An inertial-optical tracking system for portable, quantitative, 3D ultrasound

Freehand 3D ultrasound imaging has been growing in popularity. However, the unavoidable reconstruction errors introduced by freehand motion have limited its usefulness. To overcome this, freehand ultrasound systems have been augmented with external tracking sensors to produce accurate 3D images in mainly experimental settings, but these systems have yet to be accepted for general clinical use. In addition, the use of external tracking sensors limits the portability of the system.