Enabling Robotic Capsule Endoscopy Through Effective in-Body Capsule Localization

A critical problem for wireless capsule endoscopy is to be able to correlate a received image with a location, in order to more precisely locate a pathological condition (such as a lesion, or a tumor) inside the gastrointestinal tract and guide a potential subsequent surgical intervention. We treat the problem of determining the location and orientation parameters of a wireless capsule endoscope inside the human gastrointestinal tract through magnetic techniques. Considering the emerging trend in wireless capsule endoscopy towards remotely maneuverable robotic devices (also known as robotic capsule endoscopy), solving the problem of fast, accurate localization of the capsule becomes even more critical. It is also vital that the performance of different localization algorithms be characterized effectively in a repeatable manner in a controlled environment. Towards this goal, we present a design for a novel cyber-physical system to characterize the magnetic localization performance in robotic capsule endoscopy. We present some sample results for localization performance. The results indicate that highly accurate in-body localization of the capsule (with approximately 3.1 mm localization and 2.2° orientation error) is possible.