Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

Claim 1

An improved ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus of the type wherein an ultrasonic pulse beam is repeatedly transmitted by a transmitting means coupled to a transducer means into a living organism at a fixed pulse rate and the reflected echoes are picked up by an echo receiver, amplified by an amplifier means and displayed as the velocity of movement within the organism on a display means, the improvement comprising a complex signal conversion means coupled to an output of the said echo receiver for converting said received reflected echoes into a complex signal, said complex signal converting means comprising means for providing a pair of complex reference signals which have frequencies that are integer multiples of the pulse rate and which are complexly related to one another, mixing means for mixing the received reflected echoes with a pair of complex reference signals, an autocorrelator means coupled to an output of the said signal conversion means for determining the autocorrelation of said complex signal, said autocorrelator means further comprising a time delay means with a time delay equal to an integer multiple of the period of the pulse rate for delaying in time the said complex signal, and a deviation determining means coupled to the output of said autocorrelator means for determining the amount of change in the absolute value of the autocorrelation of said complex signal and for determining the rate of decrease of the absolute value of the said autocorrelation of said complex signal whereby the deviation distribution of the velocity of moving objects in the living organism is measured and displayed.