Patent 7952962 was granted and assigned to Broadcom (company) on May, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Directional microphone or microphones for position determination. One or multiple directional microphones are implemented in various locations to perform acoustic wave capture of acoustic waves associated with object (e.g., a player, a gaming object, a game controller, etc.). The generator of such acoustic waves may be co-located with the object (e.g., integrated into the object if the object is a device such as a gaming object, a game controller, etc., or integrated into clothing worn by a player such as on a hat, a jacket, etc.). The acoustic waves described herein may be generated by any number of means/devices including audio output devices, speakers, pulse wave generators, audio oscillators, etc. Moreover, such acoustic waves may be ultrasonic. A game module and/or processing module processes directional vectors associated with positions of the directional microphones when detecting relative maximum amplitude of an acoustic wave emits by an acoustic wave generator.