Interactive real-time RF control for MRI transmit channels
Author
Yılmaz, Uğur
Advisor
Atalar, Ergin
Date
2019-09Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
148
views
views
68
downloads
downloads
Abstract
Cardiac catheterization is one of the heavily researched areas of the real-time
interventional studies in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), where elongated
conductive wires are prone to excessive radiofrequency (RF) heating and tracking
of the devices might be challenging. Previous studies have proposed several
techniques for heating reduction at the conductive wire tip and device visualization,
using multiple transmit channels but the software platform for real-time RF
control of multiple transmit channels has been missing for interventional procedures.
In this study, we are presenting a software framework capable of interactive
real-time RF control of MRI transmit channels and reception of dynamic
images from MR image reconstruction computer. The software consists of three
main programs running on three di erent operating systems (Linux, Windows
and VxWorks) that communicate with each other over TCP/IP connection. Besides
socket programming, multi-threading/multi-tasking is implemented for each
platform along with the synchronization semaphores. The graphical user interface
end is developed with Qt. Siemens' work-in-progress tip-tracking pulse sequence
(BEAT IRTTT) source code is modi ed to serve as the other end in our software
system. The interactive real-time experiments are conducted on a copper sulfate
phantom including a conductive wire. Dual-port body coil which is a product of
Siemens is used as the transmit antenna and each port is driven independently.
Results have shown the feasibility of the real-time RF control in the MRI, with
an e ective total update latency of two frames on the dynamic image-series. We
believe this framework will contribute to real-time interventional procedures in
terms of RF safety and catheter tracking.