Ultrasound in &led. & Biol. Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 313-316, 1992 0301-5629D2 $5.00 + .00 Printed in the U.S.A. © 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd.

NEW PATENTS

This Section contains abstracts and, where appropriate, illustrations of recently issued United States patents and published patent applications filed from over 30 countries under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This information was obtained from recent additions to the Pergamon PATSEARCH ~-~ online database in accordance with interest profiles developed by the Editors. Further information about Pergamon PATSEARCH ~ can be obtained from Pergamon Orbit InfoLine Inc., 8000 Westpark Drive, McLean, Virginia 22102, U.S.A.

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5000184

D IR EC TIONAL C O M P O N E N T M E A S U R E M E N T BY

E C H O G R A P H Y

Odile Bonnefous, Nogent sur Marne, France as- signed to U S Philips Corporat ion

A device for measuring one of the transverse components Vx of the speed of moving organs and blood flows by means of ultrasonic echography, the axial component Vz, oriented parallel to the axis Oz of the ultrasonic beam, being measured by a first intercorrelation circuit (51z) which operates with a sampling step Del- taT and which supplies, on the basis of two suc- cessive echographic lines shifted through k DeltaT, (k = -I, -I + 1 . . . . . I), 2I + 1 correlation function values according to z, a first maximum- value searching circuit (53z) which supplies the value Io of k which corresponds to the largest value of said correlation functions according to z. The device includes: a bidimensional mosaic (10) of piezoelectric transducers which are cen- tered around the origin O of a system of axes Ox, Oy which forms a trihedron with said axis Oz, a circuit (20) for forming 2Nx + 1 receiving chan- nels which correspond to the beams centered around (kxpx,O,O), where kx = -Nx, -Nx + 1 . . . . , Nx and px is the pitch of the channels according to x, a buffer memory (50) in which there are stored the echographic signals received by each of the 2Nx + 1 receiving channels, taken for the values Io- l , Io, I o + 1 of k, a second circuit (5Ix) for intercorrelation between a signal received by the central receiving channel (O,O,O) and the next signal received by the receiving channel (kxpx, O,O) supplying the three intercorrelation functions Cx(kxpx,O,(Io- 1) DeltaT), cx(kxpx,O,Io DeltaT), Cx(kxpx,O, ( I o + 1) Del- taT), a circuit (53x) for linear interpolation in x which supplies, on the basis of said 3 inter- correlation functions, the correlation peak

313

Cx(kxpx) according to x, a second maximum- value searching circuit (54x), which supplies, on the basis of the 2 N x + 1 values of kx, the value kxo for which Cx(kxpx) is maximum, the tran- verse component Vx satisfying the equation: See Patent for Tabular Presentation PS where T is the recurrent period of the echographic signals. Application: the formation of echographic im- ages of moving organs and blood flows.

5007428

A P P A R A T U S F O R E X A M I N I N G A B O D Y O F L I V I N G T I S S U E S

David J Watmough, Banchory, United King- dom assigned to The University Court of the University of Aberdeen

An apparatus for the examination of living tis- sues, comprises an illuminator (228) for il- luminating the tissue with infra-red-containing electromagnetic radiation, a television camera (202) for receiving the radiation which is trans- mitted through the tissue and image devices (216) for producing an image of the received radiation. In addition a probe (224) is provided for applying ultrasound to a region of the tissue and for receiving the reflected ultrasonic signals from the region. The signals obtained are representative of the velocity of blood flow in the region and a computer (216) is provided for generating from the signal an image which pro- vides an indication of blood flow velocity in the region. The apparatus further comprises an arm rotatably mounted on a support about a pivot, the television camera (202) being mounted on the arm on one side of the pivot. A device for holding the tissue to be imaged by the television camera is mounted on the arm on the other side of the pivot.