Performance analysis of an electromagnetic tracking system for surgical navigation

This paper describes the analysis and the improvement of an electromagnetic tracking system (EMTS) for surgical survey. The system is based on inductive coupling between five transmitting coils and a small coil censor, in order to overcome line-of-sight dependence.The performance of the control loop of coils excitation currents is investigated, ruling out coupling side effects which may potentially affect system’s performance.The results show a significant reduction of both voltage and current error, which may result in a more accurate position estimation.