Study on an experimental AC electromagnetic tracking system

3D tracking system is one of the key devices to realize the sense of immersion and human computer interaction in a virtual or augmented reality system. This paper presents the design of an experimental AC electromagnetic 3D tracking system that is based on AC magnetic field transmitting and sensing. The proposed system is composed of 3-axis orthogonal magnetic sensor, 3-axis orthogonal magnetic transmitter, 2-axis accelerometers, data acquisition and processing system etc. After obtaining the orientation of the receiver by measuring earth magnetic and gravity field with the DC output of magnetic sensors and accelerometers, the position can be calculated from the received AC magnetic field generated by the magnetic transmitter. The design of the experimental system on the basis of theoretical analysis is presented in detail and the results of the actual experiment prove the feasibility of the proposed system.