CN115024749A

CN115024749A - Wireless probe type ultrasonic detector

Info

Publication number: CN115024749A
Application number: CN202210280443.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 秦绮玲; 刘亚平; 周琦
Original assignee: Suzhou Mite Xisaier Artificial Intelligence Co ltd; Humeds Health Technologies Corp
Current assignee: Suzhou Mite Xisaier Artificial Intelligence Co ltd; Humeds Health Technologies Corp
Priority date: 2022-03-22
Filing date: 2022-03-22
Publication date: 2022-09-09

Abstract

The invention discloses a wireless probe type ultrasonic detector, which comprises: the system comprises an ultrasonic transducer, a front end transmitting unit, a front end receiving unit, an FPGA signal processor, a microprocessor, a flash memory, a USB interface, a Wifi network module, a power management unit and a lithium battery. The wireless probe type ultrasonic detector transmits data through WiFi, is combined with a smart phone or a tablet personal computer for use, and is simple and compact in structure, light in weight, simple to use and operate, convenient to carry and operate in a palm mode.

Description

Wireless probe type ultrasonic detector

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of digital signal processing and medical ultrasonic equipment, in particular to a wireless probe type ultrasonic detector.

Background

Ultrasonic diagnosis is one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in clinical practice because of its advantages such as non-invasive, real-time, convenient operation, and low price.

In the prior art, a medical ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus can be used for ultrasonic scanning diagnosis of abdomen, heart, obstetrics and gynecology department, urology department, superficial tissues, small organs, peripheral blood vessels and the like, and is one of main digital medical diagnostic equipment. The traditional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus sampling piezoelectric transducer is formed by arranging a plurality of small probes called array elements, the distances of the array elements are equal, an electronic switch is used for exciting the array elements to transmit and receive ultrasonic pulse echoes according to a certain time sequence, and echo signals are processed to obtain ultrasonic images. Obviously, under the condition of a certain length of the probe, the image is clearer when the number of array elements is larger. Therefore, in order to achieve high resolution at medical level, the ultrasound scanning resolution is improved, and simultaneously, the transmission power is required to be larger and the receiving noise is required to be lower, so that the manufacturing cost of the device is high and the device is bulky.

With the development of electronic technology and ultrasonic transduction technology, a microprocessor with powerful function and faster operation speed, a high-speed high-performance large-scale FPGA and a low-noise programmable amplifier with higher integration level appear, so that the medical ultrasonic equipment can be miniaturized and can be made into portable ultrasonic equipment or even palm ultrasonic equipment.

An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus with medical diagnosis resolution needs to use a plurality of array elements to form an ultrasonic probe, and when each array element ultrasonic transmitting and receiving signal is processed, a large number of front-end processing units such as high-voltage amplification, low-noise amplification, controllable gain amplification and filtering, multi-channel ADC conversion and the like are needed, and complex waveform forming, phase control and signal processing units are also needed, so that a very complex and huge system is formed.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to disclose a wireless probe type ultrasonic detector which solves the problems of large volume, high power consumption and inconvenient carrying and use of the conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:

a wireless probe type ultrasonic detector includes: ultrasonic transducer, front end transmitting unit, front end receiving unit, FPGA signal processor, microprocessor, flash memory, USB interface, Wifi module, power management unit, lithium cell:

the ultrasonic transducer is used for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic signals;

the front-end transmitting unit is used for exciting the ultrasonic array element after voltage amplification of the analog signal processed by the FPGA;

the front end receiving unit is used for processing the received weak ultrasonic echo;

the FPGA signal processor is used for beam forming and signal processing of the ultrasonic waves;

the microprocessor is used for running a program, controlling, managing and processing the digital ultrasonic signals;

the flash memory is used for storing an operating program;

the memory is used for storing data;

the USB interface is used for connecting external equipment and transmitting data;

the Wifi module is used for connecting external equipment and transmitting data;

the power supply management unit is used for lithium battery charging and discharging management and power supply management of each unit;

and the lithium battery is used for storing electric energy and supplying power to each unit of the ultrasonic detector.

Preferably, the wireless probe type ultrasonic detector does not include ultrasonic image data display and storage functions, and the ultrasonic image data are transmitted to the smart phone or the tablet personal computer through the Wifi to complete the display and storage of the ultrasonic image data.

Further, the smart phone or the tablet computer runs a corresponding App, and adjusts the gain, the image contrast, the dynamic range, the focusing power, the scanning depth and the like of the ultrasonic detector; displaying the ultrasonic image; and transmitting and storing the ultrasonic image.

As a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, the ultrasonic transducer is composed of a group of ultrasonic transducing array elements, the array elements are single piezoelectric crystal ultrasonic array elements, a plurality of the array elements can be arranged into different shapes, and the shape and the direction of the ultrasonic beam (wave front) of the required scanning waveform are formed by controlling the emission timing sequence, the amplitude and the phase of the excitation pulse of each array element, so as to realize the beam scanning, the deflection and the focusing of the ultrasonic wave.

Preferably, the more array elements of the ultrasonic transducer, the higher the image definition scanned by the ultrasonic detector constructed by the ultrasonic transducer.

Preferably, when the array elements are arranged in a straight line, the linear ultrasonic transducer (also called linear ultrasonic scanning head) is formed.

Furthermore, when the linear array ultrasonic scanning head is in a working state, the linear array ultrasonic scanning head is used for shallow scanning of a human body, and ultrasonic waves of the linear array ultrasonic scanning head work at a high frequency.

Preferably, the array elements are arranged in a convex shape to form the convex array ultrasonic transducer (also called a convex array ultrasonic scanning head).

Furthermore, when the convex array ultrasonic scanning head is in a working state, the convex array ultrasonic scanning head is used for scanning the abdominal cavity of a human body, and the ultrasonic wave of the convex array ultrasonic scanning head works at a lower frequency.

Preferably, when the array elements are arranged in a rectangle, the phased array ultrasonic transducer (also called as a phased array ultrasonic scanning head) is formed by controlling the ultrasonic wave emission timing sequence of each array element.

Furthermore, the ultrasonic scanning frequency is changed simultaneously, and the ultrasonic scanning frequency is respectively used for shallow layer scanning and deep layer target body scanning.

Furthermore, the monomer ultrasonic array element adopts a single crystal piezoelectric ultrasonic array element (PZT).

As a second preferred embodiment of the present invention, each of the ultrasound array elements has an independent transmit front end and a receive front end, which are mixed by a multiplexer, and the transmit and receive switching is controlled by a time slot switch.

Preferably, the transmitting front end receives the digital signal sent by the FPGA signal processor, and after high-voltage amplification, the transmitting front end pushes the ultrasonic array element to transmit ultrasonic waves in a transmitting time slot.

Preferably, the receiving front end amplifies the received weak ultrasonic echo signal by a low noise amplifier, amplifies the amplified signal by a controllable gain amplifier, filters noise by a low pass filter, converts the noise into a digital signal by an ADC analog-to-digital converter, and sends the digital signal to the FPGA signal processor for further processing by a standard interface.

Further, the receive front-end comprises: low noise amplifier, controllable gain amplifier, low pass filter, ADC analog-to-digital converter: the low-noise amplifier is used for amplifying the weak ultrasonic echo signals; the controllable gain amplifier is used for further amplifying the ultrasonic echo signal and controlling the gain of the amplifier through the control circuit; the low-pass filter is used for filtering out-of-band clutter; the ADC is used for converting the analog echo signal into a digital signal.

Further, the gain of the controllable gain amplifier can be controlled by a gain control digital signal to control the gain change.

Further, the gain control digital signal is a digital signal sent by the control system, and is converted into an analog signal through digital to analog conversion of the DAC, and the gain of the controllable gain amplifier is controlled.

Preferably, the ultrasonic detector composed of a plurality of ultrasonic array elements corresponds to a plurality of said transmitting and receiving front ends.

As a third preferred embodiment of the present invention, the FPGA signal processor is a programmable and algorithm-extensible FPGA signal processor unit, which completes waveform shaping and signal processing, and includes: a transmission beam forming unit and a receiving beam forming unit: the transmitting beam forming unit is used for generating a time pulse scanning line, so that different array elements are scanned according to a time sequence to form a waveform pointing to a scanning target body; and the receiving beam forming unit is used for receiving and processing the scanning wave echo reflected by the target body.

Preferably, the transmit beamforming unit is driven by the digital signal, and further improves resolution through super-resolution sampling processing; processing by an interpolation filter to finish DA conversion; performing delay/focusing treatment to accurately focus the diagnosed object; other echo interferences are eliminated through window/displacement processing; the dynamic range is improved by log compression treatment; and finally, exciting the array element after demodulating and extracting the scanning line.

Further, the transmit beamforming unit comprises: the device comprises a digital signal driving unit, a super-resolution sampling unit, an interpolation filter, a delay/focusing unit, a window/displacement processing unit, a log compression unit and an array element excitation unit: the digital signal driving unit is used for receiving a digital signal sent by the control system; the super-resolution sampling unit is used for completing higher-resolution sampling and improving scanning resolution; the interpolation filter is used for improving the accuracy of the scanned image; the delay/focus unit adjusts the focusing of the array elements to accurately focus the beams on the object to be diagnosed; the window/displacement processing unit is used for removing interference echoes; the log compression unit is used for compressing data and improving the dynamic range; and the array element exciting unit is used for pushing the array elements to emit sound waves.

Preferably, since the scan echo signal is very weak, the receive beamforming unit requires low noise amplification, gain control, filtering and ADC processing.

Further, the receiving beam forming unit comprises a low noise amplifier, a controllable gain amplifier, a filter, and an ADC converter: the low-noise amplifier is used for amplifying the received weak echo signal; the controllable gain amplifier is used for signal amplification and can control the gain thereof through a digital signal; the filter is a low-pass filter and is used for filtering out-of-band noise; the ADC converter is used for converting the analog signal into a digital signal.

And as a fourth preferred scheme of the invention, the microprocessor is used for running programs, completing control and management and processing the ultrasonic digital signals.

Preferably, the ultrasonic digital signal processing includes: b-mode, M-mode, phased array mode, Doppler mode, and color flow mode: the B-mode, also commonly referred to as a B-mode, receives the demodulated and compressed digital signals from the FPGA signal processor, and maps the scan lines into a 2D image expressed by gray scale through interpolation and gray scale mapping; the M-mode compares point data on a time axis and identifies the motion, the speed and the motion position of a data source; in the phased array mode, the shape and the direction of an emitted ultrasonic beam (wave front) are adjusted by controlling and exciting each array element according to a certain rule and a certain time sequence, so that the beam scanning, the deflection and the focusing of ultrasonic waves can be realized; the Doppler mode is used for processing accurate direction and speed information generated by transmitting signals from a Doppler special analog front end; the color flow mode, which is used to process color scale and motion data, expresses the direction of the color speed superimposed on the grayscale image in B-mode.

Further, the ultrasonic digital signal processor can be used for adjusting the image definition of still images and videos and meeting the requirements of ultrasonic drawing, display and storage.

Further, the ultrasound digital signal processor may employ a greater variety of techniques to reduce speckle, improve focus, and adjust contrast and gray scale depth.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that:

1. the complete, compact, simple and concise manufacturing scheme of the wireless probe type ultrasonic detector is provided;

2. the probe type ultrasonic detector transmits data through WiFi and is combined with a smart phone or a tablet personal computer, so that the probe type ultrasonic detector does not need to be connected with a cable, and is more compact in structure, lighter in weight and simpler in use and operation;

3. the probe type ultrasonic detector is convenient to carry and operate on the palm, compares favorably with the functions of ultrasonic equipment in large hospitals, and is convenient for doctors to carry and serve at home at any time.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention of a wireless probe ultrasonic detector;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an ultrasound transducer according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the transmit front end and receive front end architecture of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the FPGA signal processor architecture of the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the operation of a microprocessor according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of the operation of the ultrasonic testing apparatus in the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the drawings and preferred embodiments. The drawings are simplified schematic diagrams illustrating the basic principles, basic structures and basic functions of the present invention in a schematic manner, and thus show only the constituents related to the present invention.

One of ordinary skill in the art may recognize certain variations and equivalents of the invention, which should not be construed as beyond the scope of the invention.

Fig. 1 is a schematic view of a structure of a wireless probe type ultrasonic detector according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 1, the wireless probe type ultrasonic detector includes: ultrasonic transducer 1, front end transmitting unit 2, front end receiving unit 3, FPGA signal processor 4, microprocessor 5, flash memory 6, memory 7, USB interface 8, Wifi module 9, transmitting antenna 10, power management unit 11, lithium cell 12: the device comprises a 1 for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic signals; the 2 is used for amplifying the excitation voltage sent by the 4 and exciting the ultrasonic array element of the 1; the 3 is used for processing the received weak ultrasonic echo; the 4 is used for the beam forming and the ultrasonic digital signal processing of the ultrasonic wave; the 5 is used for running a program, controlling, managing and processing the ultrasonic digital signal; the 6 is used for storing the running program; the 7 is used for storing data; the 8 is used for connecting external equipment and transmitting data; the 9 is used for connecting external equipment and transmitting data; the 10, is used for enhancing WiFi transmission power; the 11 is used for lithium battery charging and discharging management and power supply management of each unit; and 12, the power supply unit is used for storing electric energy and supplying power to all units of the ultrasonic detector.

According to the embodiment of the invention, the wireless probe type ultrasonic detector does not comprise an ultrasonic image data display and storage function, and the ultrasonic image data acquired by the ultrasonic detector is transmitted to the smart phone or the tablet personal computer through Wifi. The smart phone or the tablet personal computer runs a corresponding App, and adjusts the gain, the image contrast, the dynamic range, the focusing power and the scanning depth of the ultrasonic detector; displaying the ultrasonic image; and transmitting and storing the ultrasonic image.

Fig. 2 is a schematic view of an ultrasonic transducer according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, 21 is a single crystal piezoelectric ultrasonic array element (PZT), 22 is the positive pole of 21, 23 is the negative pole of 21, voltage is applied between 22 and 23, the amplitude and phase of the voltage are changed, and 21 is caused to vibrate to emit ultrasonic waves. A plurality of groups 21 are arranged into groups, and then the groups form the ultrasonic transducer with more array elements. In the embodiment of the present invention, fig. 2 (a) is a linear array composed of 32 ultrasonic array elements; fig. 2 (b) is a 64-unit line array composed of two sets of 32-unit line arrays; figure 2 (c) is a 128-element matrix consisting of two sets of 64-element linear arrays arranged in two rows, and so on. Obviously, the more array elements of the ultrasonic transducer, the more complex the structure thereof, and the higher the image definition scanned by the ultrasonic detector. When the ultrasonic array elements are arranged in a matrix as shown in fig. 2 (c), the phased array ultrasonic transducer (also called a phased array ultrasonic scanning head) is formed by controlling the ultrasonic wave emission timing, amplitude and phase of each array element.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the transmit front end and receive front end architecture of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 3, the digital signal obtained by the FPGA is amplified by the high voltage amplifier 31, and then sent to the multiplexer/switch unit 32, and the ultrasonic array element is excited according to the time sequence; weak ultrasonic echo signals detected by the ultrasonic array elements are obtained through a receiving time slot 32, are sent to a low-noise amplifier 33 for low-noise amplification, are further amplified by a controllable gain amplifier 34 and then are sent to a low-pass filter 35 for filtering out-of-band interference waves, and finally are converted into digital signals through an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 36 and are sent to the FPGA signal processor; said 37 is a VGA controller, the gain of which 34 is controlled by a digital signal.

In the embodiment of the invention, each ultrasonic array element 21 shown in fig. 2 is provided with an independent transmitting front end and a receiving front end, which are multiplexed by 32, and the switch controls the transmission and the receiving to be switched according to time sequence and time slot.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the FPGA signal processor of the preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 4, the FPGA signal processor unit is a programmable and algorithm-extensible FPGA signal processor unit, and completes transmit beamforming and receive signal processing, and includes: transmit beam forming unit 41, reception wave digital signal processing unit 42: the optical scanning device 41 is configured to generate a time pulse scanning line, so that different array elements scan according to a time sequence, and a beam is formed to point to a scanned object; and 42, processing the echo of the scanning wave.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the device 41 includes a digital signal driver 411, a super resolution sampler 412, an interpolation filter 413, a DAC converter 414, a delay/focus processor 415, a window/displacement processor 416, a log compression processing unit 417, a demodulator 418, and an excitation unit 419. The digital signal is sent to 412 for super-resolution sampling processing after 411, and the resolution is further improved; after 413 processing and 414 processing, DAC conversion is completed; processed 415 to focus the scanned object accurately; processing by 416 to remove other echo interferences; the dynamic range is improved through 417 treatment; after 418 processing, scanning lines are extracted and sent to 31 shown in figure 3 of the invention through 419, and the ultrasonic array elements are excited after voltage amplification.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the digital signal 42 is received and further processed by the ADC unit 36 shown in fig. 3.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of the operation of a microprocessor according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 5, the microprocessor 51 is externally connected with a USB network interface 54, a Wifi network interface 52, a Wifi antenna 53, a flash memory 55 and a memory 56. The 51, by running the program, completing control and management, further processing the ultrasonic digital signal, the ultrasonic digital signal processing of the embodiment of the present invention includes: b-mode, M-mode, phased array mode, Doppler mode, and color flow mode: the B-mode, also commonly called B-mode, receives the demodulated and compressed digital signals from the FPGA signal processor, and maps the scan lines into 2D images expressed by gray scale values through interpolation and gray scale mapping; in the M-mode, point data comparison is completed on a time axis, and the motion, the motion speed and the motion position of a data source are distinguished; in the phased array mode, each ultrasonic array element is excited by controlling according to a certain rule and a certain time sequence, and the shape and the direction of an emitted ultrasonic beam (wave front) are adjusted to realize beam scanning, deflection and focusing of ultrasonic waves; the Doppler mode is used for processing accurate direction and speed information generated by transmitting signals from a Doppler special analog front end; the color flow mode, which is used to process color scale and motion data, indicates the direction of the color velocity superimposed on the grayscale image in B-mode. According to the embodiment of the invention, the microprocessor can adjust the image definition of the still image and the video to meet the requirements of ultrasonic drawing, display and storage. In addition, more various techniques may be implemented on the microprocessor to reduce speckle, improve focus, and adjust contrast and gray scale depth.

Fig. 6 is a flow chart of the operation of the ultrasonic inspection apparatus according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. The workflow shown in fig. 6 has the following steps:

s1, the ultrasonic detector and the smart phone App are turned on and automatically connected through Wifi;

s2, setting an ultrasonic scanning mode through the App, and adjusting parameters of the ultrasonic detector, such as gain, dynamic range, focus, depth and the like of the embodiment of the invention;

s3, the App sends an ultrasonic scanning instruction to the ultrasonic detector;

s4, after the ultrasonic detector receives the scanning instruction, the microprocessor operates the corresponding ultrasonic scanning program according to the set scanning mode to generate scanning beams, completes scanning in the transmitting time slot according to the scanning mode and the array element arrangement mode, and receives the corresponding echo in the receiving time slot; the echo is processed at each level to obtain the ultrasonic scanning 2D image data, and the ultrasonic scanning 2D image data is sent to the smart phone through an interface network;

s5, the smart phone displays the received ultrasonic scanning data into an image or a video in real time;

s6, adjusting the scanning position and angle according to the displayed scanning image or video to obtain the best scanning image;

and S7, freezing the current ultrasonic scanning data, and storing the current ultrasonic scanning data in the appointed space of the mobile phone to finish the scanning.

It will be evident to those skilled in the art that the invention is not limited to the details of the foregoing illustrative embodiments, and that the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof. The present embodiments are, therefore, to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the invention being indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein. Any reference sign in a claim should not be construed as limiting the claim concerned.

Furthermore, it should be understood that although the present description refers to embodiments, not every embodiment may include only a single embodiment, and such description is for clarity only, and those skilled in the art will be able to make the description as a whole, and the embodiments may be appropriately combined to form other embodiments as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Claims

1. A wireless probe ultrasonic detector includes: ultrasonic transducer, front end transmitting unit, front end receiving unit, FPGA signal processor, microprocessor, flash memory, USB interface, Wifi module, power management unit, lithium cell:

the flash memory is used for storing an operating program;

the memory is used for storing data;

2. A wireless probe ultrasonic testing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the ultrasonic transducer is composed of a group of ultrasonic transducer elements, the array elements are single piezoelectric crystal ultrasonic array elements, a plurality of the array elements can be arranged into different shapes, and the shape and direction of the ultrasonic beam (wave front) with the required scanning waveform are formed by controlling the emission timing, amplitude and phase of the excitation pulse of each array element, so as to realize the beam scanning, deflection and focusing of the ultrasonic wave.

3. The ultrasonic probe-based apparatus of claim 1, wherein said FPGA signal processor is a programmable and algorithm-extendable FPGA signal processor unit for beamforming and signal processing of said ultrasonic waves.

4. A wireless probe-type ultrasonic testing instrument as claimed in claim 2, wherein each of said ultrasonic array elements has a separate transmit front end and a receive front end, both of which are controlled to switch between transmit and receive by a multiplexer/switch.

5. The receive front-end of claim 4, wherein the receive front-end comprises: low noise amplifier, controllable gain amplifier, low pass filter, ADC analog-to-digital converter: the low noise amplifier is used for amplifying the weak ultrasonic echo signal; the controllable gain amplifier is used for further amplifying the ultrasonic echo signal and controlling the gain of the amplifier through the control circuit; the low-pass filter is used for filtering out-of-band clutter; the ADC is used for converting the analog echo signal into a digital signal.

6. The ultrasonic probe-based apparatus of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor, for executing programs, performing control, management, and processing the ultrasonic digital signals, comprises: ultrasound detects switching between B-mode, M-mode, phased array mode, Doppler mode, and color flow mode.