Digital beam forming in MRI

Digital beam forming has been implemented in a 7T MRI system with a multi-channel RF coil to obtain images with optimized signal to noise ratio, and uniform intensity. Beam forming is performed by summing the complex images received at each pixel in the image plane using a weighting algorithm to optimize the signal to noise ratio. The theory developed for the algorithm is outlined and includes the RF coil element directivity. Experimental results of beam formed images are compared to the usual magnitude root sum squared (RSS) images.