connected mode.With conventional data compression algorithm, amount of calculation is too large again, is difficult to the real-time solving compression and decompress(ion) with cheap hardware and software.The method of Fig. 4 solves above problem well, makes whole frame design practicable.Its concrete principle is, ultrasonic signal is decayed with exponential law after entering human body or animal tissue, is generally 0.3dB/ centimetre/MHz.Therefore dynamic range of signals is very large, and the signal amplitude near field is very large, and far field is then very little.Suppose that the digital signal after near-field signals analog digital conversion has 12, beyond 5 centimetres, far field, then often only need 4 to 5.The high-order portion of such depositor is not just utilized.The signal 13 that the signal 12 that passage 1 can be gathered in Fig. 4 and passage 2 gather, the feature according to their exponential dampinies is inverted assembling, comprises the signal of 2 passages, namely complete the lossless compress of data 50% by the same data volume of original 1 passage.The key of such realization abandons general complement method, and highest order is not used as sign bit, and the boundary line 14 place byte of definition is defined as sign bit, data define according to complement code by the direction leaving boundary line 14.

Hardware architecture of simplifying so not only achieves ultrasonic image-forming system economically, and the beam transmission sequence of transducer array is directly controlled by computer, and obtain the most original signal in front end, can, with the imaging of multiple Beam synthesis mode to obtain excellent image quality, be convenient to realize transmitting sequence and other function such as received beam synthesis and the discrepant acousto-optic imaging of traditional imaging mode, thermal acoustic imaging, elastogram simultaneously.

Claims

1. the hardware and software systems for medical ultrasound image, by ultrasound transducer array, impulse ejection circuit, launch and accept switch, emission control chip, signal amplifies and analog to digital conversion circuit, data acquisition and compression chip, the compositions such as several parts such as usb data connects, the GPU graphic process unit in computer and computer.It is characterized in that the signal receive section of described system does not have hardware wave beam synthesis circuit, ultrasonoscopy completes Beam synthesis by collaborative computer GPU graphic process unit is collaborative with computed in software.

2. the hardware and software systems of the medical ultrasound image as described in right 1, it is characterized in that lossless compress and the decompress(ion) of the inversion assembling form realizing ultrasound data further wherein, with low speed communication modes, initial data can be sent to computer to make the hardware of ultrasound data acquisition part.

3. the hardware and software systems of the medical ultrasound image as described in right 1, is characterized in that realizing four spot beam composition algorithms further wherein, cancels the interpolation calculation to primary signal.