Novel Electro-Textile Antenna Designs Supporting Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Communication Systems

Speaker: Daisong Zhang
Affiliation: Ph.D. Candidate - UCLA

Abstract:  Electro-textile materials have the advantage of seamlessly integrating electronics with the human clothes and are favorable in both medical imaging and communication systems. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most powerful imaging modality used clinically. Radio Frequency (RF) coils serving as the ‘eyes’ of MRI scanners to receive RF magnetic signals are the fundamental limiting factor to render high quality images. It is an increasing demand that RF coils provide more comfortable patient experience, are applied to more imaging anatomies, offer high-quality images, and decrease error rate in order to benefit patients, physicians and hospitals. The electro-textile MRI RF coil array systems is shown in the research to satisfy all the above requirements. In this research, the high strength and highly conductive electro-textiles are used to fabricate multi-layer RF coil array systems for neck imaging. The dissertation proposed and implemented a systematic approach to design, fabricate and characterize electro-textile RF coil arrays overcoming the difficulties of sensitive frequency tuning, input impedance matching, mutual coupling and the integration with the MRI scanners. The Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) using electro-textile RF coil for both phantom and cadaver show one order of magnitude SNR improvement compared with conventional coils. The applications of electro-textiles are extended to antenna designs for body relevant communication systems such as Ultra-wideband (UWB) and microstrip patch antennas integrated with garments and deliver high quality communications.

Biography: Daisong Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) under the advisement of Professor Yahya Rahmat-Samii in the Antenna Research, Analysis, and Measurement (ARAM) Laboratory. He received his B.S in 2012 from both Shanghai Jiao Tong University and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2015, he won the 2nd place in IEEE MTT Student Design Competition.  In 2017, he was awarded the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, IEEE AP-S/URSI Student Paper Competition Finalist. In the same year, he was awarded National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, URSI Student Paper Competition 2nd Place.

For the years of 2015, 2016, and 2017, he was awarded the National Academy of Sciences fellowship to attend and present his work at the IEEE AP-S/URSI and USNC-URSI conferences. His research work has been patented by USPTO for its novelty and the potential for commercialization. In 2018, he was selected as the finalist of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science Excellence in Teaching Award. He is the author of 11 journal and conference papers. He was an employee at Apple Inc. and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in 2016 and 2017-2018 respectively. He is a member of both IEEE APS and ISMRM Societies.

For more information, contact Prof. Yahya Rahmat-Samii (rahmat@ee.ucla.edu)

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Nov 28, 2018
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Location:
E-IV Tesla Room #53-125
420 Westwood Plaza - 5th Flr., Los Angeles CA 90095