“Magnetic resonance (MRI) scanner is a key diagnostic tool, but it is bulky and heavy, and it needs to be cooled by liquid helium. Recently, Neoscan Solutions has invented a smaller and lighter MRI scanner, which can be placed in the children’s ward of the hospital and scans while the baby is sleeping. It also saves the need to carry the child from the ward to the scan. The long process of equipment. Thanks to the digitizer and AWG provided by the Spectrum instrument, the accuracy of this instrument for generating scan signals and obtaining results can reach sub-nanoseconds.

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Magnetic resonance (MRI) scanner is a key diagnostic tool, but it is bulky and heavy, and it needs to be cooled by liquid helium. Recently, Neoscan Solutions has invented a smaller and lighter MRI scanner, which can be placed in the children’s ward of the hospital and scans while the baby is sleeping. It also saves the need to carry the child from the ward to the scan. The long process of equipment. Thanks to the digitizer and AWG provided by the Spectrum instrument, the accuracy of this instrument for generating scan signals and obtaining results can reach sub-nanoseconds.

Neoscan is a new MRI scanner invented for newborns and children under two years of age. The volume and weight are only one-fourth of the previous equipment.

At present, the weight of the magnetic resonance scanner is about 8 tons, so the floor load-bearing requirements are very high during installation. This means that the equipment needs to be installed on a specially reinforced floor or used in a basement. In addition, 40 square meters of space are needed to house the magnetic resonance scanner and related equipment. Finally, special treatment is required, through liquid helium cooling equipment.

Dr. Stefan Roell, founder of Neoscan Solutions in Germany, said: “I have used MRI scanners for many years and I am clearly aware of this problem. Scanning for children usually means taking them from the ward to the scanner. This is a long process. .Because these children often have auxiliary equipment that is not easy to move. For this reason, some children cannot even do MRI scans. We specially designed a magnetic resonance scanner for newborns and infants. The diameter of its middle hole Only 30 cm inside, not 60 cm. Therefore, this scanner is much smaller (170cm x 150cm x 110cm) and can be passed through a standard door. It weighs only 2000 tools, can be installed on a standard floor, and occupies The floor area is only 10 square meters. It can be installed directly in the spare room of the children’s ward. It is very easy to carry a sleeping baby to a place only a few meters away for magnetic resonance, and it also saves the long process of passing through the hospital building, the most important The thing is that the child does not need to be sedated during the scan.”

Innovation needs

The technology and field strength of the Neoscan equipment are the same as the scanners currently in use, so there is no need for clinical studies to verify it. The emergence of new equipment is inseparable from the company’s several innovations. First, in order to reduce the size of the device, Neoscan has developed a dry magnet that can generate a standard 1.5 Tesla magnetic field in the hole, but does not require liquid helium. This is accomplished by an internal cylindrical magnet that produces 2.5T. However, an external cylindrical magnet is offset by the internal magnet to provide a strong active magnet shield to eliminate all remaining impurities at a distance of 1 meter away from the device cover. Scattered magnetic field.

Typical 8-ton heavy magnetic resonance scanner

The second innovation is the ability to control Electronic devices. Current magnetic resonance scanners usually require three specially developed electronic racks, which are customized and manufactured by magnetic resonance manufacturers. Neoscan Solutions company tried a new method. The team ran the software developed by Neoscan on a personal computer, and paired it with a high-end measurement PC card provided by Spectrum. MRI signals are generated by M4i.6620-x8 and M2p.6546-x4 arbitrary waveform generators, and then analyzed by M2p.5968-x4 digitizers. The system uses Spectrum’s SCAPP software driver to enable 5,000-core graphics processors to perform parallel processing instead of using ordinary 8 or 16-core CPUs.

A new MRI scanner body produced by the Neoscan team in Magdeburg, Germany

Spectrum instrument card’s sub-nanosecond accuracy

Dr. Roell added: “As a start-up company, we have no conditions to develop our own hardware, so we chose a high-quality standard card provided by Spectrum Instruments, and we can also run our own software on its platform. Because the hardware has been tested, This means that we can focus on software research and development and accelerate the development cycle. For MRI, the phase consistency of the 64MHz signal is very important, otherwise it will have an offset effect. In practice, this means AWG and matching The digitizer must have sub-nanosecond coherence accuracy, and Spectrum’s cards fit this perfectly. In the research phase, it is also difficult for us to confirm this rather unusual level of detail from the cards provided by various vendors. In addition. , Spectrum has provided excellent technical support in providing the best card specifications and in the implementation process. In contrast to other competitors, their proposal cycle is too long and they do not understand our specific needs, so there have been serious over-standards and over-priced. condition.”

Neoscan will soon install the first device in a hospital in Germany. There, potential users can observe all the operations of the machine while scanning for babies. The certification with the CE mark is expected to be completed before the end of 2021.

Dr. Roell finally said: “This way of using existing hardware platforms to run original software is very effective for us, because it allows us to create a new product at the fastest speed. I think this is a very good solution. , Can also be used on CT scanners and ultrasonic instruments, especially it can help us to test and evaluate through software changes, and also accelerate innovation.”