Capsule Ultrasound Device

We are developing a capsule ultrasound (CUS) device to serve as a wireless, portable, and ultrasonic pill for investigating the multiple layers of the complete gastrointestinal (GI) tract, in particular, the small intestine. This capsule will acquire ultrasound images with 360 degrees field-of-view (FOV) and a penetration depth of 5 cm using a 128-element and cylindrically-shaped capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array, wrapped around the center of its body. Simulation results indicate that linear array imaging with a fixed focus of F#4 and 16 active elements produces valuable images. We have designed a CMUT for this application and the fabrication process to create cylindrical CMUT arrays has been established. We report our fabrication progress and show test devices that we successfully made and bent around a glass tube. In addition, the design of the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and the wireless transmitter, responsible for the acquisition and wireless transmission of ultrasonic data respectively, is described.