Optical position tracking fiducial marker for rigid body motion parameter estimation with high performance

Optical position tracking (OPT) using fiducial markers is advantageous for data acquisition of rigid body head motion parameters and motion correction in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Many opportunities still remain to improve OPT through the development of new devices. A promising prototype OPT marker and analysis pathway are described. The marker through-plane degree of freedom (DOF) precision was enhanced via moiré patterns and stereovision. Precision was assessed using positional and rotational stages in all 6DOF. Initial results strongly suggest that with minimal additional work, the OPT marker will provide excellent performance in a 3 T MRI system.