• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.53-60
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study was investigating the effect of 3D printing technology that changes the speed of sound (SOS) and the broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA) by controlling the density of the media phantom. We used 3D printers which called additive manufacturing (AM) by using material with polylactic acid (PLA). The inside of the medium phantom was filled crossly with 100%, 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, and 50% of the material. The ultrasonic instrument measured the SOS and the BUA using a 0.55 MHz ultrasound output in opposing mode with a pair of transducers. As a result, the density of the medium phantoms with the SOS showed very high correlation (r = 0.944), but the SOS showed very low correlation (r = 0.500). It is expecting that the manufacturing and measurement method of the medium phantom using 3D printing technology will be used as basic data for ultrasonic bone mineral density.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.14 no.12
• /
• pp.6066-6071
• /
• 2013

This paper proposes a calibration method for a freehand 3-D ultrasound system in medical robotic research. The calibration block with six wires was designed to set the fixed target points. The positions of the ultrasound probe and calibration block were measured using an optical tracker. The relationship between the position of the ultrasound probe and the pixel coordinates in the images was derived using a calibration process. The scaling matrix was also calculated. The experimental results showed that the proposed method could find solutions using a simple least square method from one or multiple ultrasound images.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.159-168
• /
• 2015

This paper introduces effective noise removal method for medical ultrasound volume data. Ultrasound volume data need to be filtered because it has a lot of noise. Conventional 2d filtering methods ignore information of adjacent layers and conventional 3d filtering methods are slow or have simple filter that are not efficient for removing noise and also don't equally operate filtering because that don't take into account ultrasound' sampling character. To solve this problem, we introduce method that fast perform in parallel bilateral filtering that is known as good for noise removal and adjust proportionally window size depending on that's position. Experiments compare noise removal and loss of original data among average filtered or biliteral filtered or adaptive biliteral filtered ultrasound volume rendering images. In this way, we can more efficiently and correctly remove noise of ultrasound volume data.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.231-237
• /
• 2021

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of hospital hygiene and infection control in hospital settings. To raise hygiene awareness among ultrasound technicians, we evaluated the hygiene status of an ultrasound room, in comparison with that of objects used in daily life. Using the swab method, the following surfaces were examined: eight surfaces in the ultrasound room including the ultrasound probes (convex, linear, sector, 3D), ultrasound track ball, ultrasound keyboard, ultrasound gel (sealed and in use) and pillow as well as four surfaces of everyday objects including subway handles, common computer keyboards, common computer mouse, and cell phones. The streak plate technique was used for inoculation into media, which was observed for the formation of bacterial colonies following incubation for 24 h. Six bacterial strains were detected from objects used in the ultrasound room, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Four strains of bacteria were detected on surfaces of everyday objects. The equipment and accessories used in an ultrasound room can act as vehicles for infecting patients. Establishment of standardized hygiene protocols and periodic training of the staff are recommended to avoid cross-infection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.215-220
• /
• 2015

As a nondestructive inspection technology currently in use, infrared thermography has gradually expanded its application range to industry. The method detects only defect areas by grafting ultrasound on a technique of detecting infrared energy emitted from all objects with absolute temperature of 0 K and converting this energy into thermography for inspection. Ultrasound infrared thermography has merits including the ability to inspect a wide area in a short time without contacting the target object. This study investigated the applicability of the technique for defect detection using variable ultrasound excitation inspection methods on samples of Terfenol-D, a magnetostrictive material with a tunable natural resonant frequency.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.217-232
• /
• 1999

The ability to see the internal organs of the human body in a noninvasive way is a powerful diagnostic tool of modern medicine. Among these imaging modalities such as X-ray, MRI, and ultrasound. MRI and ultrasound are presenting much less risk of undesirable damage of both patient and examiner. In fact, no deleterious effects have been reported as a result of clinical examination by using MRI and ultrasound diagnostic equipment. As a result. their market volume has been rapidly increased. MRI has a good resolution. but there are a few disadvantages such as high price. non-real-time imaging capability. and expensive diagnostic cost. On the other hand, the ultrasound imaging system has inherently poor resolution as compared with X-ray and MRI. In spite of its poor resolution, the ultrasound diagnostic equipment is lower in price and has an ability of real-time imaging as compared with the others. As a result. the ultrasound imaging system has become general and essential modality for imaging the internal organs of human body. In this review various researches and developments to enhance the resolution of the ultrasound images are explained and future trends of the ultrasound imaging technology are described.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
• /
• v.25 no.A
• /
• pp.87-93
• /
• 2005

Three-dimensional ultrasonic probes being applied to the medical imaging can be grouped into three depending on the scanning methods, which are a mechanical type system, a free-hand system, and 2D phased arrays system. A mechanical type scanner uses a mechanically driven transducer to acquire series of 2D plane images. By integrating these images, a 3-D medical image can be constructed. A motor driving mechanism is a conventional choice for mechanically driving a transducer assembly which picks the raw ultrasonic images up. In this paper we attempt to design a 3D ultrasonic probe which has a operating mechanism of s tilting 3-D scanning. The motion of a transducer assembly of the ultrasonic probe is analytically modelled. We propose a selection procedure for the diameter of a wire rope driving the transducer assembly and the size of torsional spring which gives an initial tension to wire ropes.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.5
• /
• pp.1486-1491
• /
• 2016

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
• /
• v.14 no.5
• /
• pp.579-587
• /
• 2014

This paper presents a variable gain amplifier (VGA) for an analog front-end (AFE) of ultrasound medical imaging. This VGA has a closed-loop topology and shows a 37-dB-linear characteristic with a single-stage amplifier. It consists of an op-amp, a non-binary-weighted capacitor array, and a gain-control block. This non-binary-weighted capacitor array reduces the required number of capacitors and the complexity of the gain-control block. The VGA has been fabricated in a 0.35-mm CMOS process. This work gives the largest gain range of 37 dB per stage, the largest P1 dB of 9.5 dBm at the 3.3-V among the recent VGA circuits available in the literature. The voltage gain is controlled in the range of [-10, 27] dB in a linear-in-dB scale with 16 steps by a 4-bit digital code. The VGA has a bandpass characteristic with a passband of [20 kHz, 8 MHz].

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.15-21
• /
• 2012

Image segmentation for object to extract data from ultrasound acquired is an essential preprocessing step for the effective diagnosis. Various image segmentation methods have been studied. In this study, interactive image segmentation method by graph cut algorithm is proposed to develop a variety of applications of vascular ultrasound imaging and diagnostics. General imaging and vascular ultrasound imaging segmentation by entering constrain condition such as foreground and background. In the future it will be able to develop new ultrasound diagnostics.