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Abstract #3847

Simple Approaches to Current Control for Transmit Array Elements at 7 Tesla

Steven M. Wright1,2, Mary Preston McDougall1,2, Ivan Dimitrov3, Sergey Cheshkov3, Craig Malloy3

1Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States; 2Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States; 3University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States


This abstract examines some very simple approaches for controlling current and/or phase on multiple element arrays using a single transmit channel. For decoupled elements, conventional power splitters and phase shifters can be easily constructed from passive components to give adjustable phase control. This is demonstrated with a completely printed two-element array. For coupled elements, forced current excitation can be used to enforce either in-phase or out-of-phase currents with reasonable insensitivity to coil configuration and coupling. This is demonstrated by using a three-element, co-axial array of strongly coupled loop elements to simulate a solenoid coil.