US 12,220,283 B2
Ultrasound imaging apparatus, signal processor, and signal processing method
Chizue Tanaka, Chiba (JP); Misaki Maruyama, Chiba (JP); Teiichiro Ikeda, Chiba (JP); and Kazuhiro Amino, Chiba (JP)
Assigned to FUJIFILM Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
Filed by FUJIFILM Healthcare Corporation, Kashiwa (JP)
Filed on Jun. 22, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/846,928.
Claims priority of application No. 2021-106840 (JP), filed on Jun. 28, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0409185 A1, Dec. 29, 2022
Int. Cl. A61B 8/00 (2006.01); G01S 7/53 (2006.01); G01S 7/58 (2006.01); G01S 15/89 (2006.01)
CPC A61B 8/585 (2013.01) [A61B 8/4488 (2013.01); A61B 8/5207 (2013.01); A61B 8/54 (2013.01); G01S 7/53 (2013.01); G01S 7/58 (2013.01); G01S 15/89 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An ultrasound imaging apparatus comprising:
a receiver configured to receive signals outputted in time series from a plurality of ultrasound transducers that have received an ultrasound wave from a subject irradiated with the ultrasound wave;
a feature value detector configured to calculate from the received signals, a feature value indicating a frequency-dependent characteristic of attenuation of the ultrasound wave, associated with propagation of the ultrasound wave through the subject;
a signal-image processor configured to execute a predetermined process on the received signals, using one or more received-signal processing parameters to generate an image, and to perform an image processing on thus generated image, using one or more image processing parameters; and
a controller configured to set values of the received-signal processing parameter and the image processing parameter used by the signal-image processor, to execute processing,
wherein the controller comprises a parameter determiner that determines a value or values of one or more parameters among the received-signal processing parameters and the image processing parameters, on the basis of the feature value calculated by the feature value detector, the parameter determiner comprising
a feature value storage memory configured to store the feature value,
a difference calculator configured to read the feature value of a previous time or earlier from the feature value storage memory and to calculate a difference between the read feature value and the feature value calculated by the feature value detector this time,
a feature value corrector configured to correct the feature value of this time, when the difference is greater than a predefined first threshold, and
a selector configured to select a corresponding parameter value from predetermined parameter values, using the feature value corrected by the feature value corrector.