Patent attributes
Embodiments described herein relate to a magnetic positioning system and method that allows the position of a receiver to be determined in environments containing conducting material such as concrete. A number of transmitters create modulated magnetic fields which are distorted as they propagate through the conducting materials. A finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation of the environment is used to generate an accurate model of the fields within the environment. A receiver is used to measure the field strength of each transmitter. The receiver position is determined by evaluating the misfit between the received fields and the values in the FDTD model.