Development of a Novel Power Distribution and Monitoring Scheme for Medical Ultrasound Scanners

A reliable operation of medical ultrasound (US) imaging systems necessitates both high voltage (HV) and low voltage (LV) power supplies. High voltage power supplies are essential to the transmitter sections of US systems, whereas low voltage power supplies are crucial to the receiver sections. This paper introduces a novel power distribution and monitoring scheme tailored for US scanners. Specifically, the scheme is devised for a 128-channel field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based US imaging system. It includes the development of dedicated microcontroller-based power management hardware, seamlessly integrated into the system for comprehensive power monitoring and management. Additionally, to ensure effective power monitoring and management across the US system power rails, a power management bus (PMBus™) controller is incorporated into each hardware subsystem of the designed scanner. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the adoption of the point of load (PoL) power distribution method for precise power distribution to critical hardware sections of the scanner, enhancing its reliability and performance.