SAR Reduction in Parallel Transmission by K-Space Dependent RF Pulse Selection

Peter Brnert¹, Julia Weller², Ingmar Graesslin¹

In this work an alternative concept for SAR reduction in parallel transmission is proposed. Core element of this approach is the idea that different areas in the sampling k-space show different sensitivities to signal imperfections. Thus, instead of using a single and fixed RF pulse for image acquisition, different RF pulses are used in a k-space dependent manner. Each of these RF pulses might show a different performance resulting in a different SAR value. The average SAR over such a single scan can thus be reduced compared to the use of a fixed RF pulse without scarifying significant image quality.