Objective

Accelerating the co-simulation method for the design of transmit array (TxArray) coils is studied using equivalent circuit models.

Materials and methods

Although the co-simulation method dramatically reduces the complexity of the design of TxArray coils, finding the optimum solution is not trivial since there exist many local minima in the optimization problem. We propose to utilize an equivalent circuit model of the TxArray coil to obtain a proper initial guess for the optimization process of the co-simulation method. To prove the concept, six different TxArray coils (i.e., three degenerate birdcage coils (DBC), two dual-row head coils, and one elliptical body TxArray coil) with two different loading strategies (cylindrical phantom and human head/body model) at 3 T field strength are investigated theoretically; as an example study, an eight-channel head-DBC is constructed using the obtained values.

Results

This approach accelerates the design process more than 20-fold for the coils that are investigated in this manuscript.

Conclusion

A fast and accurate method for tuning and decoupling of a TxArray coil can be achieved using its equivalent circuit model combined with the co-simulation method.

中文翻译：

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加速用于 MRI 发射阵列线圈设计的联合仿真方法。

客观的

使用等效电路模型研究了加速用于设计发射阵列 (TxArray) 线圈的联合仿真方法。

材料和方法

尽管协同仿真方法极大地降低了 TxArray 线圈设计的复杂性，但由于优化问题中存在许多局部最小值，因此找到最佳解决方案并非易事。我们建议利用 TxArray 线圈的等效电路模型来为协同仿真方法的优化过程获得适当的初始猜测。为了证明这个概念，六个不同的 TxArray 线圈（即三个退化鸟笼线圈（DBC）、两个双排头部线圈和一个椭圆体 TxArray 线圈）具有两种不同的加载策略（圆柱体模和人体头部/身体模型）在理论上研究了3T场强；作为示例研究，使用获得的值构建了一个八通道头部 DBC。

结果

这种方法将本手稿中研究的线圈的设计过程加速了 20 倍以上。

结论

将等效电路模型与协同仿真方法相结合，可以实现一种快速准确的 TxArray 线圈调谐和去耦方法。