DETECTION OF MR SIGNAL DURING RF EXCITATION USING FULL DUPLEX RADIO SYSTEM
Maryam Salim1,2, Ali Caglar Ozen3, Michael Bock3, and Ergin Atalar1,2

1Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, 2National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, 3Department of Radiology - Medical Physics, University Medical Center Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

Synopsis

In this work, we demonstrated feasibility of MRI with concurrent excitation and acquisition (CEA) using our decoupling method which is potentially useful for MRI of tissues with ultra-short T2*. We have used the concepts used in the full-duplex radio system to suppress the Tx signal coupled on the Rx coil. We could achieve up to 100 dB decoupling between Tx and Rx coils using the cancellation circuit. 3D pulse radial scan was conducted using CEA. Deconvolved MR signal response from a rubber phantom and image of it in coronal slice orientation is demonstrated as the feasibility of the proposed method.

Introduction

MRI of materials and tissues with fast transverse relaxation requires data acquisition immediately after MR excitation [1]. Several studies demonstrated MRI with concurrent excitation and acquisition (CEA) such as sideband excitation [2], continuous swift [3], rapid scan correlation spectroscopy [4], and active decoupling [5]. In [5], an extra transmit (Tx) chain is used to generate a cancellation signal that is combined with the signal on the receive (Rx) chain to cancel the coupling signal. However, using two different Tx chains with different random noises causes the noise in the system to increase and hence SNR to decrease. In communication systems, in order to transmit and receive in the same channel simultaneously (full-duplex radios), transmit and receive signals should be isolated. In a recent work this challenge has been addressed [6]. The same problem exists in the MRI when we want to receive the MR signal during RF pulse transmission. In this work, we have used the concepts used in the full-duplex radio system to suppress the Tx signal coupled on the Rx coil. We could achieve up to 100 dB decoupling between Tx and Rx coils using our cancellation circuit. This method can also cancel random noise since it uses single Tx chain. We demonstrated feasibility of MRI with CEA using our decoupling method which is potentially useful for MRI of tissues with very fast decay time.

Methods

We have used two loop coils of 60 mm diameter as Tx and Rx coils. Ideally, by placing two coils orthogonally, the interaction between electric and magnetic fields is mitigated. However, since the magnetic fields of two coils are not totally linear but slightly elliptical, the fields cannot cancel totally by using only geometric decoupling method. In order to achieve higher decoupling levels, we have designed a full-duplex radio system. Fig. 1 illustrates the proposed decoupling system design which is based on geometrical decoupling and analog cancellation. 20 dB of geometrical decoupling could be achieved by orthogonal placement of Tx and Rx coil planes. The rest of the isolation was achieved by the full-duplex radio system. This method subtracts a copy of the transmit signal after phase and amplitude adjustment by using a fixed delay line and digitally controlled attenuator. After fine-tuning our setup using a network analyzer, we connected the output of the setup to the MRI system’s digitizer via an ultra-low noise preamplifier circuit as shown in Fig 1. MR signal is acquired using a Siemens 3T Tim Trio Transmit Array System. A chirp pulse sweeping 32 kHz over 2ms was used to obtain CEA response of a CuSO4(aq) phantom with gradients turned off. Using the same RF pulse a 3D CEA pulse-sequence based on a radial inside-out k-space trajectory of 40000 spokes was applied with a maximum gradient strength of 12 mT/m for imaging of a rubber phantom. TR=8 ms, acquisition window bandwidth=465 Hz/px for 256 points. Total scan time was 4 1/2 min. The acquired data was post-processed to obtain MR signal response. The remaining Tx leakage in the Rx signal was removed using a linear fit over the sweep range. The signal was then deconvolved from the digital version of the Tx signal [3-5]. Bullseye artifact correction was applied to remove artifacts due to Tx signal imperfections [3].

Results and Discussion

Fig. 2 shows the amount of decoupling achieved by the implementation of the full duplex radio system. We could achieve more than 100 dB decoupling within a 240 Hz bandwidth outside the MR magnet. Also we achieved more than 70 dB isolation within 10.3 kHz bandwidth with maximum isolation of 80 dB inside the magnet. Fig. 3 shows the raw-data for CEA with a CuSO4(aq) phantom. The oscillations due to the MR signal response are already visible without any data processing. Note that the first 4 points of the each acquired radial spoke were neglected in reconstruction since the data was deformed by the ADC filtering effects. Missing points were interpolated using the consecutive points. Fig. 4 shows a deconvolved MR signal response from the rubber phantom and image of it in coronal slice orientation. The proposed method enables the concurrent excitation and acquisition of MR signal which is required for the tissues with ultra-short T2* time. The full-duplex radio system provides a robust decoupling between transmit and receive coils.

Acknowledgements

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) is gratefully acknowledged for his funding through the project 114E186.

References

[1]. Gatehouse, P. D., and G. M. Bydder. "Magnetic resonance imaging of short T 2 components in tissue." Clinical radiology 58, no. 1 (2003): 1-19.

[2]. Brunner DO, Dietrich BE, Pavan M, Pruessmann K. "MRI with sideband excitation: Application to continuous SWIFT." In Proceedings of the 20th scientific meeting, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Melbourne, Australia, 2012, p150.

[3]. Idiyatullin, Djaudat, Steven Suddarth, Curtis A. Corum, Gregor Adriany, and Michael Garwood. "Continuous SWIFT." Journal of Magnetic Resonance 220 (2012): 26-31.

[4]. Gupta RK, Ferretti JA, Becker ED (1974) "Rapid scan Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy." Journal of Magnetic Resonance 13(3):275–290.

[5]. Özen, Ali Caglar, Michael Bock, and Ergin Atalar. "Active decoupling of RF coils using a transmit array system." Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine (2015): 1-12.

[6]. Bharadia, Dinesh, Emily McMilin, and Sachin Katti. "Full duplex radios." In ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 375-386. ACM, 2013.

Figures

Schematic diagram of proposed method based on geometric decoupling and active decoupling using full duplex radio system.

Amount of decoupling measured using network analyzer (a) outside MR magnet and (b) inside MR magnet.

Phase and amplitude of the unprocessed CEA MR signal from a CuSO4(aq) sample. Decoupling is linearly dependent on frequency and shows a minima at the center frequency. Spins get excited as soon as the resonance conditions are satisfied during the linear frequency sweep. Cf. Methods section for imaging parameters.

(a) Real part of the deconvolved CEA response from a rubber sample, acquired with a chirp RF pulse of 32 kHz sweep range over 2 ms. Cf. Methods section for imaging parameters. (b) Coronal slice from 3D CEA image of the rubber phantom.



Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 24 (2016)
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