What is beam former in ultrasound?

Beamforming is a common signal processing technique used to create directional or spatial selectivity of signals sent to or received from an array of sensors or antennae. Ultrasound beamforming is unique among these various applications.

How the ultrasound beam is produced?

Ultrasound wave is produced when an electric current is applied to an array of piezoelectric crystals. This causes distortion of the crystals, makes them vibrate and produce this acoustic wave. The summation of the waves produces an ultrasound beam. The ultrasound waves are produced in pulses.

What is beam width ultrasound?

At the transducer, beam width is approximately equal to the width of the transducer. Then, the beam converges to its narrowest width which is half the width of the transducer, at a perpendicular distance from the transducer called the near-zone length (Fig. 2a).

How is ultrasound beamforming used in medical ultrasound?

Ultrasound beamforming is unique among these various applications. In order to achieve high-quality ultrasonic images, received beams must be focused dynamically, and the aperture of the array must be amplitude-weighted (apodized) dynamically as well.

How does a damping block affect an ultrasound beam?

Ultrasound pulses are discontinuous, short sound waves created by piezoelectric elements that convert electric energy to sound energy (and vice versa). A damping block shortens the pulse duration (or spatial pulse length) and broadens the range of available frequencies.

How is the envelope extracted in RX beamforming?

We refer to these stages of processing the demodulated signals collectively as Rx beamforming (Figure 1 ). After Rx beamforming, the envelope is extracted from the complex signal, followed by a log-compression and scan-conversion to produce the final ultrasound image.

How are the stones replaced in medical ultrasound?

In medical ultrasound, the stones are replaced by several small piezo-electric elements at the tip of an transducer, and the pond is replaced by the human body. If you apply an alternating voltage signal to an piezo-electric element, it will start vibrating and emit sound.