A millimeter (mm) wave radio is presented in this work to support wireless MRI data transmission. High path loss and availability of wide bandwidth make mm-waves an ideal candidate for short range, high data rata communication required for wireless MRI. The proposed system uses a custom designed integrated chip (IC) mm-wave radio with 60 GHz as radio frequency carrier. In this work, we assess performance in a 1.5 T MRI field, with the addition of optical links between the console room and magnet. The system uses ON-OFF keying (OOK) modulation for data transmission and supports data rates from 200 Mb/s to 2.5 Gb/s for distances up-to 65 cm. The presence of highly directional, linearly polarized, on-chip dipole antennas on the mm-wave radio along with the time division multiplexing (TDM) circuitry allows multiple wireless links to be created simultaneously with minimal inter-channel interference. This leads to a highly scalable solution for wireless MRI.

We report the design, analysis and characterization of a three-inductor radio-frequency identification (RFID) and transceiver (TRX) system for potential applications in individual cell tracking and monitoring. The RFID diameter is 22 µm and can be naturally internalized by living cells. Using magnetic resonant coupling, the system shows resonance shifts when the RFID is present and also when the RFID loading capacitance changes. It operates at 60 GHz with a high signal magnitude up to −50 dB and a sensitivity of 0.25. This miniaturized RFID with a high signal magnitude is a promising step toward continuous, real-time monitoring of activities at cellular levels.

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