MRI Local Coil Data Compression via Digital Signal Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
MRI scanners face challenges in transmitting multiple magnetic resonance signals from local coils with high bandwidth requirements, especially when using analog signal processing, which limits the number of signals that can be reliably transmitted and increases power consumption.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a local coil with multiple antenna coils and an analog-to-digital converter that digitizes signals, combined with a compression device to reduce data streams into a lower-dimensional space using orthogonal base vectors, allowing for efficient data compression without degrading image quality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If analog signal processing is used in local coils, then power consumption is low and waste heat is minimal, but the number of magnetic resonance signals that can be reliably transmitted is limited to one or two
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces analog signal processing with digital signal processing in the local coil. This substitution enables the processing and transmission of multiple magnetic resonance signals simultaneously, overcoming the limitation of analog systems that could only reliably transmit one or two signals. The digital architecture allows for parallel processing of multiple signals while maintaining acceptable power consumption levels.
2Reliability
If digitization is performed in the local coil, then temporary storage and error protection are enabled for wireless transmission, but the required bandwidth increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes redundancy from the multiple magnetic resonance signals through digital signal processing. By identifying and eliminating redundant information across the multiple signals, the system reduces the total bandwidth required for transmission while maintaining the benefits of digitization including error protection and temporary storage capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines multiple magnetic resonance signals through digital processing and compresses them into a more efficient representation. This merging process reduces the overall bandwidth requirement while preserving the reliability benefits of digital transmission, including error protection and the ability to perform temporary storage and retransmission if needed.
3Measurement precision
If multiple antenna coils with large number of magnetic resonance signals are used, then signal-to-noise ratio is improved, but bandwidth requirements become problematic
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes redundancy from the multiple magnetic resonance signals obtained from the antenna coil array. By identifying and eliminating redundant information across the multiple signals, the system reduces the total bandwidth required for transmission while maintaining the improved signal-to-noise ratio achieved through the use of multiple coils.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms the multiple magnetic resonance signals into a different parameter space through digital signal processing and compression. This transformation changes the representation of the signals to remove redundancy, thereby reducing bandwidth requirements while preserving the measurement precision and signal-to-noise ratio benefits of using multiple antenna coils.
Data Source
AI summary
A local coil for an MRI scanner, an MRI scanner and a method for operating the MRI scanner are provided. The local coil includes a plurality of n antenna coils and at least one analog-to-digital converter having a signal link to the antenna coils. The local coil includes a compression device configured to compress the n digital input data streams into m digital output data streams. The n digital input data streams are mapped to an m-dimensional space with m base vectors.