30th Annual International IEEE EMBS Conference
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, August 20-24, 2008
An Improved Magnetic Localization and Orientation
Algorithm for Wireless Capsule Endoscope
Chao Hu1, Wanan Yang1, Dongmei Chen1, Max Q.-H. Meng1,2, Houde Dai1
1
Chinese Academy of Sciences/The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Integration Technology
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, 518067, China
2
Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hongkong, Shatin, Hong Kong
{chao.hu, wa.yang, dm.chen, hd.dai}@siat.ac.cn; max@ee.cuhk.edu.hk
Abstract - In this paper, we propose a novel localization
algorithm for tracking a magnet inside the capsule
endoscope by 3-axis magnetic sensors array. In the
algorithm, we first use an improved linear algorithm to
obtain the localization parameters by finding the
eigenvector corresponding to the minimum eigenvalue of
the objective matrix. These parameters are used as the
initial guess of the localization parameters in the
nonlinear localization algorithm, and the nonlinear
algorithm searches for more appropriate parameters
that can minimize the objective error function. As the
results, we obtain more robust and accurate localization
results than those by using linear algorithm only.
Nevertheless, the time efficiency of the nonlinear
algorithm is enhanced. The real experimental data show
that the average localization accuracy is about 2mm and
the average orientation accuracy is about 1.6o when the
magnet moves within the sensing area of 240mm
×240mm square.
Index Item –magnetic localization and orientation; linear
and nonlinear algorithm; magnetic sensor array.
I. INTRODUCTION
The wireless capsule endoscope was invented in 2000
[1], which makes it possible for doctor to inspect the
patient’s entire gastrointestinal (GI) tract without causing
much pain. This technique has caught the sights of many
research organizations, and some new types of the capsule
endoscope have been proposed since then [2~4]. However,
the current capsule endoscope can not be accurately located
when it moves in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which
makes it difficult for doctors to determine where to apply
further medical operation. To address this problem, we have
built a magnetic localization system for the capsule
endoscope [8~10].
Magnetic Sensor Array
Magnet
GI Tract
Capsule
Fig.1 Localization System Scheme for Capsule Endoscope
This project is supported by Chinese National High Technology Research
(863) Funds (2007AA01Z308) awarded to Chao Hu, and by RGC
Competitive Earmarked Research Grant #CUHK4213/04E of the Hong
Kong government awarded to Max Meng.
978-1-4244-1815-2/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE.
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As shown in fig.1, a small circular permanent magnet
is included in the capsule. This magnet generates a
magnetic field around the human body. A magnetic
sensor array is arranged out of the human body and
detects the magnetic field. Since the magnet’s magnetic
field can be defined by a mathematic model, we can
compute the magnet’s position and orientation by using
the sensor data and an appropriate algorithm [5~7].
In our previous work, we proposed a nonlinear
algorithm [9] and a linear algorithm [8]. Both the algorithms
have been applied in the real localization system [10]. Based
on the experiments in this system, we find that each of the
algorithms has its advantages and shortages. The nonlinear
algorithm uses the nonlinear optimization (Levenberg-
Marquart) approach, and has higher accuracy and stability,
but the time efficiency is lower and might fail to give
correct global solution sometimes because there are many
local minima. The linear algorithm uses matrix computation,
so it can be more easily realized and has faster speed, but it
has the singularity problem, and its accuracy is not always
in high level. Therefore, we propose a novel algorithm, in
which an improved linear algorithm is first used to find the
localization parameters, and it is realized by finding the
eigenvector corresponding to the minimum eigenvalue of
the objective matrix. Then, the nonlinear algorithm is
applied for further computation by using the initial
parameters obtained from the linear algorithm. This
approach can provide not only the good localization
accuracy, but also the satisfactory execution speed.
The organization of this paper is as follows. In section
II we introduce the magnet’s magnetic field. In section III
we discuss the linear localization algorithm. In section IV
we propose the improved nonlinear localization algorithm.
In section V, we present the experimental results, followed
by the conclusion in session V.
II. MAGNET’S MAGNETIC FIELD
The magnetic flux density at a spatial point created by
a permanent magnet can be represented by the following
equation
v v v 3( H 0 × Pl ) Pl H 0
B l = B lx v x + B ly v y + B lz v z = BT ( - 3)
R l5 Rl (1)
(l = 1,2,3L N )
Where, the magnet’s position is represented by (a, b, c )T and
Pl = (xl - a, y l - b, z l - c ) , Rl = (xl - a)2 + ( yl - b)2 + (zl - c)2 .
T
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 the magnet’s orientation is represented by H 0 = (m, n, p ) . This is a 6-order equation, and now we need to use 6 (or
T

more) sensors to solve for 6 parameters in the column vector.

The flux intensity is invariant to the rotation of the circular
In real system, the magnetic flux is detected by magnetic
magnet along its central axis. Hence the magnet’s
sensors, and some types of noise exist in the acquired data,
orientation H0 is in two dimensions, in other words, the
which cause the error in the solution. To obtain more
length of vector (m, n, p )T can be any fixed value. Therefore accurate results, more sensors are preferable.
we add following constraint for (m, n, p ) : Assuming that there are N sensors, and from (3), we
T
have
m2 + n2 + p 2 = 1 (2) MBV = 0 (4)
As shown in Fig.2, suppose that there are N sensors, where M B is the objective matrix:
with l-th sensor located at (xl , y l , z l )T , 1 ≤ l ≤ N. The æ B1x B1y B1z B1z y1 - B1y z1 B1xz1 - B1z x1 B1y x1 - B1x y1 ö
ç ÷
vectors connecting the l-th sensor to the magnet can then be ç B2x B2 y B2z B2z y2 - B2 y z2 B2xz2 - B2z x2 B2 y x2 - B2x y2 ÷
MB = ç ÷
represented by Pl = ( xl - a, yl - b, z l - c )T . ç
M M M M M M
÷
ç BN x BN y BN z BN z yN - BN yzN BN xzN - BN z xl BN y xN - BN x yN ÷
z è ø
H0 (m, n, p) (N >=6); and
(a, b, c)
V = [bp - cn cm- ap an- bm m n p]T .
Because noise exists in the sensor data, the solutions are not
Pl unique when N>=6 and. Here, we use the least square error
x (xl , yl ,zl ) algorithm to address this problem, and this is to find the
y solution of (4) by minimize the square error:
Fig. 2 Coordinate system for localization and orientation
e = V T M BT M BV (5)
Here, we can measure the orthogonal magnetic It has been proved that there are 6 eigenvalues of real
components Blx, Bly, and Blz by 3-axis magnetic sensors, symmetrical matrix M BT M B , and the least e corresponds
and (xl , y l , z l )T , the positions of the sensors are known in to the least eigenvalue; while the solution of V is the
advance. Therefore, we need to find an algorithm to solve eigenvector corresponding to the least eigenvalue of M BT M B .
the 6 parameters of the magnet’s position (a , b , c )T and Thus, we find the solution V to be the eigenvector of
orientation (m , n , p )T . M BT M B corresponding to the least eigenvalue.
After getting the solution vector V, then we get
III. IMPROVED LINEAR LOCALIZAION ALGPRITHM
V T = [t1 t 2 t 3 t 4 t 5 t 6 ]T
As presented in paper [8], from (1), we have
= [(bp - cn) (cm - ap) (an - bm) m n p]T
( B l ´ P l ) × H 0 = 0 , l = (1, 2, ... N). That is
So we obtain the orientation parameters (m, n, p). Now we
æ B lx ö æ xl - a ö æ m ö
ç ÷ ç ÷ ç ÷ need to find the position parameters (a, b, c). Because the
ç B ly ÷ ´ ç yl - b ÷ × ç n ÷ = 0 coefficient matrix of (a, b, c) in (t1, t2, t3) is singular, we can
çB ÷ çz -c÷ ç p÷
è lz ø è l ø è ø not solve for (a, b, c) directly from (t1, t2, t3), and there are
Above equation can be rearranged as only 2 independent equations and need to find another
éb - cn' ù independent equation.
êcm '- a ú
ê ú Choose one non-zero element of m, n, p, for
[ B lx , B ly , B lz , ( B lz y l - B ly z l ) , ( B lx z l - B lz x l )] ê an' - bm 'ú = B lx y l - B ly x l example, p ¹ 0 , then a and b can be represented by
ê ú
êm' ú b = (t1 + cn) / p (6)
ên' ú
ë û
a = (cm - t 2 ) / p (7)
where m' = m p , n' = n p . This is 5-order equation, and we
From the original magnetic model (1), we have:
can use 5 sensors to get 5 equations, such that the 5
components of the column vectors can be solved. Then, the 3[m(xl - a) + n( yl - b) + p(zl - c)] × (xl - a) m
Blx = BT { - } (8)
localization and orientation parameters (a, b, c, m, n, p ) can Rl5 Rl3
be also solved. However, this equation has the singularity 3[ m( xl - a) + n( yl - b) + p( zl - c)] × ( yl - b) n (9)
Bly = BT { - 3}
problem when p is close to zero, which brings about large Rl5 Rl
error. So, we adopt following steps to improve it. 3[m( xl - a ) + n( yl - b) + p( zl - c )] × ( zl - c) p (10)
First, we change the above 5-order equation as: Blz = BT { - 3}
Rl5 Rl
é bp - cn ù
ê cm - ap ú Dividing (8) and (9) with (10), we get
ê ú
ê an - bm ú
[B lx Bly Blz Blz yl - Bly z l Blx z l - Blz xl ]
Bly xl - Blx yl ê ú=0 (3) Blx {3[ m ( xl - a ) + n ( y l - b ) + p ( z l - c )] × ( z l - c ) - Rl2 p}
ê m ú
ê n ú = B lz {3[ m ( xl - a ) + n ( y l - b ) + p ( z l - c )] × ( x l - a ) - Rl2 m}
ê ú
êë p úû (l = 1, 2,…N) (11)

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Bly {3[m(x l - a) + n(y l - b) + p(z l - c)] × (z l - c) - Rl2 p}
= B lz {3[m(x l - a) + n(y l - b) + p(z l - c)] × (y l - b) -
(l = 1, 2,…N) (12)
Substitute (6), (7) into (11), (12), we find two 2-order
equations with one unknown parameter c:
k 21c 2 + k1l c + k 0l = 0
) ) ) (l = 1,2,…N) (13)
k 21c 2 + k1l c + k 0l = 0
) ) )
Where k 2l , k1l , k 0l , k 2 l , k1l , k 0l are functions of known
parameters [t1 t2 t 3 ]T , (m, n, p )T , sensor
(xl , yl , zl )T , ( )
and measurable data Blx , Bly , Blz . Because
there are 2l equations, we also apply the least square error
method by defining
N ) ) )
E= å
[(k 2 l c 2 + k1l c + k 0 l ) 2 + (k 2 l c 2 + k1l c + k 0l ) 2 ]
l =1
(l = 1,2,…N)
¶E N ) N ) )
= 2[ 2(å k 22l + k 22l ) c 3 + 3[ å ( k 2 l k1l + k 2 l k1l )]c 2
¶c i =1 i =1
N ) ) ) N ) )
+ å ( k12l + 2k 2 l k 0 l + k12l + 2 k 2 l k 0 l ) + å ( k1l k 0 l + k1l k 0 l )]
i =1 i =1
(l = 1,2,…N)
Let ¶ E = 0 , we can obtain 3 roots for c. If there is only
¶c
one real root, we choose this real root as c. When there are 3
real roots, substitute the 3 real roots into (14), and choose
the one that has the least error E. Once c is determined, we
can compute a and b by using (6) and (7).
In the algorithm, the dimension of M B is l*6 ( l≥6 ),
while V is calculated by 6*6 dimensional matrix M BT M B , so
sensors number l could be any number equivalent to or
larger than 6. The more is the sensors, the higher the
localization accuracy. In real application, we should
determine the sensor number by the objective accuracy.
IV. IMPROVED NONLEAR LOCALIZATION ALGORITHM
Equations (8), (9), and (10) show the relationship
between magnetic flux intensities at l-th sensor position and
the magnet’s position and orientation. We can measure three
magnetic intensities Blx , Bly , and Blz by a 3-axis magnetic
sensor. For N sensors, we obtain 3×N measured flux
intensity values. Therefore, with two 3-axis magnetic
sensors, the six parameters of the magnet location and
orientation could be calculated by solving nonlinear
equations (8), (9), (10) and (2).
Although 5 sensors is the minimum to solve the 5
unknown Localization/orientation parameters, more sensors
can be applied to get higher localization/Orientation
accuracy. When there are more than 5 sensors, the solution
is not unique (in the presence of noise), and we try to obtain
a solution that minimizes an objective error function. Here,
we define error functions as follows:
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é3[m(xl - a) + n( yl - b) + p(zl - c)].(xl - a) m ùü
2
N
ì
Ex = å íBlx - BT ê
î ë R5l
- 3 úý
R l ûþ
(16)
R l2 n} l =1
é3[m(xl - a) + n(yl - b) + p(zl - c)].(yl - b) n ùü
2
N
ì (17)
Ey = åíBly - BT ê - 3 úý
l =1 î ë R5l R l ûþ
é 3[m( xl - a) + n( yl - b) + p( zl - c)].( zl - c)
N 2
ì p ùü (18)
Ez = å íBlz - BT ê
l =1 î ë Rl5
- 3 úý
R l ûþ
The total objective error is defined as
E = Ex + Ey + Ez (19)
Therefore, we determine a solution that can minimize E,
position as given by (16)-(19). The equations (16), (17), and (18) are
high-order nonlinear equations, and we should select an
appropriate nonlinear algorithm to solve them. Following
factors should be considered when choose the algorithm:
(1) It should have high accuracy and robustness.
(2) It should have large tolerance of the initial guess of the
parameters, because if initial parameters are with large error,
the algorithm may fail to give global minimization solution.
(14)
(3) It should have better time efficiency for real time
tracking.
There are many nonlinear optimization algorithms could
be used. Through the trials, we find that the Levenberg-
Marquart method is a good choice [9], and the localization
accuracy is higher than that in linear algorithm. However,
the algorithm still has a few chances to fail to give correct
(15) solutions, and sometimes, the execution time is a little long.
To address these problems, we propose a novel
algorithm combining the linear and nonlinear algorithms.
There, the linear algorithm is first used to find the
localization parameters, and then the nonlinear algorithm is
applied for further computation by using the initial
parameters obtained from the linear algorithm. As the
results, the system has both the satisfactory localization
accuracy and time efficiency.
V. EXPERIMENT AND RESULTS
Experiments are carried out in a normally unshielded
environment, and there is the influence of ambient magnetic
field. The localization system consists of sixteen 3-axis
magnetic sensors, and the sensor data are processed by
VC++ program in a PC computer. The computer completes
the localization and orientation algorithm and the
localization results are shown in 3D mode on the displayer.
To compare the linear algorithm with the improved
nonlinear algorithm, we first test some spatial target points
using the linear algorithm, the localization errors are shown
in Fig.3. Then we detect these same points using nonlinear
algorithm in which initial guess is the solution of the linear
algorithm, and the localization errors are shown in Fig.4. In
Fig.3 and Fig.4, the red curve, green curve and blue curve
represent position component errors of a, b, and c. The
comparisons of the total position errors are shown in Fig.5
and Fig.6. From these figures, we observe that the
localization accuracy in improved nonlinear algorithm is
much better than that in linear algorithm; more important
is that the nonlinear algorithm has more convergent
localization and orientation results than the linear algorithm,
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 and thus having higher stability.
Table I shows the average localization and orientation
errors via the linear and the improved nonlinear algorithms.
We observe that the localization accuracy in improved
nonlinear algorithm is 2.07 mm, which is much better that
(3.72mm) in linear algorithm.
Fig.3 Position errors using linear algorithm
Fig.4 Position errors using nonlinear algorithm
Fig.5 Position errors using linear and nonlinear algorithms
Fig.6 Orientation errors using linear and nonlinear algorithms
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Table I. Average Localization and Orientation Errors
Linear algorithm Nonlinear algorithm
a(mm) 2.0250 1.8333
b(mm) 1.8583 0.5250
c(mm) 2.4917 0.7417
Localization 3.72 2.07
Error(mm)
m 0.0233 0.0167
n 0 0
p 0.0225 0.0225
VI CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a novel localization algorithm is proposed.
It is realized by the nonlinear optimization approach, which
uses the initial guess of parameters from the results of the
linear localization algorithm. As the results, not only the
accuracy and stability in the improved nonlinear algorithm
are improved significantly, but also it overcomes the
problem that the nonlinear algorithm may fail to give
correct global solution. Nevertheless, the searching time
efficiency is improved. Real experimental results show that
this algorithm works better and the localization system
becomes more robust.
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