Systems and methods of position sensing

Abstract

Disclosed is a positioning system adapted to determine positions of medical devices/instruments from position signals acquired by at least a first and second signal acquisition devices sampling outputs from different position sensors of the medical devices and transmitting them in packets. The system includes a calibration signal generator which is connectable to each of the acquisition devices and generates a calibration signal whose frequency is switched between a plurality of frequencies. A synchronization processor processes concurrent packets including the calibration signal sampled by the first and second acquisition devices and thereby determines synchronization parameters for synchronizing between the position signals sampled by the different acquisition devices. For example, the synchronization processor is adapted to determine respective transition times between two frequencies in the calibration signal sampled by each of the acquisition devices, and based on the transition times, determine time shift(s) between the samplings made by the different acquisition devices.