Design and Implementation of a Test Procedure for the Evaluation of Interference Coupling in Magnetic Resonance...

External therapy devices in the shielded room of a magnetic resonance tomograph (MRT) can cause radio frequency (RF) imaging artifacts, which renders the image useless for diagnosis or guiding the procedure. At present, there is no standard procedure to evaluate their conformity with MR imaging.The aim of this paper is to adapt an already existing procedure from the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), the reverberation chamber (RVC), to evaluate interferences in the magnetic resonance (MR) environment. For this purpose, a test rig was developed which is adapted to the special conditions of the MRI environment. In addition, the suitability of this procedure will be demonstrated in first measurements. The results show that the method can trace and evaluate RF interference of therapy devices. Moreover, the shielded cabin of an MRI system is suitable to perform such measurements.