Sensor coil array for magnetic inductance tomography with reduced mutual coil coupling

• US 7,923,995 B2
• Filed: 08/07/2007
• Issued: 04/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Schulz, Volkmar
• Primary Examiner(s): LeDynh; Bot L
• Application Number:
  US12/376,582
• Publication Number:
  US 20100181998A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,344 Days
• Field of Search: 324/207.15, 324/207.17, 324/239, 324/243, 324256-258, 336/200, 336/206
• US Class Current: 324/243
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/05 Detecting, measuring or recording for diagnosis by means of electric currents or magnetic fields; Measuring using microwaves or radio waves impedance plethysmography A61B5/0295; measuring movement of the entire body or parts thereof A61B5/11; detecting, measuring or recording bioelectric or biomagnetic signals of the body or parts thereof A61B5/24
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0522 Magnetic induction tomography
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/34007 Manufacture of RF coils, e.g. using printed circuit board technology; additional hardware for providing mechanical support to the RF coil assembly or to part thereof, e.g. a support for moving the coil assembly relative to the remainder of the MR system
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/3415 comprising arrays of sub-coils , i.e. phased-array coils with flexible receiver channels
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/365 Decoupling of multiple RF coils wherein the multiple RF coils have the same function in MR, e.g. decoupling of a receive coil from another receive coil in a receive coil array, decoupling of a transmission coil from another transmission coil in a transmission coil array

Abstract

This invention relates to magnetic inductance tomography, and in particular, to coils of a sensor/driver coil array for use in a magnetic inductance tomography apparatus, in which driver/sensor coils are used to measure the induced flux in a conductive, dielectric and permittivity body, such as the human body. The sensor/driver coil array comprises at least one layer of thin coils whose centers are arranged on a regular grid, with adjacent coils overlapped by a suitable distance to cancel inductive neighbor coupling between them.

Claims

1. A sensor/driver coil array for use in magnetic inductance tomography comprising two layers of thin coils, each layer comprising a plurality of thin coils whose centres are arranged on a regular grid, with adjacent coils in a layer being overlapped by a suitable distance to cancel inductive neighbour coupling between them, and wherein each coil in the first layer is paired with a respective coil in the second layer and the pairs of coils are anti-parallel connected and arranged at such a distance apart that they compensate each others'"'"' fields and thereby reduce external coupling effects.

2. A coil array according to claim 1 in which the coils are wound from wire.

3. A coil array according to claim 1 in which the coils are etched on a single printed circuit board.

4. A coil array according to claim 3 in which the PCB is flexible.

5. A coil array according to claim 1 in which each coil includes a plurality of capacitors connected in series at intervals along the winding to compensate for the voltage drop produced by the inductive reactance in that coil.

6. A coil array according to claim 1 in which the array is embedded in a wearable garment so that the coil signals can be applied in close proximity to the patient'"'"'s body.

7. A coil array according to claim 1 in which all the coils have the same winding pattern.

8. A sensor/driver coil array according to claim 1 in which all coils are located regularly, by N coils, with N=1 or 2 neighbour coils for a line-structure, N=3, N=4 or N=6 neighbour coils for a surface structure.