A high-speed image acquisition using ultrasonic ring array probe

Traditional ultrasonic diagnostic equipment scans the measurement area using ultrasonic beam. The measurement time gives the limitation to the frame rate of motion image. This paper describes a high speed ultrasonic image acquisition technique, which does not need to scan. The measurement system is an application of the synthetic aperture method, using a special two-dimensional ultrasonic transducer array. The probe is called a ring array probe. This probe transmits the spherical pulsed ultrasound wave, and acquires the echo signal from the whole measurement domain instantaneously. The result of the experiment to evaluate this system shows that the system has an ability to acquire the motion image with 1000 fps. This frame rate is 30 times higher than the frame rate of B-mode image which is acquired by the conventional ultrasonic imager. In addition, the reconstructed image is three-dimensional. That is, this system can acquire a three-dimensional motion image at high frame rate.