Inspection techniques for frontal imaging inside thin pipes in manufacturing plants or blood vessels are important for their healthy check. The liquid filled in the pipes or the blood is always not transparent and muddy so that the direct observation using optical fibers cannot be performed. Ultrasonic imaging is useful in those cases. Previous techniques such as B-mode imaging must have a 3-dimensional(3D) reconstruction method from successive 2-dimensional images. This paper describes an ultrasonic micro ring-array probe and a 3D frontal imaging technique using this probe. The probe (2mmφ) has 8 ultrasonic transducers placed radially with respect to each other on the front surface. One of the transducer transmits a diverged beam and the other 7 ones receive the echo. A pattern matching method is used for reconstructing objects in front of the probe. The 3D viewing method of the system is based on not reconstruction technique from successive 2D images but an intrinsic 3D measurement one. This system was evaluated by applying to echo data from a computer simulation and an actual object with a projection. The results indicated that this system was useful for the inspections in manufacturing plants or in blood vessels.
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