A Wireless Receive Surface Coil at 1.5T

Motivation: MRI is a highly preferable but also an expensive modality mainly due to 1)high operational cost, 2)staff cost, 3)long scan and preparation times. Goal(s): Reducing costs and simplifying MRI scans. Approach: A wired coil and a wireless coil which was inductively coupled to a receiver loop were compared in terms of their efficiency and SNR results. Results: On the bench, a 0.8 dB+/-0.5dB of decrease was observed in the efficiency of the wireless coil over a range of 3 cm. The SNR of the wireless coil was practically identical to the wired coil both in phantom and in vivo MR images. Impact: The efficiency obtained by a wired coil decreased by 0.8 dB when an inductively coupled wireless coil was used. Phantom and in vivo measurements show a practically identical sensitivity profile and SNR for both coils.