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

“光泵磁强计(OPM)是一种新兴的量子传感器，有可能彻底改变对大脑(脑磁图-MEG)和心脏(磁心图-MCG)的生物磁测量。这些是用来改善对神经学、精神病学和心脏病(包括胎儿心脏造影术)状况(影响英国境内2300万人)的了解、诊断和治疗的重要工具。OPM传感器将实现低成本(便宜10倍)、轻便、便携和可重新配置的设备，与患者直接接触；带来更高的灵敏度、新的患者群体(例如儿童)和涉及自由移动的新型实验。尽管它们具有潜力，但由于关键障碍，医院采用MEG/MCG的速度一直很慢，最重要的是需要屏蔽敏感测量的磁屏蔽室(MSR)。现有的高性能MSR通常包含多层铁磁屏蔽材料，使得它们昂贵、笨重和大/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留下了严重限制OPM运行的剩余场。虽然已应用有源屏蔽(电生抵消场)来提高性能，但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；无法消除空间变化的场；并且需要包围患者(患者幽闭恐惧症)的3D几何结构。LightMuRoom通过以下组合克服了这些挑战：*市场领先的MSR设计，结合了新的消磁功能，以实现最佳的被动屏蔽性能*创新的有源屏蔽线圈设计方法，能够创建复杂的空间变化的场模式*先进的传感器阵列和控制系统，用于检测和消除静态、动态和空间变化的磁干扰到非常低的水平。新的有源屏蔽将使：*使用单个金属屏蔽层，显著降低MSR的重量、高度和成本*改进了对地球磁场的消除，结合时间和空间变化磁场的衰减，MSR将采用模块化设计，能够根据最终用户的需求进行定制，并在标准医院空间内经济高效地整合。这些进步将促进OPM-MEG/MCG的主流使用，使医疗保健提供方面能够取得根本突破。该项目将产生一个原型LightMuRoom，它将安装在最终用户‘青年癫痫’上，并为OPM-MEG进行演示。MEG/MCG MSR的全球潜在市场估计为~5.85亿GB，随着主流用途的增加，市场潜力将增加一倍以上。LightMuRoom的目标是在5年内累计销售1860万GB，实现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."