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Optical Navigation Technology
NDI’s Polaris® optical navigation solution delivers best-in-class measurement accuracy and reliability while seamlessly integrating with your OEM surgical navigation applications to bring 3D tracking into your application workflows.
Optical Navigation Technology
NDI’s Polaris® optical measurement solution delivers best-in-class measurement accuracy and reliability while seamlessly integrating with your OEM surgical navigation applications to bring 3D tracking into your application workflows.
Why Choose Optical Navigation?
Optical navigation (optical tracking) has long been an important component of OEM surgical navigation systems, where it can provide measurement data for real-time surgical tool tracking. The Polaris optical trackers deliver reliable measurement data with sub-millimetre accuracy and precision over a large measurement volume. NDI’s wireless Polaris® has established itself for robust and reliable tracking performance in almost any environment.
When integrated into the workflow of surgical navigation systems, the Polaris optical tracker acts as the link between patient image sets and the physical 3D space. It enables the positions and orientations of surgical tools to be instantly localized and visualized within the operative field. Multiple tools can be tracked at once without interrupting the surgical workflow.
For more than 20 years NDI’s Polaris has been considered synonymous with the capabilities and breakthroughs it has achieved in OEM surgical navigation through its optical measurement technology. Every advancement of NDI’s Polaris product suite makes increasingly complex surgical navigation approaches and systems possible. Today’s technological innovations become tomorrow’s standard of care.
Principles of Operation
The Polaris Vega® and Polaris Lyra® optical navigation solutions work by using near-infrared (IR) light to wirelessly detect and track navigation markers attached to OEM surgical instruments. They do so over a large measurement volume and with exceptional tracking accuracy and precision. Optical measurement technology is also known—and trusted—for its reliable tracking performance in almost any clinical environment.
Every advancement of the Polaris® product suite represents new opportunities for medical device OEMs to innovate ever-more-complex surgical navigation systems and approaches. Where today’s technology breakthroughs become tomorrow’s standard of care. It’s why the Polaris solutions have been integrated into the workflows of OEM surgical navigation systems for more than 20 years.
1. Markers can be attached to OEM surgical instruments.
2. The Polaris optical tracker floods the measurement volume with infrared (IR) light.
3. This light is reflected from the markers back to IR sensors on the Polaris optical tracker.
4. The points where the light intersects are used to triangulate the markers’ 3D (X-Y-Z) coordinates within the measurement volume.
5. Coordinate data are mapped to the associated instrument and used to calculate the transformations (poses) of the instrument.
6. Tracking data are communicated to the host application for real-time visualization & navigation of instruments relative to patient image sets.
Navigate New Possibilities
NDI stays the course with its partners, ensuring that they get to market faster. We understand that system design is only one piece of your complex path to market. Through our dedicated account management, integration, and technical support teams, we invest in all stages of the product development life cycle- from initial concept creation, through subsystem design, cost, performance optimizations, and the critically important high-volume factory calibration process.
Optical Products
NDI’s optical navigation suite includes four Polaris tracker models, each with distinct options and specifications relating to hardware size, measurement rate, latency, noise, accuracy, data connectivity, and mounting.
Integration
NDI’s optical navigation and electromagnetic tracking solutions can be tailored to your unique tracking application through diverse customization and integration options.
Resources
Learn more about NDI’s optical navigation and electromagnetic tracking solutions through our collection of videos, articles and datasheets. Navigate the possibilities for your unique OEM surgical instrument.
Legal Disclaimer
NDI tracking and measurement products are general metrology components that can be integrated into customer products, research experiments, and/or as components of medical devices that require precision measurement and tracking. While NDI components and technology can be integrated into original equipment manufacturer (OEM) medical devices, they are not specifically intended for a given application and, as such, have not been developed or manufactured in accordance with medical device standards. It remains the responsibility of the OEM customer or end-user to determine and test the suitability of NDI components and technology for their intended use, including performing any required ethics approval, verification, and validation required to demonstrate suitability and compliance. System-level testing, certification, and validation are the responsibility of the original equipment manufacturer or the applicable end-user and should be completed prior to the use of NDI products or technologies in any application.