DeepRF: Deep Reinforcement Learning Designed RadioFrequency Waveform in MRI

A carefully engineered radiofrequency (RF) pulse plays a key role in a number of systems such as mobile phone, radar, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The design of an RF waveform, however, is often posed as an inverse problem that has no general solution. As a result, various design methods each with a specific purpose have been developed based on the intuition of human experts. In this work, we propose an artificial intelligence-powered RF pulse design framework, DeepRF, which utilizes the self-learning characteristics of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to generate a novel RF beyond human intuition. Additionally, the method can design various types of RF pulses via customized reward functions. The algorithm of DeepRF consists of two modules: the RF generation module, which utilizes DRL to explore new RF pulses, and the RF refinement module, which optimizes the seed RF pulses from the generation module via gradient ascent. The effectiveness of DeepRF is demonstrated using four exemplary RF pulses, slice-selective excitation pulse, slice-selective inversion pulse, B1-insensitive volume inversion pulse, and B1-insensitive selective inversion pulse, that are commonly used in MRI. The results show that the DeepRF-designed pulses successfully satisfy the design criteria while improving specific absorption rates when compared to those of the conventional RF pulses. Further analyses suggest that the DeepRF-designed pulses utilize new mechanisms of magnetization manipulation that are difficult to be explained by conventional theory, suggesting the potentials of DeepRF in discovering unseen design dimensions beyond human intuition. This work may lay the foundation for an emerging field of AI-driven RF waveform design.