Localization system

Abstract

The invention relates to a localization system that can particularly be used to localize an interventional instrument (2) in the body of a patient (1). The localization system comprises an electromagnetic wave source (10) which splits an electromagnetic signal into components propagating along a probe path (20) and a reference path, respectively. Said probe path (20) comprises a signal outlet (22) for emitting the signal at the point to be located and at least one detector (23) for picking up the emitted signal. A correlator (40) is used to determine the correlation between the signal components that propagated along the probe path (20) and the reference path (30), respectively. Knowing the length of the reference path, the unknown distance between the signal outlet (22) and the detector (23) in the probe path (20) can be estimated based on the correlation information.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.