Abstract #1352

Stang P, Conolly S, Pauly J, Scott G, Matter N

Modern MR systems are trending towards large parallel receiver and transmitter arrays. We are building a modular MR console as a set of Universal Serial Bus peripherals on a USB 2.0 High-Speed backbone to target parallel transmit and receive applications. Each USB node includes an embedded 32-bit controller, USB interface, and digital RF blocks or gradient coil outputs. We have demonstrated imaging using our prototype console with pulse sequencing, console control, and image reconstruction all from within Matlab. Our approach harnesses the scalability of USB, and modularity of digital RF technology and embedded systems, to enable parallel imaging in MRI.