1Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, 2Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN, United States
Software defined radios have been shown to be a highly configurable, low
cost alternative to traditional MRI spectrometers. They are well supported by
the open-source GNU Radio software, however there are currently no GNURadio
extensions to enable their use for MRI. In this work we describe a library of
GNU Radio extensions for MRI, which implements all of the basic capabilities of
an MR spectrometer in an SDR. The software will enable users to develop custom, low-cost MR
spectrometer systems without requiring custom hardware design. We
demonstrate its use via its built-in spin echo, gradient echo, and inversion
recovery sequences.