A novel enhanced positioning trilateration algorithm implemented for medical implant in-body localization

Abstract

Medical implants based on wireless communication will play crucial role in healthcare systems. Some applications need to know the exact position of each implant. RF positioning seems to be an effective approach for implant localization. The two most common positioning data typically used for RF positioning are received signal strength and time of flight of a radio signal between transmitter and receivers (medical implant and network of reference devices with known position). This leads to positioning methods: received signal strength (RSS) and time of arrival (ToA). Both methods are based on trilateration. Used positioning data are very important, but the positioning algorithm which estimates the implant position is important as well. In this paper, the proposal of novel algorithm for trilateration is presented. The proposed algorithm improves the quality of basic trilateration algorithms with the same quality of measured positioning data. It is called Enhanced Positioning Trilateration Algorithm (EPTA). The proposed algorithm can be divided into two phases. The first phase is focused on the selection of the most suitable sensors for position estimation. The goal of the second one lies in the positioning accuracy improving by adaptive algorithm. Finally, we provide performance analysis of the proposed algorithm by computer simulations. © 2013 Peter Brida and Juraj Machaj.