Magnetic resonance receiver coil array with integrated ultrasound transducer

Abstract

According to the invention, a magnetic resonance (MR) receiver coil array (1) for an imaging system is provided, the MR receiver coil array (1) comprising at least one radio frequency (RF) receiver antenna (2), at least one digital amplifier signal acquisition unit (3), wherein the digital amplifier signal acquisition unit (3) is configured to receive an MR signal from the RF receiver antenna (2) and to output digital amplified MR data, at least one ultrasound transducer (5), wherein the ultrasound transducer (5) is acoustically couplable to an examination object (6), at least one ultrasound signal acquisition unit (7), wherein the ultrasound signal acquisition unit (7) is configured to receive an ultrasound signal from the ultrasound transducer (5) and to output digital ultrasound data, and a digital control and merge unit (8) comprising a controller module (9) and a merger module (10), wherein the controller module (9) is configured to generate control signals comprising a first control signal for the MR digital amplifier signal acquisition unit (3) and a second control signal for the ultrasound signal acquisition unit (7), and the merger module (10) is configured to receive the digital amplified MR data and the digital ultrasound data and to output the digital MR data and the digital ultrasound data to a digital data processing unit configured to combine the digital MR data and the digital ultrasound data to optimize the data acquisition and/or to optimize the image reconstruction. In this way, a possibility to combine and coordinate ultrasound imaging and MR imaging with each other for an improved image quality is provided.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.