Description

  • System on a single board, supporting 1 to 10 MHz center frequency
  • Bipolar transmit, programmable burst length
  • 2-stage programmable TGC, 60dB dynamic range
  • 100 MHz analog-to-digital data convert
  • Free Matlab graphic user interface included
  • A-Mode and M-Mode
  • LCD: 2 lines x 16 characters
  • M-Mode Image moving target
  • View angle change

The SonoLab series products provide convenient solutions for non-human use ultrasound application such as education, research, and prototype development. The whole system is on a single PCB board powered by a DC supply, which can be as simple as a commonly used DC adapter with voltage around 7-15V, and a current rating above 1A. By connecting to a transducer, which you can make by yourself, purchase from us or a third party, you are ready to view the ultrasound echo.

The SonoLab Echo I is designed to support transducers at a center frequency from 1MHz to 10MHz. It transmits square wave burst with a predefined peak-to-peak voltage up to 200V and programmable pulse length and pulse repeat frequency (PRF). It has two stages of viable gain amplification with maximal gain of 30dB for each. A trigger output signal is provided through the SMA connector which can be used as an external trigger signal for oscilloscope to display the echo waveform, or a third party high-end data acquisition system to digitize the RF data. It also has a SMA trigger-in connector, and the board will transmit the ultrasound pulse upon the rising edge of the external trigger (3-5V) with a control jumper in the external trigger position.

The echo is digitized at 100MHz, and streamed out at the serial port at 115200 bps. A free Matlab GUI is provided to view the real time echo. Due to the limitation of the serial port, a few RF lines will be skipped between the two uploaded RF lines. To increase the line numbers uploaded per second, the digitizing time window can be adjusted to choose only the interested depth to reduce the data size.

Most parameters are predefined in the factory for your convenience and they also can be controlled with a few buttons and a small LCD on the board. All the parameters can also be programmed via the free Matlab GUI, the Windows build-in Hyperterminal, or any standard serial port access software. All the control commands are in text format.

The board has a transmitting power safety limit of 2watts. The multiplication of transmitting pulse amplitude, pulse length, and PRF is a constant when the load is fixed. Thus, if you increase one parameter, the maximal allowed value for the other two parameters will be lowered automatically.

  • Items included in the package:
    • Sonolab Echo I board
    • AC/DC adapter: 9V/1.3A
    • User Manual

Quantity and Cost

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Function Diagram

The board is powered by a 7 – 15V DC power supply. There are voltage regulators on the board to generate 3.3V for digital circuits including a FPGA and a microcontroller, 5V and -5V for amplifiers. A special step up circuit is used to generate the high voltage for ultrasound transmitting. A microcontroller is used to receive all the controls from buttons or PC, and echo back information to LCD or PC. Registers inside FPGA are used to store parameters from microcontroller to control ultrasound pule transmitting and echo digitizing.

A protection circuit is used to connect the transducer, the pulser, and the receiver. Two stages of viable gain amplifier (VGA) are used to provide up to 60dB gain to the echo signal with a bandwidth of 90MHz. The voltage for the gain control of VGA is supplied by a 2-channel digital to analog converter. A 100MHz analog to digital converter is used to digitize the amplified echo signal. The digitized echo is first stored in a FIFO inside FPGA, and then read out by microcontroller, streaming out to the serial port.

Several SMA connectors are provided at different amplification stage and the echo can be observed by oscilloscope directly with synchronization from the trigger signal. Back to Top

Specification

A 2 MHz pulse with 100 volt peak to peak
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TEK0000-1.png		A 2 MHz pulse with 200 volt peak to peak
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TEK0003-1.png
A 5 MHz pulse with 100 volt peak to peak
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TEK0001-1.png		 10 MHz pulse with 100 volt peak to peak
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TEK0002-1.png
  • Power Input
    1. Voltage: 7 – 15V DC
    2. Current: 1A or above
  • Ultrasound pulse at 50W load
    1. Amplitude: 15 – 100V.
    2. Burst Length: 1 – 256
    3. Maximal Duty Factor: 2Watt/(Amplitude2 /Load), at 100V amplitude, Duty_Max is 0.01, or 1%.
    4. PRF Max = (Center_frequency) * 2* Load / Amplitude2  /  Burst_length
      1. For example, at 1MHz, 100V, when burst length is 1, the maximal allowed PRF is 1e6 250/1002 /1 = 10 kHz
      2. With above parameters, at 10MHz, the maximal allowed PRF is 100KHz.
      3. WARINING: 2Watts may have some unsafe effects on human or animal. If you use it on human or animal experiments, it is your responsibility to check the FDA or other related regulatory standards.
  1. Receiver
    1. Total gain: 0 – 60 dB
    2. Bandwidth: 90 MHz
  2. AD converter
    1. Clock: 100MHz
    2. Width: 8 bit.
    3. Input range: 0 – 1.5V.
  3. Depth control 
    1. Start Depth: AD will start to digitize data when the echo from Start_Depth returns to transducer. The default value is 50mm / Center_frequency (MHz). It is 5mm at 10 MHz.
    2. Stop Depth: AD will stop digitized data when the echo from Stop_Depth returns to transducer. The default value is 500mm  / Center_frequency (MHz). It is 50 mm at 10 MHz.
    3. Effects on PRF: PRF_Max = 1 / (Stop_depth * 2 /C) . C is sound speed, with a default value of 1540m/s.
  4. Serial port control
    1. Baud rate: 115200 bps.
    2. Stop bit: 1
  5. Trigger out: 3.3V, 50ns duration.
  6. Trigger in: 3.3v – 5V, no less than 100ns duration.
  7. Dimensions: length: 8”; width: 5.4”; height: 2”
  8. Environment: 10o C – 30o C

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