6-D Electromagnetic Tracking Approach Using Uniaxial Transmitting Coil and Tri-Axial Magneto-Resistive Sensor

• Published in: IEEE sensors journal Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 1178 - 1186
• Main Authors: Houde Dai, Shuang Song, Xianping Zeng, Shjian Su, Mingqiang Lin, Meng, Max Q.-H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.02.2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 6D position and orientation; Algorithms; Alternating current; Coils (windings); Direct current; Electromagnetics; Geomagnetism; Hardware; Magnetic dipoles; Magnetic fields; Magnetic moments; Magnetic sensors; Magnetism; Magneto-resistive sensor; Magnetometers; Orientation; Position sensing; Sensors; Three-dimensional displays; Transmission; uniaxial transmitting coil
• ISSN: 1530-437X; 1558-1748
• DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2017.2779560

The real-time electromagnetic tracking method has been widely applied, despite its limitations such as a high computational cost and complex hardware components. In this paper, a simple and efficient electromagnetic tracking approach, with both 3-D and 6-D pose tracking, is proposed. This approach utilizes the geomagnetic field and the magnetic field generated by the 2.5-kHz sinusoidal signal from a uniaxial transmitting coil. By extracting both the alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) components from the outputs of a miniature tri-axial magneto-resistive sensor, the position and orientation parameters of the sensor can be computed by using the combination of the geomagnetic orientation algorithm and the magnetic dipole model-based localization algorithm. Since the implementation of the tracking algorithm is based on a sextic equation, this proposed approach is simple and fast. Experimental results show that the root-mean-square value of the position error is 2.6±0.79 mm and the orientation error is 1.4±0.61°. This tracking approach has simple structures of both software and hardware but promising performance and applicability.