MiniBIRD magnetic tracker

The MiniBIRD system of Acension Technologies is capable of meauring 3D position (x,y,z) coordinates with about 1mm precision, as well as the 3D orientation angles, of a small probe in real-time (110 Hz). The MiniBIRD position tracker consists of an electronics unit (1), a transmitter (2) and a receiver (the probe attached to the object to be measured) (3).

The transmitter generates a pulsed DC magnetic field. In a pulsed DC magnetic field, stainless steel and other non-ferromagnetic metal objects do not interfere much with the field strength, and do not disturb the position measurements. By this magnetic field, an induction current is generated in the coils in the receiver. The magnitude of this current is dependending on the position in the magnetic field, and the orientation of the coils in the receiver. The current is relayed to and measured in the electronic device, which calculates the position and orientation of the probe in real time, and passes it on a computer. The device in our lab is connected to a PC using the RS232 protocol (serial cable/interface), although other options exist.

We programmed the control of the MiniBIRD device in C++ using the MS Windows Visual Studio compiler. A dll and library for high-level commands to the MiniBIRD device in C++ exists. Click here to download...

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