AUTOMATED LONGITUDINAL POSITION TRANSLATOR FOR ULTRASONIC IMAGING PROBES, AND METHOD OF USING SAME

A longitudinal position translator includes a probe drive module (20) and a linear translation module (48). The drive mo- dule (20) is coupled to an ultrasonic imaging probe assembly (12) having a distally located transducer subassembly (16) such that longitudinal shifting of the subassembly (16} may be effected. The module (2 0) is mounted to the translation unit (48) sa as to be moveable between a condition whereby longitudinal shifting of the subassembl y (16) can be conducted either manually or auto- matically. When in the latter condition, the probe drive module (20) will engage a motor-driven screw associated with the linear translation module (48), causing the probe drive module (20) to be displaced at a constant rate. The distally located ultrasound transducer ( 16) is thus longitudinally shifted during an ultrasound scan to allow axially-spaced 360.degree. data "slices" of surrounding tissue to be obtained, with reconstruction into a two or three-dimensional representation of the scanned tissue.