Nick Arango1, Jason P Stockmann2, Thomas Witzel2,3, Lawrence Wald2,3, and Jacob White1
1Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, 2A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, 3Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Synopsis
We
demonstrate a low-cost (<$75/channel), open source, scalable, multi-channel
current supply board that can provide up to 8 amps per channel for driving
inductive loads such as local B0 shim coils. The design shows excellent stability while retaining sufficient gain in the audio frequency range to reject disturbances (e.g. gradient switching) and maintain stable output current. PURPOSE
We
demonstrate a low-cost (<$75/channel), open source (web-available
schematics, printed-circuit board layout, parts list, and software), scalable,
multi-channel current driver board providing up to 8 amps per channel
for driving inductive loads such as B
0 shim coils. To our knowledge
there is presently no such open-source design available in the MR community. The
board is particularly well-suited to driving loads with modest current (<10A)
and voltage requirements such as matrix shim arrays [1-2], as well as
recently-proposed integrated RF/B
0-shim arrays that use the
same conducting loops to carry both RF and DC (
Fig. 1) [3-4]. A compensated current sense feedback topology controls
linear power op-amps, providing excellent stability for a wide range of
inductive loads while retaining adequate gain in the audio frequency range.
Measurements of the circuit in an MRI scanner are used to show disturbance
rejection in the presence of gradient slewing.
DESIGN
A
compact layout permits 8 channels to be included on a single board measuring
305x127mm (Fig. 2).
Fig. 3 shows the
schematic for one channel’s analog stage. As tested, the board uses a single
+12V supply rail. An LTC2656 16-bit, 8ch digital-to-analog converter (DAC) (Linear
Technology, Milpitas, CA) provides the drive signal to each channel. The DAC
directly controls the “push” OPA549 power op amp (Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX)
that can source up to 8A continuous to the load. The additional use of a “pull”
amplifier provides the advantage of (a.) single supply operation and (b.) doubled voltage across the inductive load to provide faster switching. The
voltage across a 0.2Ω current sense resistor is used to ensure that the
output current tracks the input signal. The board is configured to drive
integrated RF-shim coils [3-4] presenting a load of 0.4 ohms and 10μH. Stability is
achieved using “lead-lag” load impedance compensation elements in the feedback loops. The
poles created by the series RC branches create adequate phase margin in the open-loop transfer function. The layout permits the board to be mounted to a
CP10G18 cold plate (Lytron, Woburn, MA) with in-laid pipes for optional water
cooling. DAC outputs are set by a Raspberry Pi using serial peripheral
interface logic. Board select
multiplexers (74LS138) permit a single Pi to address multiple boards
sequentially. The voltage across the current sense resistor is buffered by a
LT1920 differential op-amp and bused to the Raspberry Pi via a LTC1862 12-bit,
8ch analog-to-digital converter, permitting the output of each channel
to be monitored in real time. A 74LS240 tri-state latch is used to sense the
over-temperature output of the OPA549 and disable all op-amps on the board
until a reset command is issued.
TESTING
The
circuit is used to drive an integrated RF-shim coil [3] in bench testing and
inside a 3T MRI scanner (Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany). The output
waveform is recorded when the circuit is driven by a step function to test for
excessive overshoot (a sign of instability). To test disturbance rejection, the
voltage across the current sense resistor is measured when the RF-shim test
loop is placed in a region of high
dB/dt inside the scanner with a FLASH sequence
playing. For comparison, this measurement is repeated with the OPA549 outputs shorted together. Finally,
acquired MR images are examined to test whether the shim supply board
introduces artifacts or added noise.
RESULTS
DISTURBANCE
REJECTION:
With the driver replaced with a short circuit, gradient slewing is seen across
the current sense resistor (
Fig.
4). With the driver on and sourcing current, no induced voltage is
measured across the resistor, showing adequate feedback to reject the
gradient-slewing disturbance. The 12V supply provides plenty of headroom for compensating the relatively small voltages (~0.5V) induced in the test coil by the gradients.
NOISE/ARTIFACTS: No artifacts or elevated
noise levels are observed in images with the driver connected to the test
coil.
STEP
RESPONSE: The measured current rises from 0 to 2 amps in less than 50μs, agreeing closely with the step response calculated in Matlab
(Fig. 5).
CONCLUSION
We
demonstrate a simple, low-cost circuit topology with current sense feedback
control for driving inductive loads with modest currents. While
optimized here for 10μH loads presented by RF-shim coils, the load
compensation elements can be readily adjusted to ensure stability and adequate
disturbance rejection for a wide range of loads.
For
applications requiring higher current levels, outputs can be combined
to increase the available current up to 64 amps per board and the supply
rail can be increased up to 60V for driving larger inductances. Schematics, board files, and software are available at
https://rflab.martinos.org/Acknowledgements
The authors thank Charlotte Sappo for help with board fabrication. Support
from NIH R21 EB017338 and P41 EB015896.References
[1]
Juchem C, JMR 2011. [2] Seeber DA, ISMRM 2014 #4864. [3] Stockmann JP, MRM 2015. [4] Truong T,
Neuroimage 2014.