Kelvin J. Layton1, 2, Daniel Gallichan3, Chris A. Cocosco, Anna M. Welz3, Frederik Testud3, Christoph Barmet4, Klaas Prssmann4, Maxim Zaitsev3
1Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 2National ICT Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; 3Dept. of Radiology, Medical Physics, University Medical Center Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; 4Biomedical Engineering, University & ETH Zrich, Zrich, Switzerland
Nonlinear encoding gradients inherently produce MR images with a spatially varying resolution. In this work, we propose a method for the automated design of trajectories that improve the resolution in a target region-of-interest. Our technique finds the optimal trajectory satisfying safety and hardware constraints given an arbitrary configuration of encoding fields. In particular, we design single-shot trajectories that use a combination of linear and quadrupolar encoding fields to provide a localised two-fold improvement in resolution. The trajectories are demonstrated using simulated and in-vivo data.