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The NNL HeadTracker is a novel system for monitoring the position and rotation of the patient's head can be used to lessen the influence of this motion. NNL has designed a system capable of tracking the position of the head with high spatial and temporal resolution, which is intended to be used for training sessions in the MR Simulator.
Using a camera with infrared illumination fixated to the head coil during scans, a video-feed of the patient's head is captured by a computer. A target device with three reflectors is fixated on the patient's head, giving a set of points visible in the image acquired by the camera.
A tailor-made software solution uses the video feed from the camera and a model of the target device to calculate the position and rotation of the patient's head. This is achieved using lens correction algorithms, image segmentation, back projection and linear algebra to extract the position information from the captured images. The software presents both the current and historic position and rotation for the user in the control room. Activity can be saved with timestamps and the user can define conditions (e.g. threshold movement) that will trigger events, such as control of media playback, alerts, or pausing of a running paradigm until the patient is once more at rest.
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