Magnetic Tracking System for Heart Surgery

Cardiac ablation is a minimally invasive, low risk procedure that can correct heart rhythm problems. Current techniques which determine catheter positioning while a patient is undergoing heart surgery are usually invasive, often inaccurate, and require some forms of imaging. In this study, we develop a unique real-time tracking system which can track the position and orientation of a medical catheter inside a human heart with fast update rate of 200 Hz and high precision of 1.6 mm. The system utilizes a magnetic field-based positioning method involving an efficient solution algorithm, new magnetic field detection hardware and software designs. We show that this type of positioning has the benefits of not needing a line-of-sight between emitter and sensor, supporting a wide dynamic range, and can be applied to other medical systems in need of real-time positioning.