A recently developed reconstruction algorithm for magnetic source imaging exploits prior knowledge about source location, source power density, detector geometry, and detector noise power to obtain an explicit estimate of the reconstruction error. This paper demonstrates the application of the new algorithm to the optimal design of practical detector arrays to minimize the reconstruction error in specific applications. For a representative configuration for magnetocardiography, the optimal array width (for minimum reconstruction error) varies from 19 to 28 cm depending on the assumed source depth, number of detectors, source power and noise power. The reconstruction accuracy ranges from 5% of the a priori standard deviation for the sources nearest the detector plane to 95% of the a priori deviation for the deepest sources. The reconstruction error was found to depend on accidental alignments between dipole sources and point detectors, indicating that a more sophisticated model is required for accurate estimates of reconstruction error. The error calculation is fast, taking about a second for this problem on a workstation-class computer. The availability of a method for rapidly computing the reconstruction error for any given source characteristics and detector geometry will facilitate the optimal design of magnetometer array size, element spacing, and orientation for specific applications in biomagnetic and geomagnetic source imaging.
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