Dematerialized, multi-user system for the acquisition, generation and processing of ultrasound images

1 . Multi-user system for the acquisition, generation and processing of diagnostic images, which

system includes:

a plurality of ultrasound probes configured to scan patients in predetermined examination sites and equipped with a communication unit to transmit the corresponding data to one or more processing units also equipped with a communication unit;

a plurality of displays and/or user interface terminals provided in the proximity of the examination sites or even in remote locations and provided with a communication unit for transmitting to and receiving data from at least one of said one or more processing units and/or from one or more of said probes;

at least one communication network which connects the communication units of the probes, displays and user interface terminals and said one or more processing units together;

said probes and said displays and/or user interface terminals each being identified by a corresponding ID;

said one or more processing units each comprising a processing hardware comprising at least one processor, at least one memory, at least one communication unit for transmission and reception, at least one input port and one output port for data and/or commands, at least being loaded into each of said one or more processing units a program in which the instructions to execute are coded to make said one or more processing units capable of performing at least one or more processing steps to carry out each at least part of the processing steps of the transmission and reception signals for the acquisition, generation and processing of images from the said received data,

wherein each processing step and/or a group of two or more processing steps are in the form of containers comprising the application that contains the instructions for the execution of the processing step or steps of said one or more processing units and the environment execution of the application with the relative settings, the libraries and the application programming interface (API) interface connections necessary for the execution of the application, and a management program that constitutes a container engine for the containers is loaded in said one or more processing units and executed by said one or more processing units;

wherein the containers share a host operating system configured as a real operating system instead of a virtual operating system; and

wherein the container engine is configured as an engine abstraction module operating between the containers and the real operating system to execute the said application in respective ones of the containers independently of the real operating system and the said processing hardware to allow transfer of one of said containers and the corresponding application to another of the processing units regardless of type of hardware and/or operating system employed by the another of said processing units.

2 . System according to claim 1 , wherein a distributed structure of said one or more processing units is provided, comprising at least two processing units chosen from said one or more processing units which are each integrated, respectively, in the probe and/or in an optional local processing unit associated with one or more patient stations and dedicated to a single probe or to a partial number of probes and possibly positioned in the immediate proximity of the said one or more patient stations and/or in a remote central processing unit which is associated with all and/or at least part of the corresponding said probe and/or said local processing unit, and/or with one or more of said plurality of display(s) and user interface terminal(s), said at least two processing units communicating between them;

and the processing steps of the reception signals of the probe or probes being divided on the said at least two processing units in such a way that one or more of the said processing units carries out only a part of the processing steps.

3 . System according to claim 1 , further comprising applications, each of which applications is included and executable in a corresponding container or at least two of which applications are included and executable in a corresponding container and each of which applications comprises the code for the execution of at least one of the processing steps that can be selected from the following list:

calculation of transmission timing;

generation of digital transmission signals;

D/A (digital/analogue) conversion of the transmission signals,

A/D (analogue/digital) conversion of the received signals;

beamforming in reception;

subsequent operations generically defined in the technical field as “back end processing” selected from the group:

extraction of I/Q data from the reception signals subjected to beamforming;

combination of reception data relating to temporally successive transmissions;

extraction of an envelope of the reception signals;

compression and decimation of a reception signal;

alternative processing to image generation B-mode, Doppler, CFM and other modes;

post processing activities on at least one of the images;

scan conversion;

image filtering;

image enhancement or other image optimization processing, image measurements, as well as advanced imaging modalities such as elastography, attenuation imaging and combinations thereof, zero footprint export of clinical data comprising anonymized images so as to be able to perform labelling for artificial intelligence even remotely without accessing to patient data.

4 . System according to claim 2 , wherein the probe(s) and/or said local processing unit and/or said central processing unit and/or the display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s) can communicate alternatively or in combination, due to a selection of the communication mode, through a cable connection and/or a wireless connection.

5 . System according to claim 1 , wherein at least one memory is provided for patient data corresponding to the images and at least one processing step which provides for access to patient data after authentication and authorization, while providing for the access and transmission in anonymized form without personal data of a patient or patients showed, to other processing units, such as a remote work station for a second opinion diagnosis comprising an additional diagnosis further to an onsite diagnosis.

6 . System according to claim 2 , comprising a local unit associated with a group of patient stations comprising two or more patient stations, a probe being provided for each station and/or for two or more patient stations of said group and alternatively or in combination being provided a central processing unit which operates in combination with one or more groups of patient stations comprising probes and/or local processing units.

7 . System according to claim 1 , wherein said one or more processing units are configured to perform one or more processes for reducing amount of data, such processes being selected from the following list:

Adaptive time decimation of the data, according to a predetermined bandwidth, by adjusting sampling frequency according to Nyquist limit that corresponds to twice a maximum frequency chosen from maximum frequency for RF data, and maximum frequency-minimum frequency for IQ data;

Use of a subset of receiving transducers, calculated based on a maximum receiving aperture actually used to combine signals related to a given transmission;

Under sampling, periodic or aperiodic, in time domain or in a domain of the receiving channels or in both and use of compress sensing techniques for image reconstruction based on sparse priorities in the image domain or in a transformed domain chosen from a Fourier transform, k-space, wavelet;

Under sampling, periodic or aperiodic, in the time domain or in the domain of the receiving channels or both, and use of machine learning techniques for reconstruction of missing data;

Under sampling by reducing amount of data by multiplying signals received by a matrix with a number of rows less than a number of columns;

use of advanced beamforming techniques that make it possible to obtain images of equal or similar quality compared to standard line by line isolation, reducing number of transmissions and therefore amount of data necessary to form a frame, such as those selected from the following list: multiline beamforming in reception, synthetic transmit beamforming (STB), retrospective transmit beamforming (RTB), synthetic aperture imaging, plane wave or diverging wave beamforming;

combination of beamforming based on synthetic aperture or plane wave or diverging wave beamforming, with a reduction in the number of transmissions and with a machine learning algorithm that maps the low-quality images obtained with a limited number of insonifications, on images that reproduce high-quality image characteristics that would have been obtained with a higher number of insonifications;

two-stage beamforming or micro beamforming in which part of beamforming is carried out on a probe on distinct groups of transducers, thus reducing number of communication channels between the probe and the multi-user system and consequently the data transfer rate, and in which the further part of the beamforming is carried out by a local and or central processing unit, the instructions for the execution of said processes being codified in one or more corresponding applications each or a plurality of these included and executable in a corresponding container.

8 . System according to claim 2 , wherein at least some probes and/or at least some central processing unit(s) and/or at least some local processing unit(s) and/or at least some display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s) comprise a processing hardware and a memory in which one or more applications are stored or can be stored in the form of containers, a measuring device for measuring of available bandwidth being provided for the connection between probes, local processing unit(s), central processing unit(s) and display(s) and user interface terminal(s) which, according to the detected communication bandwidth and a minimum threshold value or possible occupation of said band, execution of the processing steps on the probes and/or on the local processing unit(s) and/or on the central processing unit(s) and/or on the display(s) and user interface terminal(s) is distributed by enabling and disabling the execution of the corresponding applications in the corresponding containers and/or transferring one or more probes and/or one or more of the local processing unit(s) and/or one or more central processing unit(s) from one to the other/or of one or more display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s), the containers corresponding to the processing steps to be performed by the corresponding probe and/or local processing unit(s) and/or central processing unit(s) and/or display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s).

9 . System according to claim 2 , wherein the communication unit between the probes and/or the local processing unit(s) and/or the display(s) and user interface terminal(s) are based on an architecture of a virtual network that uses 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard for fifth generation wireless network.

10 . System according to claim 2 , wherein at least some of the display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s) comprise an interface device for augmented reality.

11 . System according to claim 10 , wherein the interface device for augmented reality comprises one or more of the units listed by the following list:

Surface Studio and Dial®, Azure Kinetic DK, Intel Real Sense, Speech recognition, HoloLens, gesture recognition, gaze orientation recognition or a combination of these.

12 . System according to claim 2 , wherein at least some probes and/or at least some central processing unit(s) and/or at least some local processing unit(s) and/or at least some display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s) comprise a processing hardware and a memory in which one or more applications are stored or can be stored in the form of containers, local processing unit(s), central processing unit(s) and display(s) and user interface terminal(s) which, as a function of available bandwidth for communication and a minimum threshold value or possible occupation of said band, execution of the processing steps on the probes and/or on the local processing unit(s) and/or on the central processing unit(s) and/or on the display(s) and user interface terminal(s) is distributed by enabling and disabling the execution of the corresponding applications in the corresponding containers and/or transferring one or more probes and/or one or more of the local processing unit(s) and/or one or more central processing unit(s) from one to the other/or of one or more display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s), the containers corresponding to the processing steps to be performed by the corresponding probe and/or local processing unit(s) and/or central processing unit(s) and/or display(s) and/or user interface terminal(s).

13 . System for the acquisition, generation and processing of diagnostic images which system includes: at least one target scanning unit equipped with a communication unit to transmit the corresponding data to one or more processing unit(s) that are each also equipped with a communication unit; a plurality of displays and/or user interface terminals provided in the proximity of the examination sites and each provided with a communication unit for transmitting to and receiving data from one or more of said processing unit(s) and/or from one or more of said scanning unit; a communication network which connects the communication unit of each of the one or more said scanning unit, of the displays and user interface terminals and of said one or more processing unit(s); the one or more said scanning unit and said displays and/or user interface terminals each being identified by a corresponding ID and;

the said one or more processing unit(s) being designed to perform each at least part of the processing steps of the transmission and reception signals for the acquisition, generation and processing of images from said reception data,

the said processing unit(s) comprising a processing hardware comprising at least one processor, at least one memory, at least one communication unit for transmission and reception, at least an input port and an output port for data and/or commands, said processing unit(s) being uploaded with at least one program in which the instructions to execute are encoded, making the said processing unit(s) capable of executing at least one or more processing steps for transmission and reception of signals for the acquisition, generation and processing of images from said reception data;

and in which each processing step and/or a group of two or more processing steps are in the form of containers including the application that contains the instructions for the execution of the processing step(s) of the processing unit(s) and the application execution environment with its settings comprising file system, libraries and connections of application programming interface (API) interface necessary for the execution of the application, and a management program that constitutes the container engine for the containers is loaded in the processing unit(s) and executed by processing unit(s);

wherein the containers share a host operating system configured as a real operating system instead of a virtual operating system; and

wherein the container engine is configured as an engine abstraction module operating between the containers and the real operating system to execute the said application in respective ones of the containers independently of the real operating system and the said processing hardware to allow transfer of one of said containers and the corresponding application to another of said processing unit(s) regardless of type of hardware and/or operating system employed by the another of said processing units(s).

14 . Multi-user system for the acquisition, generation and processing of diagnostic images, which

system includes:

a plurality of ultrasound probes configured to scan patients in predetermined examination sites and equipped with a communication unit to transmit the corresponding data to one or more processing units also equipped with a communication unit;

a plurality of displays and/or user interface terminals provided in the proximity of the examination sites or even in remote locations and provided with a communication unit for transmitting to and receiving data from at least one of said one or more processing units and/or from one or more of said probes;

at least one communication network which connects the communication units of the probes, displays and user interface terminals and said one or more processing units together;

said probes and said displays and/or user interface terminals each being identified by a corresponding ID;

said one or more processing units each comprising a processing hardware comprising at least one processor, at least one memory, at least one communication unit for transmission and reception, at least one input port and one output port for data and/or commands, at least being loaded into each of said one or more processing units a program in which the instructions to execute are coded to make said one or more processing units capable of performing at least one or more processing steps to carry out each at least part of the processing steps of the transmission and reception signals for the acquisition, generation and processing of images from the said received data,

wherein each processing step and/or a group of two or more processing steps are in the form of containers comprising the application that contains the instructions for the execution of the processing step or steps of said one or more processing units and the environment execution of the application with the relative settings, the libraries and the application programming interface (API) interface connections necessary for the execution of the application, and a management program that constitutes a container engine for the containers is loaded in said one or more processing units and executed by said one or more processing units;

wherein a distributed structure of the processing units is provided, comprising at least two of the said processing units which are each integrated, respectively, in the probe, said processing units being communicating between them;

and the processing steps of the reception signals of the probe or probes being divided on the said processing units in such a way that one or more of the said processing units carries out only a part of the processing steps;

wherein the containers share a host operating system configured as a real operating system instead of a virtual operating system; and

wherein the container engine is configured as an engine abstraction module operating between the containers and the real operating system to execute the said application in respective ones of the containers independently of the real operating system and the said processing hardware to allow transfer of one of said containers and the corresponding application to another of the processing units regardless of type of hardware and/or operating system employed by the another of said processing units.