A Novel Focal Length Measurement Method for Center-Obstructed Omni-Directional Reflective Optical Systems

Novel dual-resistor-diode limtier circuit structures for high-voltage reliable ultrasound receiver systems

BACKGROUND:

The limiters have been used to protect the ultrasound receivers because of the inherent characteristic of the transducers which are required to use the high voltage excitation to obtain the reasonable echo signal amplitudes.

OBJECTIVE:

Among the variety of the limiters, the performances of discharge voltage degradation from the limiters gradually deteriorate the whole ultrasound systems according to the applied voltages of the ultrasonic transducers. This could cause the ultrasound systems to be unreliable for the long-term operations, resulting in possibly breaking the receiver systems.

METHODS:

Designed limiters were evaluated with insertion loss, total harmonic distortion, and pulse-echo responses with the ultrasound transducer devices.

RESULTS:

Designed new dual-resistor-diode limiters exhibited greater and faster suppression of the pulse width (1.15 V and 6.1 μs) for high-voltage signals.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our proposed dual-resistor-diode limiter could be one of the potential candidates for reliable ultrasound receiver system.

Fisheye lens design for solar-powered mobile ultrasound devices

BACKGROUND: Compared to benchtop ultrasound machines, mobile ultrasound machines require portable batteries when acquiring information regarding human tissues during outdoor activities. OBJECTIVE: A novel fisheye lens type was designed to address the charging issue where it is difficult to constantly track the sun. This method does not require the use of a mechanical motor that constantly tracks the sun to charge the portable batteries. METHODS: To obtain an optical solar power system, the numerical aperture (NA) and field angle must be increased. Therefore, we use the fisheye lens with the largest field angle. RESULTS: The NA of the designed fisheye lens system reaches 0.75, allowing light collection of approximately ± 48∘. Additionally, the efficiency ratio of the central and surrounding areas also satisfies more than 80% at a field angle of 85∘ and more than 70% at field angles of 85∘ to 90∘, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We designed a novel fisheye lens for solar-powered mobile ultrasound machines used outdoors.

New Optical Design Method of Floating Type Collimator for Microscopic Camera Inspection

Recently released mobile phone cameras are capable of photographing objects at a fairly close distance. In addition, the field angle from the camera has increased. To measure the resolution of a mobile phone camera, the target must be photographed. To measure the resolution according to the object distance change from a mobile phone camera with a wide field angle, the target size must be large, whereas the target position must be moved. However, the target size cannot be changed. A virtual object for the target was created using a collimator. Moving a part of the lens group constituting the collimator also changes the virtual object distance. If the amount of change in the virtual object distance is large, the resolution of the collimator may also change. Therefore, a collimator that maintains the resolution even when the distance of the virtual object changes is designed as a floating type in which two lens groups move. Therefore, we propose a new floating collimator optical system that can inspect the resolution of mobile phone cameras from infinity to a close range to compensate for aberrations caused by object distance changes.

Optical Design of a Novel Collimator System with a Variable Virtual-Object Distance for an Inspection Instrument of Mobile Phone Camera Optics

The resolution performance of mobile phone camera optics was previously checked only near an infinite point. However, near-field performance is required because of reduced camera pixel sizes. Traditional optics are measured using a resolution chart located at a hyperfocal distance, which can only measure the resolution at a specific distance but not at close distances. We designed a new collimator system that can change the virtual image of the resolution chart from infinity to a short distance. Hence, some lenses inside the collimator systems must be moved. Currently, if the focusing lens is moved, chromatic aberration and field curvature occur. Additional lenses are required to correct this problem. However, the added lens must not change the characteristics of the proposed collimator. Therefore, an equivalent-lens conversion method was designed to maintain the first-order and Seidel aberrations. The collimator system proposed in this study does not move or change the resolution chart.

Focus-Adjustable Head Mounted Display with Off-Axis System

An off-axis system refers to an optical system in which the optical axis and the normal vector at the vertex of each surface do not match. An off-axis optical system can be applied in order to construct a thin and light optical system. In particular, the optical system used for a see-through head-mounted display (HMD) must be designed asymmetrically, with respect to the optical axis. Because the vision of a human is different for each individual, HMD requires focus adjustment. The effective focal length (EFL) of the optical system must be calculated to obtain the focus adjustment. However, the off-axis optical system cannot be calculated by conventional methods. In this study, the EFL was calculated by rotating the coordinates of the rays near the optical axis by the angle of reflection or refraction at the intersection of each surface, with the rays coinciding with the optical axis. The magnitude of movement of the micro-display for focus adjustment was obtained from the calculated EFL, for a see-through type HMD.

Wireless Ultrasound Surgical System with Enhanced Power and Amplitude Performances

A wireless ultrasound surgical system (WUSS) with battery modules requires efficient power consumption with appropriate cutting effects during surgical operations. Effective cutting performances of the ultrasound transducer (UT) should be produced for ultrasound surgical knives for effective hemostasis performance and efficient dissection time. Therefore, we implemented a custom-made UT with piezoelectric material and re-poling process, which is applied to enhance the battery power consumption and output amplitude performances of the WUSS. After the re-poling process of the UT, the quality factor increased from 1231.1 to 2418 to minimize the unwanted heat generation. To support this UT, we also developed a custom-made generator with a transformer and developed 2nd harmonic termination circuit, control microcontroller with an advanced reduced instruction set computer machine (ARM) controller, and battery management system modules to produce effective WUSS performances. The generator with a matching circuit in the WUSS showed a peak-to-peak output voltage and current amplitude of 166 V and 1.12 A, respectively, at the resonant frequency. The performance with non-contact optical vibrators was also measured. In the experimental data, the developed WUSS reduced power consumption by 3.6% and increased the amplitude by 20% compared to those of the commercial WUSS. Therefore, the improved WUSS performances could be beneficial for hemostatic performance and dissection time during surgical operation because of the developed UT with a piezoelectric material and re-poling process.

Computation of Analytical Zoom Locus Using Padé Approximation

When the number of lens groups is large, the zoom locus becomes complicated and thus cannot be determined by analytical means. By the conventional calculation method, it is possible to calculate the zoom locus only when a specific lens group is fixed or the number of lens groups is small. To solve this problem, we employed the Padé approximation to find the locus of each group of zoom lenses as an analytic form of a rational function consisting of the ratio of polynomials, programmed in MATLAB. The Padé approximation is obtained from the initial data of the locus of each lens group. Subsequently, we verify that the obtained locus of lens groups satisfies the effective focal length (EFL) and the back focal length (BFL). Afterwards, the Padé approximation was applied again to confirm that the error of BFL is within the depth of focus for all zoom positions. In this way, the zoom locus for each lens group of the optical system with many moving lens groups was obtained as an analytical rational function. The practicality of this method was verified by application to a complicated zoom lens system with five or more lens groups using preset patents.

Wide Bandwidth Class-S Power Amplifiers for Ultrasonic Devices

Wide bandwidth ultrasonic devices are a necessity in high-resolution ultrasonic systems. Therefore, constant output voltages need to be produced across the wide bandwidths of a power amplifier. We present the first design of a wide bandwidth class-S power amplifier for ultrasonic devices. The −6 dB bandwidth of the developed class-S power amplifier was measured at 125.07% at 20 MHz, thus, offering a wide bandwidth for ultrasonic devices. Pulse-echo measurement is a performance measurement method used to evaluate the performance of ultrasonic transducers, components, or systems. The pulse-echo signals were obtained using an ultrasonic transducer with designed power amplifiers. In the pulse-echo measurements, time and frequency analyses were conducted to evaluate the bandwidth flatness of the power amplifiers. The frequency range of the ultrasonic transducer was measured and compared when using the developed class-S and commercial class-A power amplifiers with the same output voltages. The class-S power amplifiers had a relatively flat bandwidth (109.7 mV at 17 MHz, 112.0 mV at 20 MHz, and 109.5 mV at 23 MHz). When the commercial class-A power amplifier was evaluated under the same conditions, an uneven bandwidth was recorded (110.6 mV at 17 MHz, 111.5 mV at 20 MHz, and 85.0 mV at 23 MHz). Thus, we demonstrated that the designed class-S power amplifiers could prove useful for ultrasonic devices with a wide frequency range.

Design of Wide Angle and Large Aperture Optical System with Inner Focus for Compact System Camera Applications

Conventionally, a bright, very wide-angle optical system is designed as a floating type optical system that moves two or more lens groups composed of multiple lens in order to focus accurately. These have been widely used as phase detection auto focus (AF) methods within conventional digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. However, a phase detection AF optical system cannot be used when recording motion pictures. In contrast, a compact system camera (CSC) performs AF by the contrast method, where a stepper motor is used as the driving source for moving the optical lens. Nonetheless, to ensure that the focusing lens is lighter, these stepper motors should not have high torque and AF must be possible by moving only one lens. Yet, when focusing is performed with only one lens, aberration change due to focusing lens movement is magnified. Therefore, a very wide-angle optical system comprised of a half-angle of view more than 40 degrees and F of 1/4 has not been developed. Here, a very wide-angle optical system was designed with high resolving power that enables high speed AF, even in contrast mode, by moving only one lens while minimizing aberration change.

A Macro Lens-Based Optical System Design for Phototherapeutic Instrumentation

Light emitting diode (LED) and ultrasound have been powerful treatment stimuli for tumor cell growth due to non-radiation effects. This research is the first preliminary study of tumor cell suppression using a macro-lens-supported 460-nm LED combined with high-frequency ultrasound. The cell density, when exposed to the LED combined with ultrasound, was gradually reduced after 30 min of induction for up to three consecutive days when 48-W DC, 20-cycle, and 50 V_p-p sinusoidal pulses were applied to the LEDs through a designed macro lens and to the ultrasound transducer, respectively. Using a developed macro lens, the non-directional light beam emitted from the LED could be localized to a certain spot, likewise with ultrasound, to avoid additional undesirable thermal effects on the small sized tumor cells. In the experimental results, compared to LED-only induction (14.49 ± 2.73%) and ultrasound-only induction (13.27 ± 2.33%), LED combined with ultrasound induction exhibited the lowest cell density (6.25 ± 1.25%). Therefore, our measurement data demonstrated that a macro-lens-supported 460-nm LED combined with an ultrasound transducer could possibly suppress early stage tumor cells effectively.