An improved 6D pose detection method based on multiple magnets tracking

Magnetic tracking method can achieve wireless tracking and has no line-of-sight problem, therefore it is a good choice to track micro devices inside human body for minimally invasive examination or operation. This method is mainly based on the sensing of the magnetic field generated by small permanent magnets. Usually magnetic dipole model is used to estimate the magnetic field. The disadvantage is that only 5 degree-of-freedom (DoF) pose information can be estimated, with the self rotation information missed. In this paper, we proposed an improved 6D pose detection method, which is based on multiple magnets tracking method. Two magnets with opposite magnetic direction have been combined together to serve as the tracking target. Therefore, we can estimate the missing self rotation information according to the relative movement of these two magnets. Experimental results verified the proposed method. The average position error is 3.0mm and the orientation error is 5.1°.