A REAL-TIME PROCESSING SYSTEM FUR PULSATION DEFECTION IN NEONATAL CRANIAL ULTRASONOGRAM

In order to observe artery pulsation in the neonatal cranium at the si te of pediatric diagnosis, a real-time processing system was developed for continuous detection and display of artery pulsation, from the mo ving images of the neonatal cranial ultrasonogram. The pulsation image s were continuously generated by calculating the absolute difference b etween each pixel value at the two images corresponding to about half a heartbeat interval. The system was confirmed to process and continuo usly display at intervals of about 150 ms while capturing the echo ima ges at the video rate of 30 ms; showing that the system performance wa s good enough to observe the artery pulsation in real-time. By monitor ing the pulsation images continuously redisplayed, the critical condit ions of the echo image such as the sway of the ultrasound probe could be easily avoided at the site of diagnosis.