Patrick Pesque

Examining moving objects by ultrasound echograpy

An apparatus for scanning moving objects, notably flowing blood, by means of ultrasound echography in order to determine movement parameters of such objects. The apparatus comprises at least one ultrasound transducer which is connected to a stage for the periodic transmission of a pulse signal having a predetermined recurrent frequency F=1/T and to a stage for receiving echograpic signals returned to the transducer and for processing the signals received. In accordance with the invention, the apparatus is characterized in that it comprises a digital processing channel which is successively composed of a circit (320) for suppressing fixed echoes, a circuit for estimating flow parameters, a discriminator circuit (360), a device (370) for storage, scan conversion and color encoding, and a display device (312).

Echo ultrasound system with an improved image sequence rate

An echo ultrasound imaging system comprising at least one array of elementary transducers, and further comprising an emission stage and a stage for the reception and for the processing of echoes reflected back towards the said array, said reception and processing stage having means for the simultaneous focusing of M ultrasonic beams originating from M different directions; the emission stage has means for the focusing of M ultrasonic beams emitted sequentially in the said M different directions, and during a total duration defined by the sum of the M maximum delays of the M delay laws forming the said M focused beams emitted.