초록 ▼

A catheter arrangement has an active catheter, positionable in a vessel or organ of an animal, having at least one transducer disposed proximal the catheter tip; and a fixed catheter, also positionable within the animal in the vicinity of the active catheter, carrying a number of reference transduce

A catheter arrangement has an active catheter, positionable in a vessel or organ of an animal, having at least one transducer disposed proximal the catheter tip; and a fixed catheter, also positionable within the animal in the vicinity of the active catheter, carrying a number of reference transducers. A signal processing unit is arranged to selectively operate the transducers to send and receive signals between the active and fixed catheters. The signal processing unit operates to calculate from the received signals at least two independent locations of the active catheter relative to the fixed catheter and to combine the independently calculated locations to provide a weighted average determination of the location in which the relative contributions of the calculated locations to the determined location decrease as their associated error values increase.

대표청구항 ▼

[ I claim as my invention:] [1.]1. A method for determining a location of a catheter in an animal body, comprising the steps of:providing a plurality of reference cites in a body;measuring a distance between a catheter and said plurality of reference cites, thereby obtaining a plurality of measured

[ I claim as my invention:] [1.]1. A method for determining a location of a catheter in an animal body, comprising the steps of:providing a plurality of reference cites in a body;measuring a distance between a catheter and said plurality of reference cites, thereby obtaining a plurality of measured distances;making at least two independent calculations of a location of said catheter from said measured distances using triangulation;associating respective error values with said at least two independent calculations;assigning respective weighting values to said at least two independent calculations, said respective weighting values varying inversely relative to the respective error values, and thereby obtaining a plurality of weighted calculations; anddetermining the location of said catheter by combining said plurality of weighted calculations.