Quaternion Based Freehand 3D Baby Phantom Reconstruction Using 2D Ultrasound Probe and Game Controller Motion and Positioning Sensors

This project aims to investigate and design a low-cost 3D ultrasound system from a standard 2D ultrasound setting and an existing game controller position tracker (i.e., PlayStation Move). Ultrasound imaging plays an important role in diagnosis, especially in medical fields, which has a large impact on clinical analysis. However, there is limited number of 3D ultrasound machines in the market and most of the medical practices are unable to use this kind of facilities to conduct their analysis. Thus, the shelf game controller that equipped with the position tracking device can be added into the existing 2D ultrasound machine to increase the capability of the 2D machine to visualize ultrasound images in 3D. Position tracking with the PlayStation Move does not only provide the low-cost alternative, but it is a portable device as well. From the collected data, Quaternion technique is selected to approximate the movement in 3D. Quaternion provides a convenient mathematical notation for representing orientations and rotations of objects in three dimensions. Quaternion method is numerically more stable and efficient because it can avoid the problem of gimbal lock. By using PlayStation Move, the medical operative can scan the subject by using the existing 2D ultrasound probe in 3D. The information such as the positions and orientations of the image at a certain location is integrated with 2D ultrasound imaging to generate a 3D ultrasound imaging.