A system composed of multiple transmit coils with corresponding RF pulse
synthesizers and amplifiers is disclosed. A method of designing RF pulses
specific to each transmit coil to induce spatiotemporal variations in a
composite B.sub.1 field is also disclosed. The present invention supports
faithful production of desired excitation profiles and accommodates the
use of any coil array geometry. The present invention also supports
reduction in excitation pulse length. Through effective B.sub.1 field
maps for each transmit coil, mutual coupling and other inter-coil
correlations are accounted for in the RF pulse design.
