MR RF coil with non-conductive waveguides

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11255934-B2
Application number	US-202016857578-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 24, 2020
Priority date	Apr 24, 2020
Publication date	Feb 22, 2022
Grant date	Feb 22, 2022

Abstract

A magnetic resonance RF receive coil with non-conductive waveguides for data transfer between the RF coil antennas and the channel aggregator is described. The non-conductive waveguide for each channel includes a plastic waveguide transferring data between a millimeter wave transmitter and a millimeter wave receiver.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A magnetic resonance (MR) imaging radio frequency (RF) digital receiver coil, the digital MR RF coil comprising:
a channel aggregator that receives signals at each of a plurality of channels within the MR RF receiver;
amplification and data digitization circuitry that receives data from a respective RF coil antenna, for each channel; and
a non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguide that transmits data outputted by the amplification and data digitization circuitry to the channel aggregator, for each channel, wherein the non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguide comprises:
a millimeter-wave transmitter, a millimeter-wave receiver; and
a waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver.

2. The digital MR RF coil of claim 1 , wherein
the millimeter-wave transmitter comprises a transmitter integrated circuit (IC) with an integrated millimeter-wave antenna and the millimeter-wave receiver comprises a receiver IC with an integrated millimeter-wave antenna; and
a waveguide coupler connects the millimeter antennas to the waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver.

3. The digital MR RF coil of claim 2 , wherein
the transmitter IC comprises CMOS and the receiver IC comprises CMOS.

4. The digital MR RF coil of claim 2 , wherein
the waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver comprises plastic and the waveguide coupler connecting the millimeter antennas to the waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver comprises plastic.

5. The digital MR RF coil of claim 4 , wherein
the plastic comprises polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE).

6. A method of transferring digital acquisition data within a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging radio frequency (RF) digital receiver coil in an MR system, the method comprising:
receiving analog RF signals at each of a plurality of channels within the MR RF receiver at respective RF coil antennas;
converting the analog RF signal into a digital signal using amplification and data digitization circuitry, at each channel;
transmitting data outputted by the amplification and data digitization circuitry to a channel aggregator, at each channel, using a non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguide connecting the amplification and data digitization circuitry to the channel aggregator; and
transmitting the data outputted from the channel aggregator to the MR system, wherein the non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguide comprises:
a millimeter-wave transmitter, a millimeter-wave receiver; and
a waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein
the millimeter-wave transmitter comprises a transmitter integrated circuit (IC) with an integrated millimeter-wave antenna and the millimeter-wave receiver comprises a receiver IC with an integrated millimeter-wave antenna; and
a waveguide coupler connects the millimeter antennas to the waveguide connecting the millimeter-wave transmitter and the millimeter-wave receiver.

8. The method of claim 7 , comprising
transmitting the data outputted from the channel aggregator to the MR system via an optical fiber.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein comprising
transmitting the data outputted from the channel aggregator to the MR system via a non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguide.

10. The method of claim 7 , comprising:
generating a serial output stream by combining the data transmitted to the channel aggregator; and
outputting the serial output stream as the data outputted from the channel aggregator.

11. The method of claim 7 , comprising transmitting the data outputted by the amplification and data digitization circuitry to the channel aggregator using a plurality of non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguides respectively provided for the channels.

12. The digital MR RF coil of claim 1 , wherein the channel aggregator comprises:
a buffer respectively provided for each of the plurality of channels and configured to receive one of the signals; and
a memory configured to receive signals outputted by each of the buffers and to generate a serial output stream from the outputted signals.

13. The digital MR RF coil of claim 1 , comprising a plurality of non-conductive millimeter-wave waveguides respectively provided for the channels and each being connected to the channel aggregator.

Assignees

• Canon Medical Systems Corp

Inventors

• Spring Mark
• Hamamura Yoshinori
• Zepeda Ernie

Classifications

• G01R33/3415

  comprising arrays of sub-coils {, i.e. phased-array coils with flexible receiver channels} · CPC title

• G01R33/34092 Primary

  RF coils specially adapted for NMR spectrometers · CPC title

• G01R33/3692 Primary

  involving signal transmission without using electrically conductive connections, e.g. wireless communication or optical communication of the MR signal or an auxiliary signal other than the MR signal · CPC title

• G01R33/5608

  Data processing and visualization specially adapted for MR, e.g. for feature analysis and pattern recognition on the basis of measured MR data, segmentation of measured MR data, edge contour detection on the basis of measured MR data, for enhancing measured MR data in terms of signal-to-noise ratio by means of noise filtering or apodization, for enhancing measured MR data in terms of resolution by means for deblurring, windowing, zero filling, or generation of gray-scaled images, colour-coded images or images displaying vectors instead of pixels (image data processing or generation, in general G06T) · CPC title

• G01R33/3621

  NMR receivers or demodulators, e.g. preamplifiers, means for frequency modulation of the MR signal using a digital down converter, means for analog to digital conversion [ADC] or for filtering or processing of the MR signal such as bandpass filtering, resampling, decimation or interpolation · CPC title