David G. Miller

Intravascular ultrasound imaging apparatus and method

An ultrasound system and method for intravascular imaging is disclosed. The ultrasound system includes an intravascular catheter with an ultrasound transducer array, a transmit beamformer, a receive beamformer, and an image generator. The intravascular catheter has an elongated body made for insertion into a blood vessel and connected to a catheter handle. The catheter includes a catheter core located inside a steerable guide sheath, both having a proximal part and a distal part. The catheter includes an articulation region connected to a positioning device for positioning the transducer array to have a selected orientation relative to an examined tissue region. For each orientation of the transducer array, the transmit and receive beamformers acquire ultrasound data over an image plane of the examined tissue region. The catheter core is connected to a rotation device constructed and arranged to rotate, or oscillate over an angular range, the transducer array that acquires ultrasound data over a multiplicity of image planes. The image generator is constructed to form a selected tissue image based on the acquired ultrasound data.

Operator supervised temperature control system and method for an ultrasound transducer

A system and method for controlling the heat of an ultrasonic transducer is disclosed. In the presently preferred embodiments, the operator selects one or more mutable system parameters of the ultrasound system which will be changed if either the temperature becomes too great, or at the operators command, or both.

Ultrasound imaging device

An ultrasound imaging device having a bipolar transmitter to generate a bipolar voltage signal, a transducer to emit an ultrasound wave in response to the bipolar voltage signal, and a bias generator to bias the bipolar voltage signal prior to being received by the transducer so that the biased bipolar voltage signal maintains a same polarity as a poling polarity of the transducer throughout a transmit cycle of the ultrasound imaging device. By biasing the bipolar voltage signal to maintain a same polarity as the poling polarity of the transducer throughout the transmit cycle, the ultrasound imaging device prevents depoling of the transducer which could otherwise occur if the transducer is driven by a bipolar voltage signal which repeatedly has a polarity opposite to the poling polarity of the transducer.