Robotic Localization Based on Planar Cable Robot and Hall Sensor Array Applied to Magnetic Capsule Endoscope

Recently an active locomotive capsule endoscope (CE) for diagnosis and treatment in the digestive system has been widely studied. However, real-time localization to achieve precise feedback control and record suspicious positioning in the intestine is still challenging owing to the limitation of capsule size, relatively large diagnostic volume, and compatibility of other devices in clinical site. To address this issue, we present a novel robotic localization sensing methodology based on the kinematics of a planar cable driven parallel robot (CDPR) and measurements of the quasistatic magnetic field of a Hall effect sensor (HES) array. The arrangement of HES and the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm are applied to estimate the position of the permanent magnet (PM) in the CE, and the planar CDPR is incorporated to follow the PM in the CE. By tracking control of the planar CDPR, the position of PM in any arbitrary position can be obtained through robot forward kinematics with respect to the global coordinates at the bedside. The experimental results show that the root mean square error (RMSE) for the estimated position value of PM was less than 1.13 mm in the X, Y, and Z directions and less than 1.14 degrees in the theta and phi orientation, where the sensing space could be extended to +/- 70 mm for the given 34 x 34 mm(2) HES array and the average moving distance in the Z-direction is 40 +/- 2.42 mm. The proposed method of the robotic sensing with HES and CDPR may advance the sensing space expansion technology by utilizing the provided single sensor module of limited sensible volume.