System for generating synthetic aperture ultrasound images during needle placement

Patel N, Scalabrin E, Kannan K, Gupta K, Chan L, Paredes M, Lin M, Roychoudhury S, Shah S, Moghekar A, Boctor EM, Durr N, Kim Y, Zhang H

Worldwide Patent Application PCT/US2017/030660 Nov 9th, 2017 

An aspect of the present disclosure is to provide a device or needle placement system including a needle having a proximal end and a distal end, and an ultrasound transducer element attached to the distal end of the needle. The system also includes a needle constraining assembly configured to receive and constrain the needle to only rotational degrees of freedom within a range of angular motion. The system further includes a needle sensor system incorporated into the constraining assembly to sense an angular orientation of the needle with the range of angular motion. The system also includes an ultrasound data processor configured to communicate with the transducer element to receive ultrasound detection signals and communicate with the needle sensor system to receive needle angular orientation signals. Based on the ultrasound detection and the needle angular orientation signals, the ultrasound data processor can calculate synthetic aperture ultrasound images.