Abstract: This paper presents the design of a magnetic resonance signal receiving system based on all programmable SoC (System-on-a-Chip) and LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench). Using the all programmable SoC that integrates ARM (Advanced RISC Machines) and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) as the main chips of the receiver, the DDC (Digital Down Converter) algorithm was designed using System Generator, a DSP (Digital Signal Processing) development tool provided by Xilinx, and the receiver hardware circuit designed by the authors. The visual programming platform LabVIEW was used to design the magnetic resonance upper computer software. Display, storage and communication of the magnetic resonance signals were done with the receiver. Experimental results showed that the receiver designed could receive magnetic resonance echo signals correctly and provided a high signal-to-noise ratio. Using LabVIEW to design magnetic resonance software on personal computers significantly improved software development efficiency.

Key words: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), receiver, programmable system-on-a-chip, digital down converter (DDC), LabVIEW