Patent ID: 11874353
Assignee: THE GENERAL HOSPITAL CORPORATION
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for designing radio frequency (RF) pulses for use in a multi-shot pulse sequence implemented with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the method comprising:
recursively designing a plurality of RF pulses with a processor of a computer system by:
(a) selecting a desired number of RF pulses to design for a series of RF pulses, wherein the series of RF pulses comprises a last RF pulse and one or more preceding RF pulses;
(b) selecting a flip angle for the last RF pulse using the computer system;
(c) recursively assigning a flip angle for each of the one or more preceding RF pulses based on the flip angle selected for the last RF pulse, using the computer system;
(d) computing a target slice profile using the computer system, the target slice profile defining a desired spatial profile of transverse magnetization in an imaging slice;
(e) computing an RF pulse waveform for each of the plurality of RF pulses to achieve the target slice profile by:
computing an RF pulse waveform for an initial RF pulse in the plurality of RF pulses based on the target slice profile;
for each successive RF pulse in the plurality of RF pulses, measuring a residual longitudinal magnetization remaining after each one of the plurality of RF pulses preceding a current RF pulse and incorporating the residual longitudinal magnetization into the RF pulse waveform design for the current RF pulse; and

(f) storing in a memory of the computer system as RF pulse parameters:
the flip angle for the last RF pulse;
each flip angle for the one or more preceding RF pulses;
the RF pulse waveform for the initial RF pulse in the plurality of RF pulses; and
each RF pulse waveform for each successive RF pulse in the plurality of RF pulses.