Background and Objectives: Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases caused by arterial stenosis and sclerosis are the main causes of human death. Although there are mature diagnostic techniques in clinical practice, they are not suitable for early disease prediction and monitoring due to their high cost and complex operation. The purpose of this paper is to study the coupling effect of arterial blood flow and linear gradient magnetic field, and to propose a method for the reconstruction of the arterial profile, which will lay a theoretical foundation for new electromagnetic artery scanning imaging technology. Methods and Models: A combination coil composed of gradient coils and drive coils is applied as a magnetic field excitation source. By controlling the excitation current, a linearly gradient magnetic field with a line-shaped zero magnetic field is generated, and the zero magnetic field is driven to scan in a specific direction. According to the magnetoelectric effect of blood flow, under the action of the external magnetic field, the voltage signals on the body surface can be detected by measuring electrodes. The location of the artery center line can be determined by the time-space relationship between voltage signals and zero magnetic field scanning. In addition, based on the reciprocity theorem integral equation, a numerical model between the amplitude of the voltage signal and the arterial radius is derived to reconstruct the arterial radius. The above physical process was simulated in the finite element analysis software COMSOL, and the voltage signals obtained from the simulation verified the arterial profile reconstruction. Results: Through finite element simulation verification, the imaging method based on a linear gradient magnetic field has a numerical accuracy of 90% and a spatial resolution of 1 mm. Moreover, under 100 Hz low-frequency alternating current excitation, the single scanning time is 0.005 s, which is far shorter than the arterial blood flow change cycle, meeting the requirements of real-time imaging. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and high theoretical feasibility of the proposed method in real-time arterial imaging. Conclusions: This study indicates the potential application of linear gradient magnetic fields in arterial profile imaging. Compared with traditional electromagnetic imaging methods, the proposed method has the advantages of fast imaging speed and high resolution, showing the certain application value in early real-time imaging of arterial disease. However, further studies are necessary to confirm its effectiveness in clinical practice by more medical data and real cases.
Keywords: artery stenosis; electromagnetic sensor; finite element; linear gradient magnetic field; magnetoelectric effects of blood flow; reciprocal theory.