Genetic algorithms for dipole location of fetal magnetocardiography

In this paper, we explore the use of Maximum Likelihood (ML) method with Genetic Algorithms (GA) as global optimization procedure for source reconstruction in fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) data. A multiple equivalent current dipole (ECD) model was used for sources active in different time samples. Inverse solutions across time were obtained for a single-dipole approximation to estimate the trajectory of the dipole position. We compared the GA and SIMPLEX methods in a simulation environment under noise conditions. Methods are applied on a real fMCG data. Results show robust estimators of the cardiac sources when GA is used as optimization technique.