CN213189711U

CN213189711U - Portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system

Info

Publication number: CN213189711U
Application number: CN202020369681.XU
Authority: CN
Inventors: 吴小臻; ***; 林晓明
Original assignee: Guangdong University of Technology
Current assignee: Guangdong University of Technology
Priority date: 2020-03-20
Filing date: 2020-03-20
Publication date: 2021-05-14
Anticipated expiration: 2030-03-20

Abstract

The utility model discloses a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system, keep apart module, supersound echo receiving module, host system including ultrasonic probe module, array element gating module, the receiving and dispatching that connects gradually the electricity, still include the high-voltage pulse generation module who is connected with array element gating module and host system electricity respectively, and with the power control module that each module electricity was all connected in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system. The utility model builds the front-end circuit system in a high integration mode, realizes the reduction of the scale of the ultrasonic imaging front-end system and ensures the stability of the ultrasonic imaging front-end system; meanwhile, the front-end system is separated from the terminal display device, the terminal display device can adopt an intelligent mobile terminal, the scale of the ultrasonic imaging device is greatly reduced, and the portability of the ultrasonic imaging device is improved.

Description

Portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system

Technical Field

The utility model relates to an ultrasonic imaging equipment technical field especially relates to a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

Background

The medical ultrasonic imaging technology, the X-ray diagnostic technology, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and the nuclear medicine imaging are called as the modern four medical imaging technologies, are widely applied to the examination and diagnosis of human tissue and organ diseases, and play an important role in the field of clinical medicine. The basic principle of ultrasonic imaging is that ultrasonic waves are transmitted to an inspection part, the ultrasonic waves are reflected and refracted in a human body, then reflected sound wave signals are received, and after digital processing and image processing, the organization structure of a detected detection area of the human body is displayed through a two-dimensional image.

The existing ultrasonic imaging front-end system mainly comprises a high-voltage pulse generating circuit, a transmitting-receiving isolating circuit, an echo signal receiving circuit and a main control chip circuit. The front-end circuit of the traditional medical ultrasonic imaging diagnostic equipment usually utilizes discrete components to build a transmitting circuit and a receiving circuit of front-end ultrasonic waves, and the scale of the front-end circuit is larger for a relatively complex ultrasonic system. The ultrasonic imaging equipment commonly used in hospitals is basically large-scale equipment, is inconvenient to carry, and has long development period and high research and development cost. Some notebook type ultrasonic imaging systems are also available in the market, the portability degree is improved, and the whole volume is still larger because the terminal display is connected with the front end system. For a power supply system of equipment, the traditional power supply input is connected with the mains supply of +220V, but the equipment is limited to use in places without a power system.

To sum up, the existing ultrasonic imaging equipment has the problems of large volume and low convenience degree.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The utility model discloses a solve current ultrasonic imaging equipment and have the volume great, problem that convenient degree is low provides a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

In order to realize the purpose of the utility model, the technical means adopted is as follows:

the utility model provides a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system, is including the ultrasonic probe module, array element gating module, the isolation module of receiving and dispatching, supersound echo receiving module, the host system that connect gradually the electricity, still include respectively with array element gating module and the high-voltage pulse generation module of host system electricity connection, and with the power control module that each module electricity was all connected in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

In the scheme, the transducer realizes the mutual conversion of ultrasonic signals and electric signals through the ultrasonic probe module; different array elements in the ultrasonic probe module are connected with the high-voltage pulse channel through the array element gating module; high-voltage pulses are generated through a high-voltage pulse generation module, and the array elements in the ultrasonic probe module are excited after passing through an array element gating module, so that ultrasonic signals are generated; the high-voltage pulse signal of the ultrasonic transmitting end in the ultrasonic probe module and the low-voltage signal of the echo receiving end are isolated through the transceiving isolation module, so that a circuit of the receiving end is not interfered by the signal of the transmitting end; the receiving and preprocessing of echo signals are realized through an ultrasonic echo receiving module, the process involves the amplification, filtering and A/D conversion of the signals, and digital signals after A/D conversion need to be transmitted to a main control module for subsequent data processing; the control of the modules is realized through the main control module, the echo data transmitted by the ultrasonic echo receiving module is received and processed, the digital beam forming work is completed, and the main control module can be externally connected with a terminal display device through a serial port or a wireless communication mode. The portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system of the scheme controls the power supply of each module through the power control module.

According to the scheme, the front-end circuit system is built in a high-integration mode, so that the scale of the ultrasonic imaging front-end system is reduced, and the stability of the ultrasonic imaging front-end system is ensured; meanwhile, the front-end system is separated from the terminal display device, the terminal display device can adopt an intelligent mobile terminal, the scale of the ultrasonic imaging device is greatly reduced, and the portability of the ultrasonic imaging device is improved.

Preferably, the power control module comprises a lithium battery and a DC-DC boost chip and/or a DC-DC buck chip electrically connected with the lithium battery, and the DC-DC boost chip and/or the DC-DC buck chip are used as the output end of the power control module. In this preferred scheme, adopt the lithium cell to supply power as external power source, guarantee that the ultrasonic imaging front-end system of this scheme can not receive the influence of environmental factor when using. Compared with the existing scheme of adopting a transformer, the volume and the weight of the circuit board are greatly reduced, and meanwhile, the additional arrangement of a corresponding peripheral circuit for voltage stabilization and filtering is avoided.

Preferably, the power control module specifically comprises a 3.6v lithium battery, a DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8361, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8471 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, and a DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LT8471, wherein the DC-DC conversion chip LT8361 and the DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 are respectively used as power output ends of the power control module. In the preferred scheme, firstly +3.6V is boosted to +12V through the DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, then +12V is boosted to +/-70V through the DC-DC conversion chip LT8361, the logic power supply voltages of the main control module and other modules include +/-5V, +3.3V, +2.5V and +1.2V, and similarly through two-stage DC-DC buck conversion, firstly the +12V is reduced to +/-5V through the DC-DC conversion chip LT8471, and then the +5V is reduced to +3.3V, +2.5V and +1.2V respectively through the DC-DC conversion chip LM 3671.

Preferably, the ultrasonic probe module comprises an ultrasonic probe comprising a plurality of array elements, wherein the excitation signal of the array elements is a high-voltage pulse signal.

Preferably, the ultrasonic probe module adopts a linear array probe comprising 128 array elements, and 16 array elements form a sub-array, wherein the nth to nth +15 array elements form an nth sub-array, and n is a positive integer 113 ≧ n ≧ 1. In the preferred scheme, in order to avoid that the ultrasonic wave transmitting intensity is not enough and the echo signal is difficult to receive, the array elements adopt a combined excitation mode. The 128 array elements of the ultrasonic probe module form 113 sub-arrays, and the 113 sub-arrays are sequentially excited, so that the excitation of all the array elements in the linear array probe can be realized.

Preferably, a 16-channel high-voltage analog switch chip HV2701 is adopted in the array element gating module, a high-voltage pulse generation chip HV7331 is adopted in the high-voltage pulse generation module, an ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE5805 is adopted in the ultrasonic echo receiving module, an Altera FPGA is adopted in the main control module, and an isolation chip MD0105 is adopted in the transceiving isolation module. In the preferred embodiment, the high-voltage pulse generation chip HV7331 can generate a 4-channel high-voltage pulse signal, the high voltage can reach ± 70V, and the ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE5805 integrates a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), a Voltage Control Attenuator (VCA), a Programmable Gain Amplifier (PGA), a Low Pass Filter (LPF), and an a/D converter therein; the isolation chip MD0105 can isolate voltage signals larger than 2.0V and only allow low-voltage signals smaller than 2V to pass through; the total chip pin count of the Altera FPGA is 484. Since 16 array elements need to be excited at the same time in this scheme, 16 high-voltage pulse channels and echo receiving channels are adopted in this example, that is, 4 pieces of 4-channel high-voltage pulse generation chips HV7331 and 2 pieces of 8-channel ultrasonic analog front-end chips AFE5805, and 8 pieces of 16-channel high-voltage analog switch chips HV2701 are needed.

Compared with the prior art, the utility model discloses technical scheme's beneficial effect is:

the utility model builds the front-end circuit system by adopting a chip with high integration level, thereby realizing the reduction of the scale of the ultrasonic imaging front-end system and ensuring the stability thereof; adopt the lithium cell to supply power as external power source, ensure this the utility model discloses an ultrasonic imaging front-end system can not receive environmental factor's influence when using. Compared with the existing scheme of adopting a transformer, the volume and the weight of the circuit board are greatly reduced, and meanwhile, the additional arrangement of a corresponding peripheral circuit for voltage stabilization and filtering is avoided. And simultaneously the utility model discloses a front end system realize with terminal display device's separation, terminal display device can adopt intelligent mobile terminal, reduces ultrasonic imaging equipment's scale by a wide margin, improves its portability.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to embodiment 1.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to embodiment 2.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of a power control module in embodiment 2.

Fig. 4 is a circuit configuration diagram of an array element gating module in embodiment 2.

Fig. 5 is a circuit configuration diagram of a high voltage pulse generation module in embodiment 2.

Fig. 6 is a circuit configuration diagram of an ultrasonic echo receiving module in embodiment 2.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a line array probe array element combined excitation mode in embodiment 2.

Fig. 8 is a workflow diagram of the portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to embodiment 2.

Detailed Description

The drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be construed as limiting the patent;

for the purpose of better illustrating the embodiments, certain features of the drawings may be omitted, enlarged or reduced, and do not represent the size of an actual product;

it will be understood by those skilled in the art that certain well-known structures in the drawings and descriptions thereof may be omitted.

The technical solution of the present invention will be further explained with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples.

Example 1

This embodiment 1 provides a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system, as shown in fig. 1, including ultrasonic probe module 1, array element gating module 2, transceiver isolation module 5, ultrasonic echo receiving module 6, the host system 4 that connect electrically in proper order, still include respectively with array element gating module 2 and the high-voltage pulse generation module 3 that host system 4 is connected electrically, and with the power control module 7 that all modules are all connected electrically in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

In the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system, a sensor for realizing the mutual conversion of ultrasonic signals and electric signals through an ultrasonic probe module 1; different array elements in the ultrasonic probe module 1 are connected with a high-voltage pulse channel through the array element gating module 2; high-voltage pulses are generated through a high-voltage pulse generation module 3, and the array elements in the ultrasonic probe module 1 are excited after passing through an array element gating module 2, so that ultrasonic signals are generated; the high-voltage pulse signal of the ultrasonic transmitting end in the ultrasonic probe module 1 and the low-voltage signal of the echo receiving end are isolated by the transceiving isolation module 5, so that the circuit of the receiving end is not interfered by the signal of the transmitting end; the receiving and preprocessing of echo signals are realized through the ultrasonic echo receiving module 6, the process involves the amplification, filtering and A/D conversion of signals, and digital signals after A/D conversion are required to be transmitted to the main control module 4 for subsequent data processing; the control of the modules is realized through the main control module 4, the echo data transmitted by the ultrasonic echo receiving module 6 is received and processed, the digital beam forming work is completed, and the main control module 4 can be externally connected with a terminal display device through a serial port or a wireless communication mode. And the power supply control module 7 is used for controlling the power supply of other modules in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

Example 2

This embodiment 2 provides a portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system, as shown in fig. 2, including ultrasonic probe module 1, array element gating module 2, transceiver isolation module 5, ultrasonic echo receiving module 6, the host system 4 that connect electrically in proper order, still include respectively with array element gating module 2 and the high-voltage pulse generation module 3 that the host system 4 electricity is connected, and with the power control module 7 that all modules are all connected electrically in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

As shown in fig. 4 to 6, a 16-channel high-voltage analog switch chip HV2701 is adopted in the array element gating module 2, a high-voltage pulse generation chip HV7331 is adopted in the high-voltage pulse generation module 3, an ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE5805 is adopted in the ultrasonic echo receiving module 6, an Altera FPGA is adopted in the main control module 4, and an isolation chip MD0105 is adopted in the transceiving isolation module 5. The ultrasonic probe module 1 adopts a linear array probe comprising 128 array elements, the array elements adopt a combined excitation mode, and excitation signals of the array elements are high-voltage pulse signals. In this embodiment, 16 array elements form a sub-array, where the nth to nth +15 array elements form an nth sub-array, and n is a positive integer 113 ≧ n ≧ 1. That is, the 1 st to 16 th array elements are the 1 st subarray, the 2 nd to 17 th array elements are the 2 nd subarray, the 3 rd to 18 th array elements are the 3 rd subarray, and so on, the 113 th to 128 th array elements are the 113 th subarrays. And sequentially exciting 113 sub-arrays, thereby realizing the excitation of all array elements in the ultrasonic probe 1, wherein the excitation mode of the array elements is shown in fig. 7.

As shown in fig. 3, the power control module 7 specifically includes a 3.6v lithium battery, a DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8361, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8471 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, and a DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LT8471, where the DC-DC conversion chip LT8361 and the DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 are respectively used as power output ends of the power control module 7. Because the external power supply mode in this embodiment is designed according to the lithium battery +3.6V power supply voltage, the high-voltage pulse generation circuit needs a voltage of nearly one hundred volts to supply power (the specific voltage value is related to the inherent characteristics of the array elements in the probe). If the scheme that adopts the transformer to boost, the volume and the weight of circuit board must increase, back to the back with the convenience to adopt the voltage after the transformer boosts, still need corresponding peripheral circuit to carry out steady voltage and filtering. Therefore, in the embodiment, the above two-stage boosting scheme is adopted to boost the voltage of +3.6V to ± 70V, that is, the voltage of +3.6V is first boosted to +12V through the DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, then the voltage of +12V is boosted to ± 70V through the DC-DC conversion chip LT8361, the logic power supply voltages of the Altera FPGA and other modules include ± 5V, +3.3V, +2.5V and +1.2V, and similarly, through the two-stage DC-DC buck conversion, the voltage of +12V is first reduced to ± 5V through the DC-DC conversion chip LT8471, and then the voltage of +5V is reduced to +3.3V, +2.5V and +1.2V through the DC-DC conversion chip LM3671, thereby implementing the power supply scheme of the whole ultrasound imaging front-end system.

As shown in fig. 8, the working process of the portable ultrasound imaging front-end system provided by this embodiment is as follows:

the method comprises the steps of firstly carrying out SPI communication with a high-voltage analog switch chip HV2701 through a main control module 4Altera FPGA, connecting 16 array elements in a 1 st sub-array with a high-voltage pulse channel, then controlling a high-voltage pulse generation chip HV7331 to generate bipolar pulses with the pulse width of 80ns, wherein the pulse amplitude is +/-70V, and exciting pulse signals last for two periods. The ultrasonic wave generated by the array elements close to the measured area arrives at first inevitably, so that ultrasonic signals generated by different array elements can interfere with each other and are difficult to arrive at the aim of enhancing the ultrasonic signals by multi-array element combination excitation, therefore, the time delay of excitation among the array elements is calculated, and the acoustic signals generated by the array elements reach the measured area exactly at the same time. After the excitation of the subarray elements is completed, the reception of echo signals is carried out, the echo signals are also converted into electric signals through the array elements in the ultrasonic probe 1, the electric signals pass through the high-voltage analog switch chip HV2701 and the isolation chip MD0105 and then enter the ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE5805, the signals are subjected to preprocessing operations such as amplification and filtering through the ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE5805, then the electric signals are converted into digital signals through the 12-bit ADC in the ultrasonic analog front-end chip AFE, and finally the echo data are transmitted to the RAM in the Altera FPGA in the form of LVDS data to be stored. Thus, the excitation of one group of array elements and the reception of echo data are completed, and then the excitation of the next group of array elements and the reception of echo data are performed again, and when the reception of the echo data of a total of 113 groups of array elements is completed, the data reception of 1 frame of image is completed.

The Altera FPGA can relate to the process of digital beam forming when receiving and processing echo data, because different array elements do not receive echo signals of a detected area at the same time, and the data received by the different array elements have certain time delay in a time domain, when 16-channel echo signals are integrated into 1-channel signals, the signals can not be simply superposed and summed, but the time delay time of each channel needs to be calculated, so that the information is synchronous in the time domain, and the data after time delay and superposition processing is more accurate.

The terms describing positional relationships in the drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be construed as limiting the patent;

it is obvious that the above embodiments of the present invention are only examples for clearly illustrating the present invention, and are not limitations to the embodiments of the present invention. Other variations and modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art in light of the above description. And are neither required nor exhaustive of all embodiments. Any modification, equivalent replacement, and improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. The portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system is characterized by comprising an ultrasonic probe module, an array element gating module, a transceiving isolation module, an ultrasonic echo receiving module and a main control module which are sequentially and electrically connected, a high-voltage pulse generation module which is respectively and electrically connected with the array element gating module and the main control module, and a power control module which is electrically connected with all the modules in the portable ultrasonic imaging front-end system.

2. The portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to claim 1, wherein the power control module comprises a lithium battery and a DC-DC boost chip and/or a DC-DC buck chip electrically connected thereto as an output of the power control module.

3. The portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to claim 1, wherein the power control module specifically comprises a 3.6v lithium battery, a DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8361, a DC-DC conversion chip LT8471 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LTC3124, and a DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 electrically connected to the DC-DC conversion chip LT8471, which are electrically connected in sequence, and the DC-DC conversion chip LT8361 and the DC-DC conversion chip LM3671 are respectively used as power output ends of the power control module.

4. The portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to claim 1, wherein the ultrasound probe module comprises an ultrasound probe comprising a plurality of array elements, wherein excitation signals of the array elements are high voltage pulse signals.

5. The portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to claim 1, wherein the ultrasound probe module employs a linear array probe including 128 array elements, and 16 array elements form a sub-array, wherein n-th to n +15 array elements form an nth sub-array, and n is a positive integer 113 ≧ n ≧ 1.

6. The portable ultrasound imaging front-end system according to claim 1, wherein a 16-channel high-voltage analog switch chip HV2701 is adopted in the array element gating module, a high-voltage pulse generation chip HV7331 is adopted in the high-voltage pulse generation module, an ultrasound analog front-end chip AFE5805 is adopted in the ultrasound echo receiving module, an Altera FPGA is adopted in the main control module, and an isolation chip MD0105 is adopted in the transceiving isolation module.