Magnetic Trackers: Robot Control and Vasculature Imaging - Microsurgery: Advances, Simulations, and Applications - page 225

Chapter 7

Magnetic Trackers: Robot Control and
Vasculature Imaging

This chapter presents the theory for robot control using magnetic
trackers and sparse lookup tables. Silicone models of vasculature
offer an environment to show two applications of this robot control
theory. A robotic camera with three degrees of freedom is controlled
to simulate the C-arm used in luoroscopic systems; this camera is
manipulated using the magnetic tracker to capture images of the
catheter moving inside silicone vasculature. A second application
is presented for catheter insertion robot feedback control; the
guidance provided with magnetic tracker enabled to reconstruct
catheter insertion paths in different silicone models. Finally this
chapter presents a vasculature imaging technique based on magnetic
trackers and intravascular ultrasounds.

7.1 Robot Control with Magnetic Trackers

The irst step to achieve robot control with uncalibrated magnetic
trackers in restricted environments, such as silicone models of
vasculature, is to build a sparse LUT. This table is a collection of
vectors representing all the reference point needed to control the
robot behavior. Those vectors components are the coordinates of a
point in space associated with a control parameter. Some examples
of such parameters could be position, state or speed of the motors