Universal nonselective excitation and refocusing pulses with improved robustness to off-resonance for Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 7 Tesla with parallel transmission.

Parameterization-free universal nonselective pTX-pulses were successfully computed using GRAPE. Performance gains as compared to k T -points were validated numerically and experimentally for three imaging protocols. In its current implementation, the computational burden of GRAPE limits its use to applications where pulse computations are not subject to time constraints.