Ultrasound diagnosis apparatus for self-diagnosis and remote-diagnosis, and method of operating the ultrasound diagnosis apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2019200955-A1
Application number	US-201916294412-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 6, 2019
Priority date	Aug 28, 2014
Publication date	Jul 4, 2019
Grant date	—

Abstract

An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus and method enabling general users to easily acquire ultrasound images even when the users are unskilled at using ultrasound diagnosis apparatuses, including a probe comprising an analog front-end controller, an analog-to-digital converter, a field-programmable gate array, and a communication module, the probe being configured to acquire ultrasound data of an object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus comprising:
a probe comprising an analog front-end controller, an analog-to-digital converter, a field-programmable gate array, and a communication module, the probe being configured to acquire ultrasound data of an object; an image generation unit configured to generate an ultrasound image of the object by using the ultrasound data; a probe location acquisition unit configured to acquire a location of the probe on the object; a display unit configured to display the location of the probe and a reference location on an image representing the object; and a control unit configured to determine whether the location of the probe corresponds to the reference location.

2 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a storage unit configured to map a plurality of locations of the probe with a plurality of reference ultrasound images and store a result of the mapping,
wherein the probe location acquisition unit compares the ultrasound image with the plurality of reference ultrasound images, selects one from among the plurality of reference ultrasound images based on a result of the comparison, and acquires a location corresponding to the selected reference ultrasound image as the location of the probe.

3 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a photographing unit configured to photograph the probe and the object, wherein the probe location acquisition unit detects an area corresponding to the probe and an area corresponding to the object from an image captured by photographing the probe and the object, and acquires the location of the probe based on a location of the area corresponding to the probe with respect to the area corresponding to the object.

4 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , wherein when it is determined that the location of the probe does not correspond to the reference location, the control unit determines a movement path to be taken by the probe to move to the reference location, and the display unit displays the movement path from the location of the probe to the reference location on the image representing the object.

5 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when the location of the probe corresponds to the reference location, the control unit controls the display unit to display an image representing that the location of the probe corresponds to the reference location.

6 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , wherein, when the location of the probe corresponds to the reference location, the control unit controls the probe to transmit an ultrasound signal to the object and receive an echo signal from the object to acquire the ultrasound data.

7 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a communication unit configured to transmit the ultrasound image to an external device when the location of the probe corresponds to the reference location.

8 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an input unit configured to receive a user input of selecting at least one location from among a plurality of locations on the object, wherein the control unit determines the selected location as the reference location.

9 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a communication unit configured to receive, from an external device, information that is used to determine the reference location, wherein the control unit determines the reference location based on the received information.

10 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a communication unit configured to transmit at least one selected from the location of the probe, the reference location, the ultrasound image, and an image displayed on the display unit to an external device.

11 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the communication unit receives information that is used to generate the ultrasound image, from the external device, and the control unit controls at least one selected from the probe and the image generation unit, based on the received information.

12 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the analog front-end controller comprises a pulser, a switch configured to switch between a transmit mode and a receive mode, and a time gain compensation receiver.

13 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the analog-to-digital converter comprises a multiplexer and a low voltage differential channel.

14 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the analog front-end controller comprises a 128 channel analog front-end controller and the analog-to-digital converter comprises a 128 channel analog-to-digital converter.

15 . The ultrasound diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the analog front-end controller, the analog-to-digital converter, and the field-programmable gate array are integrated on a single printed circuit board.

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Ryu Jae-Young
• Kim Dong-Ki
• Kim Young-Hwan
• Seo Min-Woo
• Lee Jei-Young

Classifications

• A61B8/565

  involving data transmission via a network · CPC title

• G16H40/63

  for local operation · CPC title

• A61B8/14

  Echo-tomography · CPC title

• A61B8/463

  characterised by displaying multiple images or images and diagnostic data on one display · CPC title

• A61B8/5223

  for extracting a diagnostic or physiological parameter from medical diagnostic data (for algorithms to analyse biomedical images G06T7/0012) · CPC title