Concept for Markerless 6D Tracking Employing Volumetric Optical Coherence Tomography

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Optics
• Medical Imaging
• Robotics and Control

Background:

• Optical tracking systems are crucial for medical interventions but often require markers or specific surface properties.
• Existing methods face limitations with poorly textured or non-cooperative targets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a markerless 6D optical tracking system using volumetric optical coherence tomography (OCT).
• To enable tracking of arbitrary targets with sub-surface information, even those with poor surface texture.

Main Methods:

• Utilized volumetric optical coherence tomography (OCT) for micrometer-scale resolution imaging.
• Implemented a system capable of shifting the OCT field-of-view and employing adaptive correlation filters.
• Estimated target motion at multiple locations to determine position and orientation.

Main Results:

• Achieved root-mean-squared errors below 0.25 mm for translational motion.
• Demonstrated in-plane rotation accuracy below 0.3 degrees.
• Obtained out-of-plane rotation accuracy of approximately 0.6 degrees with a prototypical system.

Conclusions:

• The proposed OCT-based 6D tracking approach offers markerless tracking of arbitrary targets.
• The system provides high precision for both translation and rotation, suitable for demanding applications like medical navigation.