C2: Basic Intrumentation Flashcards
What elements make up the beam former?
Pulser Pulse delays Transmit receive switch Amplifier Analog to digitall conversion Echo delays Sum
What’s the pulser?
Sends the voltage pulse to the probe determining the intensity, operating frequency and PRF
When you change the frequency, what are you telling the pulser?
What voltage to use
What does the pulse delay do?
Applies the necessary delays to accomplish focusing, beam steering and aperture size…. also responsible for dynamic apodization (gets rid of grading lobes)
What’s the function of the transmit-receive switch?
Directs the pulse in the correct direction to protect the sensitive components from the voltage
What’s the function of the amplifier?
Boots the voltage of the echos to make them stronger… this is needed in order to get the voltage through the circuit
What’s the function of the analog to digital converter?
It digitizes the voltages which is needed for memory storage and manipulation of the image later on
What’s the function of echo delays in the beam former?
This function delays the echos that it first receives if order to wait until it’s received all the echos to send the completed information at the same time… the early echos must be delayed in order to construct an image properly
What’s the function of the ‘sum’ portion of the beam former
Adds together the pulses from each element in the segment to for the scan line
What’s digitization and why do we do it?
Process of converting the voltage into a binary number
Important to maintain the integrity of the data…. its also more stable
When does digitization occur? What is the preference from when it occurs?
Can occur before or after the echo delay in the beam former
Preferable to occur early on to stabilize the signal
What’s considered late vs early digitization?
Late is after the echo delay
Early is before the echo delay
Signal processing involves what 2 processes?
ADC
The receiver
What do the dotes lines on the block diagrams represent?
The probe and pulser giving a heads up to the memory and receiver that a pulse was sent out and echos are coming back soon
What’s the function of the receiver and what steps is it made up of?
Function is to process the returned echos as analog voltages in preparation for display
Made up of 5 steps:
- Amplification
- Compensation
- Compression
- Rejection
- Demodulation (includes rectification and smoothing)
what control on the US machine is for amplification?
gain, usually expressed in dB…. or %
can amplification also decrease the amount of power in the returning echos?
yes
whats the function of compensation?
whats the US control for it?
compensates for attenuation…. makes the echos from similar reflector have a same brightness regardless of depth
TGCs, expressed in dB…
whats another term for TGCs and what does that term correct?
TCGs can also be called DGCs (depth gain compensation)
they can correct the main bang artifact and attenuation in the far field
in how many cm increments do TGCs/DGCs operate?
1cm
another term for compression
dynamic range
whats the function of compression and how is it accomplished?
process of decreasing the difference between the smallest and largest amplitudes/brightest and darkest shades of grey (expressed in dB)
accomplished with logarithmic amplification
define what logarithmic amplification is
the application of exponential gain as a function of the input signal level
(results in compression of dynamic range)
whats another term for the smallest amplitudes and largest amplitudes
small: reject level
large: saturation
whats the difference between the noise level and reject level?
noise lvl you cant control, reject lvl you can
noise level is usually made up of false echos that are being omitted, where as, reject level is composed of low level echos
what are 2 other terms for rejection?
threshold or suppression
whats the function of rejection?
eliminates or suppresses low level echos that may be noise, and improves signal to noise ratio
how does rejection effect dynamic range?
reduces it