I-Corps: high performance ultrasound transducer driving systems

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是聚焦超声技术的发展。这项技术可以消除传统手术和侵入性治疗并发症。这项技术还可以以具有竞争力的价格制造，使其更容易获得，特别是低收入社区的诊所。这项技术还消除了市场上一些主要的性能障碍。一种微型超声解决方案可以部署在许多便携式应用中，例如超声波深部脑刺激器，它消除了当前治疗的并发症和成本，并且可以用于其他新兴应用，例如心理健康治疗，而无需打开头骨并将电极植入患者的大脑。这个I-Corps项目是基于超声换能器驱动系统的开发。多通道相控阵和单通道功率模块是超声换能器驱动器，广泛用于医疗和非医疗应用。这些驱动程序的价格非常高，而且它们的性能也存在差异。这一创新通过一些性能突破降低了这些驱动器的成本，例如产生有利于医疗和非医疗应用的正弦或无谐波输出，以及去除每个换能器的匹配网络，并提供每个通道的功率限制的增加。这项技术可以部署在聚焦超声医疗应用中，利用这些无害的声波，无创地治疗各种疾病。该技术还可以应用于其他非医疗应用，在这些应用中需要经济和高性能的驱动器。该技术有望小型化，以非侵入性超声替代目前严重侵入性的深部脑刺激，用于治疗不同的神经系统疾病，如癫痫和帕金森。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of focused ultrasound technology. This technology could eliminate traditional surgeries and invasive therapy complications. This technology can also be made at a competitive price point allowing it to be more accessible, especially to clinics in low-income communities. This technology also removes some of the major performance barriers in the market. A proposed miniaturized ultrasound solution can be deployed in numerous portable applications, such as ultrasonic deep brain stimulator, which eliminates complications and cost of current treatments, and can be used in other emerging applications such as mental health treatments, without opening the skull and implanting electrodes into a patient's brain.This I-Corps project is based on the development of an ultrasound transducer drive system. Multichannel phased arrays and single channel power modules are ultrasound transducer drivers, which are used in a wide range of medical and non-medical applications. These drivers are very high in price, and they have performance variances. This innovation reduces the cost of these drivers with some performance breakthroughs, such as generation of sine or harmonic-free outputs beneficial for both medical and nonmedical applications, as well as the removal of the matching networks per transducer and providing an increase in the power limitations of each channel. This technology can be deployed in focused ultrasound medical applications to cure a wide range of conditions non-invasively, with these harmless soundwaves. The technology can also be deployed in other non-medical applications, where economical and high-performance drivers are necessary. The technology is supposed to be miniaturized to replace current severely invasive deep brain stimulation with non-invasive ultrasound version used for different neurologic conditions, such as Epilepsy and Parkinson.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.