Method of magnetic resonance imaging

Method of magnetic resonance imaging comprising the steps of:

• exciting magnetic resonant (MR) active nuclei in a region of interest;
• creating magnetic field gradients in a phase-encode direction for spatially encoding the excited MR active nuclei to produce a field of view corresponding to the region of interest;
• receiving radio frequency data from the region of interest using an array of at least two radio frequency receive coils;
• and
• producing from the radio frequency data an image by combining images Si obtained from radio frequency signals of single coils Ci of the array and weighting the images Si of each coil Ci with a sensitivity Bi of the corresponding coil Ci, wherein an estimated sensitivity B′i (Fourier domain) of each coil Ci of the array being used is determined by applying a smoothing filter fi to a k-space data set si received from each coil Ci;
• wherein the fi smoothing filter is estimated from spatial frequency content of a k-space sensitivity profile of each coil, and
• wherein for a one-dimensional sensitivity profile the filter fi is configured as a k-space filter with a triangular shape and for a two-dimensional sensitivity profile the filter fi is configured as a k-space filter with a pyramidal shape, the triangular filter having a width and the pyramidal filter having a base double a maximum spatial frequency of the corresponding coil field.