Beat Pilot Tone (BPT): Simultaneous MRI and RF motion sensing at arbitrary frequencies

Abstract Purpose To introduce a simple system exploitation with the potential to turn MRI scanners into general‐purpose radiofrequency (RF) motion monitoring systems. Methods Inspired by Pilot Tone (PT), this work proposes Beat Pilot Tone (BPT), in which two or more RF tones at arbitrary frequencies are transmitted continuously during the scan. These tones create motion‐modulated standing wave patterns that are sensed by the receiver coil array, incidentally mixed by intermodulation in the receiver chain, and digitized simultaneously with the MRI data. BPT can operate at almost any frequency as long as the intermodulation products lie within the bandwidth of the receivers. BPT's mechanism is explained in electromagnetic simulations and validated experimentally. Results Phantom and volunteer experiments over a range of transmit frequencies suggest that BPT may offer frequency‐dependent sensitivity to motion. Using a semi‐flexible anterior receiver array, BPT appears to sense cardiac‐induced body vibrations at microwave frequencies (1.2 GHz). At lower frequencies, it exhibits a similar cardiac signal shape to PT, likely due to blood volume changes. Other volunteer experiments with respiratory, bulk, and head motion show that BPT can achieve greater sensitivity to motion than PT and greater separability between motion types. Basic multiple‐input multiple‐output ( MIMO) operation with simultaneous PT and BPT in head motion is demonstrated using two transmit antennas and a 22‐channel head‐neck coil. Conclusion BPT may offer a rich source of motion information that is frequency‐dependent, simultaneous, and complementary to PT and the MRI exam.