The Need

Estimating absolute phase of Radiofrequency (RF) field including both the transmit field and receive sensitivity is very important for various stages of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure. It can be used for mulit-transmit, RF shimming, parallel imaging reconstruction, electric property contrast, and MRI RF safety. Over the last decade, prominent MRI scanner manufacturers and entities across the MRI community have filed more than 30 patents covering efforts to estimate the in vivo electric property, and over 100 publications have addressed some aspect of this problem. Current state of the art methods to conduct absolute phase estimation are not perfect due to the inherent inaccuracy of approximate estimates. Additionally, these methods are only available for specific transmit coil systems including birdcage transceiver coils and multi-transmit coils.

The Technology

Researchers at the Ohio State University, led by Dr. Jinghua Wang, have developed a system and method for estimating absolute phase of RF by integrating transmit system configuration. This technology eliminates the need for approximation, thus providing more accurate estimation of absolute phase. Additionallly, the technology aims to play a significant role in the development of new MRI methods such as parallel RF pulse design, computation of RF shim weights, correction for inhomogeneity in image analysis, image reconstruction, and RF safety.

Commercial Applications

• MRI Hardware Design
• Image Reconstruction Technology
• Advanced MRI Techniques
• Image Artifact Reduction and Image Analysis

Benefits/Advantages

• Currently, commercialized MRI scanners recommend accelerated factor of 2 to 3 for parallel image acquisition, while the new technology can produce an accelerated factor of 5 to 7.

• Increased accelerated factor, leading to significantly reduced scan time with parallel imaging acquisition.

• The developed method is available for any transmit and receive coil system.