Mr rf coil with non-conductive waveguides
AssigneeCanon Medical Systems Corporation
InventorsMark SPRING, Yoshinori Hamamura, Ernie Zepeda
Life of this patent
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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.
Claims9
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.
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.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.