Real-time tracking of organ-shape and vessel-locations for surgical navigation using MEMS tri-axis magnetic sensors

Laparoscopic surgery is less invasive to patients; however, fatal bleeding occurs when a surgeon misinterprets the anatomical location of the blood vessels. Therefore, we have proposed a location tracking system by generating an artificial magnetic field around a patient and attaching MEMS magnetic sensor nodes to certain locations of the patient's organs for real-time tracking of the organ shape and vessel locations. This paper presents the detailed system design and configuration. The results suggest that a high spatial resolution of 1–2 mm may be achieved by static and ultralow-frequency magnetic fields for rotation recognition of each sensor node and noise cancelation of the entire system. The algorithm for creating the navigation ‘map’ has been investigated from both efficiency and accuracy perspectives, which is essential for practical applications of the above system in surgical navigation.