# US 2012/0074935 A1 · MRI Coil Design

> Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt

- Number: US 2012/0074935 A1
- Document ID: US20120074935A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 12/936,682
- Filed: 2009-04-07
- Published: 2012-03-29
- Earliest claimed: 2008-04-07
- Assignees: The University of Queensland
- Inventors: Stuart Crozier; Bing Keong Li; Feng Liu; Ewald Weber
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20120074935A1

## CPC

- G01R 33/34046: {Volume type coils, e.g. bird-cage coils; Quadrature bird-cage coils; Circularly polarised coils}
- G01R 33/34007: {Manufacture of RF coils, e.g. using printed circuit board technology; additional hardware for providing mechanical support to the RF coil assembly or to part thereof, e.g. a support for moving the coil assembly relative to the remainder of the MR system}
- G01R 33/3415: comprising arrays of sub-coils {, i.e. phased-array coils with flexible receiver channels}
- G01R 33/365: {Decoupling of multiple RF coils wherein the multiple RF coils have the same function in MR, e.g. decoupling of a receive coil from another receive coil in a receive coil array, decoupling of a transmission coil from another transmission coil in a transmission coil array}
- G01R 33/5611: {Parallel magnetic resonance imaging, e.g. sensitivity encoding [SENSE], simultaneous acquisition of spatial harmonics [SMASH], unaliasing by Fourier encoding of the overlaps using the temporal dimension [UNFOLD], k-t-broad-use linear acquisition speed-up technique [k-t-BLAST], k-t-SENSE (structural details of arrays of sub-coils G01R33/3415)}
- G01R: MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES (indicating correct tuning of resonant circuits H03J3/12)

## Abstract

A coil for a magnetic resonance imaging device consists of multiple coil elements arranged about an imaging space. Each coil element comprise radiating structures oriented at an angle to a tangent of the imaging space. Angling the radiating structures reduces mutual coupling between coil elements and enhances the penetration of the radio frequency field to the imaging space.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A radio frequency coil comprising:
multiple coil elements arranged about an imaging space;
each coil element comprising radiating structures aligned at an angle relative to a tangent of the imaging space.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 adapted for magnetic resonance imaging.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 wherein each coil element comprises two or more sub-elements and each sub-element comprises radiating structures aligned at an angle relative to a tangent of the imaging space.

### Claim 4 (depends on 3)

The coil of claim 3 wherein each coil element has two sub-elements oriented with a relative angle of 45 degrees.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 wherein the imaging space is cylindrical.

### Claim 6 (depends on 5)

The coil of claim 5 wherein the coil elements are arranged about the circumference of the cylindrical imaging space.

### Claim 7 (depends on 5)

The coil of claim 5 wherein the coil elements are arranged about the circumference of the cylindrical imaging space with a spacing between coil elements of 360°/N, where N is the number of coil elements.

### Claim 8 (depends on 5)

The coil of claim 5 wherein the radiating structures are aligned at an angle relative to a tangent of the circumference of the cylindrical imaging space.

### Claim 9 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 wherein the radiating structures are rectangular.

### Claim 10 (depends on 9)

The coil of claim 9 wherein a long side of the radiating structures is a parallel to a longitudinal axis of the imaging space.

### Claim 11 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 further comprising distributed inductance and capacitance elements.

### Claim 12 (depends on 11)

The coil of claim 11 wherein the inductance and capacitance elements are incorporated in each coil element.

### Claim 13 (depends on 11)

The coil of claim 11 wherein the inductance and capacitance elements are oriented at an angle to enhance radio frequency field penetration to the imaging space.

### Claim 14 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 wherein the radiating structures incorporate a bent or curved shape.

### Claim 15 (depends on 1)

The coil of claim 1 wherein the radiating structures are constructed on a dielectric substrate having a bent, curved or compound shape.

### Claim 16

A method of maximising the radio frequency field in an imaging space of a magnetic resonance imaging device incorporating a coil comprising multiple coil elements arranged about the imaging space, each coil element comprising radiating structures, including the step of: orienting the radiating structures at an angle relative to a tangent of the imaging space.

### Claim 17

A method of regulating mutual coupling between coil elements of a magnetic resonance imaging device incorporating a coil comprising multiple coil elements arranged about the imaging space, each coil element comprising radiating structures, including the step of: orienting the radiating structures at an angle relative to a tangent of the imaging space.