Multilayer MR Local Coil Segmented Design for Patient Geometry Adaptation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional MR local coils have limited adaptability to patient geometry due to their rigid construction, which restricts their ability to conform closely to the patient's shape, despite the need for flexibility and safety considerations.
Innovation Solution
A multilayered MR local coil design with adjustable and movable layers, including an antenna layer, a first layer, a second layer, and a third layer, allows for improved flexibility and adaptability by optimizing the sliding behavior, density, and cleanability of each layer, ensuring safety and effective signal reception.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If foam layers are made thicker for safety reasons, then safety distance between antennas and patient is improved, but restoring force increases and adaptability to patient shape deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The coil system is divided into multiple independent layers (first layer, second layer, third layer) that can move relative to each other. This segmentation allows the outer layers to maintain safety distance while the antenna layer can closely adapt to patient geometry, resolving the contradiction between safety and adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The layers are designed with movable connections that allow dynamic adjustment during patient positioning. The restoring force is distributed across multiple layers rather than being fixed in a single thick foam structure, enabling the system to adapt dynamically to different patient shapes while maintaining safety distances.
2Ease of manufacture
If conventional thermal bonding process is used to fix antennas to foam layers, then manufacturing simplicity is improved, but flexibility and adaptability of the coil deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of thermally bonding antennas to a single rigid foam structure, the invention segments the coil into multiple layers with antennas positioned on the antenna layer that can move relative to outer layers. This maintains manufacturing simplicity while dramatically improving flexibility through the movable layer structure.
3Device complexity
If single-layer foam construction is used, then device complexity is reduced, but ability to optimize different functions (sliding behavior, cleanability, flexibility) deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The coil is segmented into three functional layers, each potentially optimized for specific properties (sliding behavior, cleanability, flexibility). This moderate increase in structural complexity enables significant functional optimization that a single-layer design cannot achieve.
Solution Approach 2:
Each layer can be made from different materials or with different properties tailored to its specific function. For example, the outer layer can be optimized for sliding behavior and cleanability while the antenna layer optimizes signal reception, allowing local quality optimization throughout the structure.
Data Source
AI summary
A magnetic resonance (MR) local coil and an MR apparatus are provided. The MR local coil includes at least one antenna layer, at least one first layer, at least one second layer, and at least one third layer. In this structure, at least one MR antenna is arranged on the antenna layer. The at least one first layer is arranged between the at least one antenna layer and the at least one second layer, and the at least one second layer is arranged between the at least one first layer and the at least one third layer.