Trans-skull ultrasonic Doppler system aided by fuzzy logic

This paper describes a trans-skull ultrasonic Doppler system for measuring the blood flow direction in brain under skull. In this system, we use an ultrasonic array probe with the center frequency of 1.0 MHz. The system determines the fuzzy degree of blood flow by Doppler Effect, thereby it locates blood vessel. This Doppler Effect is examined by the center of gravity shift of the frequency magnitudes. In in-vitro experiment, a cow bone was employed as the skull, and three silicon tubes were done as blood vessels, and bubble in water as blood. We received the ultrasonic waves through a protein, the skull and silicon tubes in order. In the system, fuzzy degrees are determined with respect to the Doppler shift, amplitude of the waves and attenuation of the tissues. The fuzzy degrees of bone and blood direction are calculated by them. The experimental results showed that the system successfully visualized the skull and flow direction, compared with the location and flow direction of the phantom. Thus, it detected the flow direction by Doppler Effect under skull, and automatically extracted the region of skull and blood vessel.