Lightweight and compact, high performance magnetically shielded rooms for biomagnetic measurements - LightMuRoom

“光泵磁力计（OPM）是新兴的量子传感器，有可能彻底改变大脑（脑磁图-MEG）和心脏（心磁图-MCG）的生物磁测量。这些都是重要的工具，用于提高理解，诊断和治疗神经，精神和心脏病（包括胎儿心电图）条件（影响2300万人在英国）。OPM传感器将实现低成本（价格便宜10倍以上），重量轻，便携式和可重新配置的设备，与患者直接接触;导致敏感性增强，新的患者群体尽管MEG/MCG具有潜力，但由于关键障碍，医院采用MEG/MCG的速度缓慢，现有的高性能磁屏蔽室（MSR）通常包括多层铁磁屏蔽材料，这使得它们昂贵、笨重且大/高，因此不适合标准的医院空间。此外，它们对地球磁场的有限衰减会留下残余磁场，严重限制OPM的运行。（电产生的抵消场）已被应用于提高性能，现有系统具有简单的设计（三轴亥姆霍兹线圈系统），因此仅提供有限的屏蔽性能;不能消除空间变化的场;需要一个3D的几何形状来包围病人LightMuRoom克服了这些挑战，结合了：* 市场领先的MSR设计，结合了新颖的消磁功能，可实现最佳的无源屏蔽性能 * 创新的有源屏蔽线圈设计方法，可创建复杂的空间变化场模式 * 先进的传感器阵列和控制系统，用于检测和消除静电，将动态和空间变化的磁干扰降至非常低的水平。* 使用单一的多金属屏蔽层，导致MSR重量、高度和成本的显著降低 * 改善了地球磁场的抵消，MSR将采用模块化设计，可根据最终用户的要求和成本进行定制，与标准医院空间的有效整合。这些进步将促进OPM-MEG/MCG的主流使用，从而在医疗保健提供方面实现重大突破。该项目将产生一个原型LightMuRoom，将安装在最终用户“Young Epilepsy”中，并为OPM-MEG进行演示。MEG/MCG MSR的可寻址全球市场估计约为5.85亿英镑，与主流用途相比，可能会增加一倍以上。LightMuRoom的目标是在5年内实现约1860万英镑的累计销售额，产生30倍的投资回报率，并创造48个新的就业机会。"

"Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) are emerging quantum sensors with the potential to revolutionise biomagnetic measurements of the brain (magnetoencephalography-MEG) and heart (magnetocardiography-MCG). These are important tools used to improve understanding, diagnosis and treatment of neurological, psychiatric and cardiological (including foetal cardiography) conditions (impacting \>23million people within the UK). OPM-sensors will enable low cost (\>10x cheaper), lightweight, portable and reconfigurable devices with direct patient contact; leading to enhanced sensitivity, new patient groups (e.g. children), and new types of experiment involving free movement.Despite their potential, hospitals have been slow to adopt MEG/MCG due to key barriers, the most significant relating to the magnetic shielded rooms (MSRs) required to shield the sensitive measurements.Existing high performance MSRs typically incorporate multiple layers of ferromagnetic shielding material, making them expensive, heavy and large/tall, and thus unsuitable for standard hospital spaces. Furthermore, their limited attenuation of the Earth's magnetic fields leaves residual fields which severely constrain OPM operation.Whilst active shielding (electrically generated cancellation fields) has been applied to improve performance, existing systems have simple designs (tri-axial Helmholtz coil systems) and therefore only offer limited shielding performance; are unable to cancel spatially varying fields; and require a 3D geometry that encloses the patient (patient claustrophobia).LightMuRoom overcomes these challenges by combining:* a market leading MSR design incorporating novel degaussing functionality for optimum passive shielding performance* an innovative active shielding coil design methodology enabling the creation of complex spatially varying field patterns* an advanced sensor array and control system for the detection and cancellation of static, dynamic and spatially varying magnetic interference to a very low levelThe novel active shielding will enable:* use of a single Mumetal shielding layer leading to a significant reduction in MSR weight, height and cost* improved cancellation of the Earth's magnetic field, in conjunction with attenuation of temporally and spatially varying magnetic fields.The MSR will adopt a modular design enabling customisation to end-user requirements and cost-effective integration within standard hospital spaces. These advancements will facilitate mainstream use of OPM-MEG/MCG enabling essential breakthroughs in healthcare provision. The project will result in a prototype LightMuRoom that will be installed at end-user 'Young Epilepsy' and demonstrated for OPM-MEG.The addressable global market for MEG/MCG MSRs is estimated at ~£585m with the potential to more than double with mainstream use. LightMuRoom targets ~£18.6 million cumulative sales over a 5-year period generating a \>30-fold ROI and creating 48 new jobs."