A wireless MRI system using millimeter wave transmission
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Conventional MRI relies on a wired connection between a receiver coil array and an external processing circuitry to generate accurate images. To improve image quality, the number of receiver coil elements are increased and separate receiver coil arrays are used for different parts of the body. This while improving image quality also increases cabling complexity. Furthermore, baluns and radio frequency (RF) traps are required for each channel, and cables must be routed carefully to minimize coil interactions. This increases the operation and maintenance costs. Moreover, these receiver coil arrays are heavy and cumbersome and can be intimidating and ill-fitting for children. The coil setup time can occupy a significant fraction of the total exam time. Consequently, removing these cables from the receiver coils will lead to a more cost effective and time efficient system. In the past, a number of architectures have been proposed to enable wireless MRI for minimizing or eliminating the use of cables. All of these past efforts used microwave frequencies up to 3 GHz, and generic protocols such as 802.11b or MIMO that are intended for long-range communication over distances of 10 m to 100 m. Such generic long range communication protocols are sub-optimal solutions for wireless MRI in terms of power consumption and size. This is because typical MRI bore diameters vary from 60 cm to 70 cm. And, depending on a patient's physical attributes and the part of the body to be imaged, the distance between the coil array and the magnet bore/edge can vary from 10 cm to 50 cm. A millimeter (mm) wave radio for wireless MRI data transmission is presented in this work. High path loss and availability of wide bandwidth make millimeter (mm)-waves ideal for short range, high data rata communication required for wireless MRI. The proposed system uses a custom designed integrated chip (IC) mm-wave radio with 60 GHz as radio frequency carrier. We assess performance in a 1.5T MRI field, with the addition of optical links between the console room and magnet. The system uses ON-OFF keying (OOK) modulation for data transmission and supports data rates from 200 Mb/s to 2.5 Gb/s for distances up-to 65 cm. The presence of highly directional, linearly polarized, on-chip dipole antennas on the mm-wave radio along with time division multiplexing (TDM) circuitry allows multiple wireless links to be created simultaneously with minimal inter-channel interference. This leads to a highly scalable solution for wireless MRI.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Aggarwal, Kamal |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Poon, Ada Shuk Yan |
| Thesis advisor | Poon, Ada Shuk Yan |
| Thesis advisor | Pauly, John (John M.) |
| Thesis advisor | Wong, S |
| Advisor | Pauly, John (John M.) |
| Advisor | Wong, S |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Kamal Aggarwal. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Kamal Aggarwal
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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