Front End Design Of Medical Ultrasound Instruments

Front-end is the core of a medical ultrasound system, which decides system imaging performance. A good front-end system provides signal source with high signal to noise ratio for subsequent digital signal processing, minimizing difficulty in follow-up digital signal processing and serving as a solid basis for good image acquisition.The front-end of a medical ultrasonic system shall include transmission of analog ultrasound signals, reception and amplification of analog echoes, and full digital beam-forming. Based on research and analysis on the front-end of current medical ultrasonic systems, the design was simplified and improved, and performance verification was performed on the prototype.This paper describes the design principle of medical ultrasound front-end, and also discusses hardware, algorithm design and engineering implementation of medical ultrasound front-end, with all design module performance tested.The medical ultrasound system front-end, with finished design, was installed on the prototype for phantom imaging tests. The test result demonstrates that all performance specifications of the prototype complaint to national and relevant industry standards. Thanks to the simplified and improved front-end design, the design scale of hardware circuit is therefore reduced and the system design cost minimized.