Multi-directional ultrasonic blood flow measurement with a triple beam lens

Ultrasound blood flow measurement has proven to be a useful clinical tool for medical diagnosis. Most current ultrasound blood flow measurement systems utilize the Doppler technique. These systems typically measure only the axial component of flow and are unable to measure high velocities at large depths. In order to overcome these limitations, a triple-beam ultrasound lens has been developed in which three parallel beams are generated. The separation between beams and location of the acoustic foci are determined by the lens design. The axial component of flow can be computed along each of the three beams and the lateral component of flow from the transit time of scatterers from beam to beam. In this manner, the 3-D flow velocity vector can be estimated