Development of a Low-Cost Medical Ultrasound Scanner Using a Monostatic Synthetic Aperture

Heuvel, Thomas L. A. van den; Graham, David J.; Smith, K. J.; Korte, Chris L. de; Neasham, Jeffrey

doi:10.1109/tbcas.2017.2695240

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The piezoelectric step-up converter analysis is set up with an energetic approach for a resistive load RL. The model is based on three principles defining the converter operation: energy balance (1), charge balance (2), and ZVS equations (3)- (5). Indeed (3), ( 4) and ( 5) guarantee that the voltage across respectively kin, k3 and kout is null when they are turn on (at respectively t1, t3 and t5) and that the cycle described in Fig.…”

Section: A Model Without Lossesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ITH the significant progress of the manufacturing processes in the last decades, piezoelectric materials have become increasingly performing and widely used [1]. Indeed, piezoelectric direct and reverse effects are present in numerous and various applications like sonar systems, energy harvesting, ultrasound scanner for health care, and power electronics converters [2]- [5]. In power electronics, piezoelectric elements enable to have a high power density, a thin and planar geometry, low EMI radiations, an excellent efficiency; moreover, they can be integrated on silicon more easily than popular wire wound magnetic components.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A New Non-Isolated Low-Power Inductorless Piezoelectric DC–DC Converter

Pollet

Despesse

Costa

2019

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

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A new non-isolated low-power inductorless piezoelectric resonant converter is presented. The piezoelectric material is used as an energy storage element like an inductance in a classical Buck-Boost power electronic converter. As opposed to most existing piezoelectric converters, the proposed topology enables to dynamically adjust the output power and ratio keeping a high efficiency for a large range of output powers and for a large range of conversion ratios taking advantage of piezoelectric high quality factor and achieving zero voltage switching. A theoretical analysis of the step-up converter using an energetic approach is introduced and enables a fast and reliable pre-design of the piezoelectric component. This analysis is in perfect agreement with the simulation model performed on Matlab/Simulink. For a given piezoelectric resonator both analytical and simulation models provide very high efficiencies for different output powers. The converter is tested experimentally with a 10 V input voltage using the piezoelectric radial resonance mode. An efficiency higher than 98% for a 160 mW power conversion was achieved, decreasing slowly to 78% at 1.4 W. For a large range of voltage gains, the efficiency remains higher than 90% up to an output power of 750 mW. The experimental results are in perfect agreement with the theoretical analysis until 500 mW.

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Section: A Model Without Lossesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Non-Isolated Low-Power Inductorless Piezoelectric DC–DC Converter

Pollet

Despesse

Costa

2019

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

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“…They typically provide up to 256 independent channels, which are sufficient for flexibly controlling 1-D linear, convex, or phased arrays. These arrays were used to introduce groundbreaking methods such as high-frame-rate B-mode [2] and Doppler [3], [4] imaging, and also to promote 3-D imaging by mechanical scans, although at very low volume rates [5]- [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Architecture for an Ultrasound Advanced Open Platform With an Arbitrary Number of Independent Channels

Mazierli

Ramalli

Boni

et al. 2021

IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Syst.

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Ultrasound open platforms are programmable and flexible tools for the development and test of novel methods. In most cases, they embed the electronics for the independent control of (maximum) 256 probe elements. However, a higher number of channels is needed for the control of 2-D array probes. This paper presents a system architecture that, through the hardware and software synchronization of multiple ULA-OP 256 scanners, may implement advanced open platforms with an arbitrary number of channels. The proposed solution needs a single personal computer, maintains real-time features, and preserves portability.A prototype demonstrator, composed of two ULA-OP 256 scanners connected to 512 elements of a matrix array, was implemented and tested according to different channel configurations. Experiments performed under MATLAB control confirmed that by doubling the number of elements (from 256 to 512) the signal-to-noise and contrast ratios improve by 9 dB and 3 dB, respectively. Furthermore, as a full 512-channel scanner, the demonstrator can produce real-time B-mode images at 18 Hz, high enough for probe positioning during acquisitions.Also, the demonstrator permitted the implementation of a new high frame rate, bi-plane, triplex modality. All probe elements are excited to simultaneously produce two planar, perpendicular diverging waves. Each scanner independently processes the echoes received by the 256 connected elements to beamform 1300 frames per second. For each insonified plane, good quality morphological (B-mode), qualitative (color flow-), and quantitative (spectral-) Doppler images are finally shown in real-time by a dedicated interface.

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“…Other interesting studies are presented in [11], [12] or [13]. Also, recently discovered technologies could greatly reduce the cost of medical equipment with sufficient accuracy of scans, as shown in [14].…”

Section: B Related Work In Healthcarementioning

confidence: 99%

Vehicle Routing and Scheduling for Regular Mobile Healthcare Services

Pascaru¹,

Diac²

2018

2018 IEEE 30th International Conference on Tools With Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI)

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We propose our solution to a particular practical problem in the domain of vehicle routing and scheduling. The generic task is finding the best allocation of the minimum number of mobile resources that can provide periodical services in remote locations. These mobile resources are based at a single central location. Specifications have been defined initially for a reallife application that is the starting point of an ongoing project. Particularly, the goal is to mitigate health problems in rural areas around a city in Romania. Medically equipped vans are programmed to start daily routes from county capital, provide a given number of examinations in townships within the county and return to the capital city in the same day. From the health care perspective, each van is equipped with an ultrasound scanner, and they are scheduled to investigate pregnant woman each trimester aiming to diagnose potential problems. The project is motivated by reports currently ranking Romania as the country with the highest infant mortality rate in the European Union.We developed our solution in two phases: modeling of the most relevant parameters and data available for our goal and then design and implement an algorithm that provides an optimized solution. The most important metric of an output scheduling is the number of vans that are necessary to provide a given amount of examination time per township, followed by total travel time or fuel consumption, number of different routes, and others. Our solution implements two probabilistic algorithms out of which we chose the one that performs the best.

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Development of a Low-Cost Medical Ultrasound Scanner Using a Monostatic Synthetic Aperture

Abstract: The production costs of the proposed MSAS could be an order of magnitude lower than any other ultrasound system on the market today, bringing affordable obstetric imaging a step closer for developing countries.

Cited by 16 publications

References 17 publications

A New Non-Isolated Low-Power Inductorless Piezoelectric DC–DC Converter

A New Non-Isolated Low-Power Inductorless Piezoelectric DC–DC Converter

Architecture for an Ultrasound Advanced Open Platform With an Arbitrary Number of Independent Channels

Vehicle Routing and Scheduling for Regular Mobile Healthcare Services

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