Accurate magnetic object localization using artificial neural network

Magnetic object localization technology is emerging to bring substantial benefits for human medical investigation, such as tracking wireless endoscopic devices or catheters with embedded permanent magnets. Towards accurate magnetic localization, we propose a novel method of fitting the magnetic field intensity and magnetic gradient tensor (MGT) with artificial neural network (ANN) for magnetic object localization, which permits accurate localization of the magnetic object in a certain range. In the simulation, we analyzed and compared the capability of the proposed method and a traditional method based on tensor module gradient. The results show that the average localization error of the proposed method is at least 8 times more accurate than the traditional method in the noisy environment. Besides, a magnetic localization system based on a sensor array was used to carry out a localization experiment and the result has shown the feasibility of the proposed method with the average localization error of 2.15 cm when the magnetic target distance was from 61 to 79 cm.