A magnetic resonance (MR) compatible ergometer has been developed to study contracting lower limb muscles during acquisition of MR spectroscopy data, a technique to noninvasively measure metabolic energy in muscle tissue. Current active and passive MR-compatible ergometer designs lack torque or velocity control to allow precise mechanical measurements during isotonic and isokinetic contractions; incorporating load and velocity controllers while maintaining MR-compatibility is the main challenge. Presented in this paper is the design and evaluation of an MR-compatible ergometer designed to control knee torque or velocity up to 420 N·m and 270 deg/s and is able to operate in a 3 Tesla magnetic field. The ergometer comprising of a passive component with no electronics or ferrous materials is located inside the bore of the scanner. The active component with the electronics and actuator located outside of the magnetic field in an adjacent room. The active components connect to the passive components via a cable that passes through the waveguide, a hole in the wall of the scanner room. System evaluations were performed and human subject evaluations were performed that measured the mechanical performance and show the mean percent errors below 9% in isotonic and 2% in isokinetic conditions.
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