Patent Document ID: 20100268514
Application ID: 12662387
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for designing an electromagnetic gradient coil for magnetic resonance imaging systems, the method comprising the steps of: a) choosing a set of objectives L i , wherein the objectives L i are combined to one weighted-sum objective function L; b) choosing a design variable ψ for modifying a value of the objective function L; c) making an initial estimate of the value of the design variable ψ; d) simulating a magnetic field in a computational domain with respect to a distribution of surface current density using a least square finite element analysis; e) carrying out a sensitivity analysis by calculating a sensitivity vector G=∂L/∂ψ; f) updating the design variable ψ, wherein a value of the design variable ψ is changed in order to decrease the value of the objective function; g) determining whether convergency is achieved by either determining whether the value of the objective function does not decrease or the whether the Euclidian norm of the sensitivity vector G is approximately zero; h) repeating a) to g) until convergency is achieved; and i) reconstructing a discretized coil.