System and method for determining a position of an object

摘要

A system is disclosed for determining a position and a change in the position of an anatomical structure. The system utilizes a surgical navigation system and a substrate that is capable of being removably mounted to an outer surface of a patient's body. The substrate includes a sensor that is tracked by the surgical navigation system and a positional device that determines the position of an anatomical structure relative to the sensor. The concatenation of the position of the sensor and the relative position of the anatomical structure allows a global position of the anatomical structure to be determined by a computer system and displayed to the user.

主权项

1. A system for determining a position and a change in the position of an anatomical structure, comprising:
a surgical navigation system; a substrate comprising means for removably and non-invasively attaching the substrate to an outer surface of a body, wherein the body includes an anatomical structure; a sensor attached to the substrate that can be tracked by the surgical navigation system to determine a position of the sensor; an ultrasonic imaging device attached to the substrate and utilized to determine a position of the anatomical structure relative to the sensor; a first circuit for calculating a global position of the anatomical structure by concatenating the position of the sensor and the position of the anatomical structure relative to the sensor; a second circuit for displaying the global position of the anatomical structure on a display unit; and a point source adapted to be disposed adjacent the anatomical structure, wherein the ultrasonic imaging device and the point source are utilized to determine the position of the anatomical structure relative to the sensor, wherein the ultrasonic imaging device comprises a plurality of ultrasound transducers and the point source is a passive point source that comprises a plurality of sonic reflective balls adapted to be disposed adjacent the anatomical structure, and wherein the ultrasound transducers are controlled so as to emit an ultrasonic beam one at a time, wherein each ultrasonic beam reflected by at least one of the sonic reflective balls to the ultrasound transducers is received by each of the ultrasound transducers to determine the position of the anatomical structure relative to the sensor.