Real-time pose detection for magnetic-assisted medical applications by means of a hybrid deterministic/stochastic optimization method

Some classes of bone fractures are routinely stabilized and aligned by the use of intramedullary nails. The identification of the pose, i.e., the position and the orientation of the drill holes hidden by a bone and the tissue is currently obtained by X-ray with all the well-known disadvantages of this technology. The idea of substituting this methodology with an eddy-current-based one has been explored in the previous work, but, in spite of interesting features, the developed technique suffered from some shortcomings. In this paper, we propose a novel technique that is very computationally efficient and provides real-time identification performance.