ENDOSCOPE SHAPE SENSING SYSTEM

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system capable of tracking and sensing the endoscope shape on the real,-time basis by reliably and promptly sensing the source coil position and angle. SOLUTION: A sense coil 22j is provided with a coil rotating section 36 controlled by a system control 34. With the sense coil 22j thrown into rotation by the coil rotating section 36, signals from the sense coil 22j are detected by a magnetic field intensity detector 37 through a sense coil output amplifier 27, and the obtained signal strength distribution is stored in a built-in memory. A signal strength/direction identifier 38 identifies the direction of the highest signal strength or magnetic field intensity on the basis of the memorized distribution. The system control 34 controls the coil rotating section 36 in response to signals from the signal strength/direction identifier 38 for the sense coil 22j to rotate and face the direction of the highest magnetic field intensity.