A novel magnetic orientation sensor for intubation procedures

This paper presents the development of a novel magnetic orientation sensor of a flexible tube guidance using magnetic induction. A flexible tube has an important role as medical applications, for passing nutrients or fresh air, but inserting the tube has been largely dependent on experienced operators. Although X-ray have been applied to detecting the location of the tube, it is time consuming, high cost and they are bulky, which are not practical. On the contrary, a magnetic sensor has been studied for position/orientation detection due to compactness. In this study, a compact orientation sensor based on magnetic induction has been developed; both field generator and detector are designed along the flexible tube. Magnetic mutual inductance with design parameters are analyzed and optimized for an operational range of orientation angle along with magnetic field modelling method referred to Extended Distributed Multiple-Pole (eDMP) model. Performance of the sensors are numerically simulated and compared to experimental results. The comparisons show the accuracy in wide operational range and potentials in using many applications.