CA2685039A1 - Longitudinal pulse wave array - Google Patents

Longitudinal pulse wave array Download PDF

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Publication number
CA2685039A1
CA2685039A1 CA002685039A CA2685039A CA2685039A1 CA 2685039 A1 CA2685039 A1 CA 2685039A1 CA 002685039 A CA002685039 A CA 002685039A CA 2685039 A CA2685039 A CA 2685039A CA 2685039 A1 CA2685039 A1 CA 2685039A1
Authority
CA
Canada
Prior art keywords
array
waveguide
pulse
acoustic
generator
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
CA002685039A
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
John K. Schneider
Jack C. Kitchens
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Qualcomm Inc
Original Assignee
Ultra-Scan Corporation
John K. Schneider
Jack C. Kitchens
Qualcomm Incorporated
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Ultra-Scan Corporation, John K. Schneider, Jack C. Kitchens, Qualcomm Incorporated filed Critical Ultra-Scan Corporation
Publication of CA2685039A1 publication Critical patent/CA2685039A1/en
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N29/00Investigating or analysing materials by the use of ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves; Visualisation of the interior of objects by transmitting ultrasonic or sonic waves through the object
    • G01N29/04Analysing solids
    • G01N29/06Visualisation of the interior, e.g. acoustic microscopy
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N29/00Investigating or analysing materials by the use of ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves; Visualisation of the interior of objects by transmitting ultrasonic or sonic waves through the object
    • G01N29/22Details, e.g. general constructional or apparatus details
    • G01N29/221Arrangements for directing or focusing the acoustical waves
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N29/00Investigating or analysing materials by the use of ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves; Visualisation of the interior of objects by transmitting ultrasonic or sonic waves through the object
    • G01N29/22Details, e.g. general constructional or apparatus details
    • G01N29/24Probes
    • G01N29/2462Probes with waveguides, e.g. SAW devices
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N29/00Investigating or analysing materials by the use of ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves; Visualisation of the interior of objects by transmitting ultrasonic or sonic waves through the object
    • G01N29/22Details, e.g. general constructional or apparatus details
    • G01N29/26Arrangements for orientation or scanning by relative movement of the head and the sensor
    • G01N29/262Arrangements for orientation or scanning by relative movement of the head and the sensor by electronic orientation or focusing, e.g. with phased arrays
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06VIMAGE OR VIDEO RECOGNITION OR UNDERSTANDING
    • G06V40/00Recognition of biometric, human-related or animal-related patterns in image or video data
    • G06V40/10Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
    • G06V40/12Fingerprints or palmprints
    • G06V40/13Sensors therefor
    • G06V40/1306Sensors therefor non-optical, e.g. ultrasonic or capacitive sensing
    • AHUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61BDIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B5/00Measuring for diagnostic purposes; Identification of persons
    • A61B5/117Identification of persons
    • A61B5/1171Identification of persons based on the shapes or appearances of their bodies or parts thereof
    • A61B5/1172Identification of persons based on the shapes or appearances of their bodies or parts thereof using fingerprinting
    • AHUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61BDIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B8/00Diagnosis using ultrasonic, sonic or infrasonic waves
    • A61B8/08Detecting organic movements or changes, e.g. tumours, cysts, swellings
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N2291/00Indexing codes associated with group G01N29/00
    • G01N2291/02Indexing codes associated with the analysed material
    • G01N2291/024Mixtures
    • G01N2291/02466Biological material, e.g. blood
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N2291/00Indexing codes associated with group G01N29/00
    • G01N2291/04Wave modes and trajectories
    • G01N2291/044Internal reflections (echoes), e.g. on walls or defects
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01NINVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIR CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
    • G01N2291/00Indexing codes associated with group G01N29/00
    • G01N2291/10Number of transducers
    • G01N2291/106Number of transducers one or more transducer arrays

Abstract

An acoustic pulse array is described. The pulse array may include a plane wave pulse generator having a first side from which a first wave emanates, and a second side from which a second wave emanates. A first waveguide array may be attached to the generator on the first side of the generator, and a second waveguide array may be attached to a second side of the generator. One or more of the waveguides may be attached to the generator so as to orient the waveguide to transmit wave pulses in a direction that is substantially perpendicular to the generator.

Description

LONGITUDINAL PULSE WAVE ARRAY

Cross-Reference to Related Application This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. provisional patent application serial number 60/914,203, filed on April 26, 2007.

Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an acoustic pulse array and, more specifically, to a flat panel acoustic pulse array employing piezoelectric pulse generating means. In this document the term "acoustic" is used to refer to a longitudinal wave, such as an ultrasound wave, even though the wave may not be audible.

Background of the Invention Existing acoustic imaging systems make use of single-pixel-scanning techniques and phased array techniques. These techniques result in imaging systems that are bulky and cumbersome.

Summary of the Invention The invention may be embodied as an acoustic pulse array. The pulse array may include a plane wave pulse generator (sometimes referred to herein as an "acoustic wave generator") having a first side from which a first wave emanates, and a second side from which a second wave emanates. A first waveguide array may be attached to the generator on the first side of the generator, and a second waveguide array may be attached to a second side of the generator. One or more of the waveguides may be attached to the generator so as to orient the waveguide to transmit wave pulses in a direction that is substantially perpendicular to the acoustic wave generator.

The acoustic wave generator may include a piezoelectric film and two electrodes. A
first one of the electrodes may be bonded to a first side of the film, and may substantially cover a first side of the film. A second one of the electrodes may be bonded to a second side of the film and may substantially cover a second side of the film. The first waveguide array may be attached to the first electrode, and/or the second waveguide array may be attached to the second electrode.

Each waveguide array may be comprised of a plurality of waveguides, each waveguide having a core material and cladding material. Within a waveguide array, the cladding material of one waveguide may be fused with the cladding material of another waveguide. The core and cladding material may be selected so that acoustic energy may be conveyed using internal reflection within a waveguide.

An acoustic pulse array according to the invention may be used to produce and send acoustic energy toward a target object where some of the energy is reflected by the target object. The reflected acoustic energy may be guided by the waveguide arrays to a detector, which may have an appropriate number of acoustic energy receiving elements. In doing so, crosstalk between waveguides in an array, signal loss from a waveguide array, and interference from outside the waveguide array may be minimized. At the detector, the acoustic energy may be converted to an electric signal, and that electric signal may be used to create a grayscale image.

Brief Description Of The Drawings For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the invention, reference should be made to the accompanying drawings and the subsequent description. Briefly, the drawings are:

Figure 1 is an exploded perspective view of an acoustic pulse array that is in keeping with the invention;

Figure 2A is a top view of an acoustic pulse array that is in keeping with the invention;

Figure 2B is a side view of the acoustic pulse array depicted in Figure 2A;
Figure 2C is an enlarged view of a portion of the acoustic pulse array depicted in Figure 2A;

Figure 3A shows a side-view of an acoustic waveguide;

Figure 3B shows an end-view of the acoustic waveguide depicted in Figure 3A;
and Figure 4 is a schematic representation showing the travel of a single element pulse at different times and different fibers within the acoustic pulse array. Also shown are a target object and an acoustic detector array that can receive the acoustic pulses.

Further Description of the Invention Figure 1 shows components of an acoustic pulse array 10 that is in keeping with the invention. A piezoelectric film 13 may be positioned between a first electrode 16 and a second electrode 19. The piezoelectric film 13 may be polyvinylidenefluoride ("PVDF") polymer or polyvinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene ("PVDF-TrFE") and the electrodes 16, 19 may be metalized films of silver, indium-tin-oxide, chrome-gold, gold or some other conductive material. The electrodes 16, 19 may be vacuum sputtered to the piezoelectric film 13. The combination of the piezoelectric film 13 and the electrodes 16, 19 is referred to herein as acoustic wave generator ("AWG") 22. The AWG 22 may be positioned between a first waveguide array 25 and a second waveguide array 28. Each waveguide array 25, 28 has the ability to convey acoustic energy from one side of the array to another side of the array.
The waveguide arrays 25, 28 may be attached to the AWG 22 by an adhesive 30, such as epoxy or cyanoacrylate, residing between the waveguide arrays 25, 28 and their respective electrodes 16, 19, or by squeezing the AWG 22 together by simple compression or clamping.

By placing the AWG 22 between two waveguide arrays 25, 28, the AWG 22 (and particularly the piezoelectric film 13) is reinforced. Without such reinforcement, creation of the pulses may be unbalanced, and the AWG 22 will create a signal having a frequency that is half the frequency at which the AWG 22 is oscillating. For example, if the AWG
22 is attached to only a single waveguide array and the film 13 is oscillated at 30 MHz, the frequency of the signal emanating toward a target object 31 would be 15 MHz.
But, by attaching the AWG 22 to two waveguide arrays 25, 28, the piezoelectric film 13 will produce a 30 MHz signal emanating toward a target object 31.

Each waveguide array 25, 28 may be comprised of a plurality of waveguides 34.
Figures 2A, 2B and 2C depict a waveguide array, and Figures 3A and 3B depict a waveguide 34. Each waveguide 34 may be thought of as a fiber having a core material 37 and a cladding material 40. The core materia137 and cladding materia140 are selected to have different abilities to transmit acoustic waves. The core material 37 is selected to have an acoustic wave transmission velocity that is substantially higher than the acoustic wave transmission velocity in the cladding material 40. For example, the core may be polystyrene and the cladding may be optical grade polymethylmethacrylate. As such, an acoustic wave traveling through the acoustic waveguide is conducted by means of total internal reflection at the interface of the two different materials 37, 40. Taken together, these two materials 37, 40 function as a coherent acoustic waveguide, and a plurality of such waveguides 34 may be combined to form a plate of waveguides, i.e., an array 25, 28 of acoustic waveguide elements.

With reference to Figure 4, when the AWG 22 issues an ultrasonic pulse of energy, the first waveguide array 25 conducts ultrasonic energy from a first side 43 of the first waveguide array 25, through the individual acoustic waveguide elements 34 to the second side 46 of the first waveguide array 25. When the ultrasonic energy reaches the second side 46 of the first waveguide array 25, the energy is provided to a target object 31, such as a finger having a fingerprint. Some of the energy may continue on or be scattered and the balance will be reflected back through the fibers 34 of the first waveguide array 25, where the reflected energy passes through the AWG 22 and enters the second waveguide array 28. The reflected ultrasonic energy will be conducted from a first side 49 of the second waveguide array 28, via the waveguide elements 34 of the second waveguide array 28, to a second side 52 of the second waveguide array 28. At this point the reflected acoustic energy being emitted from the second side 52 of the second waveguide array 28 may be detected by a suitable acoustic detector 55 that may be fixed relative to the acoustic pulse array 10.

It should be noted that some of the ultrasonic energy produced by the AWG 22 will pass into the waveguide arrays 25, 28, but not into the cores 37 of the waveguide elements 34. For example, the acoustic energy that does not enter the core 37 of a waveguide element 34 may enter the cladding 40 of a waveguide element 34, or another material that is used to hold the waveguide elements 34 to each other. Energy that does not travel through the core materia137 may be absorbed, diffused and/or dissipated, where it will not be available to interfere with the primary energy pulse and echoes that travel within the acoustic waveguide fibers 34 (i.e. along the core material 37).

To cause the AWG 22 to produce an ultrasonic pulse, an electric field may be created between the electrodes 16, 19. This causes the piezoelectric film 13 to generate a pair of pulses 58, 61 of acoustic energy. The two pulses 58, 61 initially travel in different directions - a first one of the pulses 58 travels toward the first waveguide array 25 and a second one of the pulses 61 travels toward the second waveguide array 28. The second acoustic pulse 61, which contains no useful information about the target 31, arrives at the detector 55 and may be ignored by the acoustic detector array 55. The first acoustic pulse 58 travels through the first waveguide array 25 until it reaches the target object 31 or is reflected back by some other surface. The target object 31 may be the friction ridge surface of a finger. The reflected energy 64 travels back through the first waveguide array 25, passes through the two electrodes 16, 19 and the piezoelectric film 13, and then through the second waveguide array 28. The reflected pulse energy 64 provided by the second waveguide array 28 is then received by the detector 31, where the reflected pulse energy 64 may be converted to an electrical signal, such as a voltage signal, which may then be processed by electric circuits that monitor the acoustic detector array. The electric signal may be used to create an image of the object that reflected the energy.

Although the present invention has been described with respect to one or more particular embodiments, it will be understood that other embodiments of the present invention may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Hence, the present invention is deemed limited only by the appended claims and the reasonable interpretation thereof.

Claims (9)

1. A pulse array, comprising:
a plane wave pulse generator having a first side from which a first wave emanates, and a second side from which a second wave emanates;
a first waveguide array attached to the generator on the first side; and a second waveguide array attached to the generator on the second side.
2. The pulse array of claim 1, wherein the generator includes a piezoelectric film.
3. The pulse array of claim 2, wherein the generator includes an electrode substantially covering a side of the piezoelectric film.
4. The pulse array of claim 3, wherein the first waveguide array is attached to the electrode by an adhesive.
5. The pulse array of claim 2, wherein the generator includes a first electrode substantially covering a first side of the film, and a second electrode substantially covering a second side of the film.
6. The pulse array of claim 5, wherein the first waveguide array is attached to the first electrode, and the second waveguide array is attached to the second electrode.
7. The pulse array of claim 2, wherein the first waveguide array is oriented to transmit wave pulses from the generator in a direction that is substantially perpendicular to the piezoelectric film.
8. The pulse array of claim 1, wherein the first waveguide array is comprised of a plurality of waveguides, each waveguide having a core material and cladding material.
9. The pulse array of claim 8, wherein the cladding material of one waveguide has been fused with the cladding of another waveguide.
CA002685039A 2007-04-26 2008-04-28 Longitudinal pulse wave array Abandoned CA2685039A1 (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US91420307P 2007-04-26 2007-04-26
US60/914,203 2007-04-26
PCT/US2008/061778 WO2008134639A1 (en) 2007-04-26 2008-04-28 Longitudinal pulse wave array

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
CA2685039A1 true CA2685039A1 (en) 2008-11-06

Family

ID=39926110

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
CA002685039A Abandoned CA2685039A1 (en) 2007-04-26 2008-04-28 Longitudinal pulse wave array

Country Status (3)

Country Link
CA (1) CA2685039A1 (en)
GB (1) GB2461837B (en)
WO (1) WO2008134639A1 (en)

Families Citing this family (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US9911911B2 (en) 2010-06-01 2018-03-06 Qualcomm Incorporated Multiple electrode plane wave generator

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPH0961858A (en) * 1995-08-28 1997-03-07 Minolta Co Ltd Acousto-optic optical scanner
US5828394A (en) * 1995-09-20 1998-10-27 The Board Of Trustees Of The Leland Stanford Junior University Fluid drop ejector and method
US7037268B1 (en) * 1999-03-01 2006-05-02 Medacoustics, Inc. Low profile acoustic sensor arry and sensors with pleated transmission lines and related methods
CA2406684A1 (en) * 2001-10-05 2003-04-05 Queen's University At Kingston Ultrasound transducer array
JP3867716B2 (en) * 2004-06-18 2007-01-10 セイコーエプソン株式会社 Ultrasonic transducer, ultrasonic speaker, and drive control method for ultrasonic transducer

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB2461837B (en) 2011-12-14
WO2008134639A1 (en) 2008-11-06
GB2461837A (en) 2010-01-20
GB0920682D0 (en) 2010-01-13

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Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
EEER Examination request

Effective date: 20130422

FZDE Discontinued

Effective date: 20150119