Siemens Medical Ultrasound System

Siemens Medical System, Ultrasound Group in Issaquah Washington, was a fairly large client of Teague from 1993 through 1996. For nearly a year, several of our engineers, including me, worked on-site at Siemens to help redesign their second generation prototype ultrasound system for production.

The "Elegra" system was a top of the line imagine system that was introduced to the market in November 1995. So far, it has sold extremely well. Fully equipped with options and transducers, it sell for about $225,000 list price.

Teague was involved with many portions of the design. What I've shown here was some of what I worked on. Key to the Elegra was a large, ergonomic control panel that the operator could slide in and out, rotate and lift up and down to adjust to just the right position for an ultrasound exam.

This is a screen snapshot of the Pro/Engineer CAD model of the mechanism I helped to design. The two long kinked arms are a kind of "four bar" linkage that allow the control panel to lift up and down. Behind the mechanism just barely visible is a purple cylinder that provided the spring force to counterbalance the control panel and lock it in place. The blue and green shafts you see are the "slide" shafts that run in linear bearings that let the control panel slide fore and aft. Under the large purple ring is a needle bearing that lets the whole control panel rotate. The control panel assembly drops in and bolts to the yellowish "collar" which is a sand casting. To give you a sense of scale, the inside diameter of the large, round purple ring is about 4.5 inches.

This is an underside view of the same mechanism. The lower arm in green is a sand cast aluminum part with lots of ribs for stiffness. The white upper are appears solid, but is cast with a "knock out" sand core that allows it to be a hollow sand casting for maximum strength and minimum weight.

This is an exploded assembly view that lets you see the internal parts of the whole assembly.

Last updated: November 09, 1996