Development and Benchmark Analysis of a Birdcage-Based Volume Coil for Dedicated Knee Scanning at 1.5T

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a popular non-invasive diagnostic tool which uses dedicated radiofrequency (RF) volume coils around different human body-parts for imaging of soft-tissues and detection of critical diseases. These RF volume coils envelope the body parts under scan for efficient transmission and detection of RF signals from the scanned. Efforts are made to enhance the performance of these RF birdcage coils in terms of their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), scanning of body extremities with minimal specific absorption rate, etc. In this manuscript, an 8-channel volume coil is reported for knee scans that resonates at the operating frequency of 1.5T MRI i.e. 63.8 MHz, and achieves return loss of -40 dB. Full-wave simulations demonstrate an enhanced and homogenized magnetic field distribution inside the knee of Gustav bio-model using the designed birdcage coil. This homogeneous distribution of magnetic fields leads to uniform and efficient knee scanning with no induced artifacts. Thus, the proposed volume coil could become a promising candidate for dedicated knee scanning at 1.5T MRI.