The development of a novel push-type ultrasonic endoscope is described in which probe rotation is accomplished by a small motor situated near the transducer. A digital FPGA-based ultrasound imaging system is implemented which uses coded excitation to increase the SNR and penetration depth, with probe rotation accomplished by a small motor situated near the transducer replacing the external motor and the long steel wire used in other ultrasonic endoscopes. The apparatus is tested continuously for 300 hours with no obvious problems. The coded excitation, digital quadrature demodulation imaging system can obtain ultrasonic images of higher quality and more information of the echo is preserved compared with the analog imaging system, because the analog digital conversion is moved to the first step of the signal processing.The digital imaging system possesses a higher SNR resulting in a sharp image. Locating the motor near the probe improves the consistency of rotational speed in comparison with external guide-wire rotation, and increases the image quality and life-span of these devices.
