Are current soccer games just not accurate enough to replicate your awesome real life skills? The answer to this age-old (?) question of man versus peripheral could be solved simply by strapping a bunch of motion-sensing controllers to your arms and legs. Look, Sony’s even whipped up a diagram for you in its latest patent application.
Published on January 3, the patent, entitled “Determination of controller three-dimensional location using image analysis and ultrasonic communication” outlines a contraption similar to the current PlayStation Move, but with a few interesting additions. The idea looks to combine the tracking functionality of the original wand along with the thumbstick of the Navigation controller, while adding an ultrasonic sound generator for enhanced accuracy.
Going by figure 9A (below) and its accompanying description in the patent’s body, you’ll be able to connect two of the peripherals together by their bases to form a super controller, a feature sure to send shivers down the spines of Sith wannabes. It outlines two potential configurations — one where the bases natively support connection and another where an adaptor of some sort would allow for a more complex device.
The patent mentions “a rope-like mechanism … could be used in a game as a nunchaku” and the words “sword” and “javelin” are bandied about. The combination would also allow for greater accuracy, thanks to the presence of two sets of tracking gizmos.
As for the sound generator, it would utilise ultrasonic frequencies, so us humans wouldn’t hear anything but it’d probably drive your poor dog up the wall. The light orb would be used to track two-dimensional co-ordinates, while the generator would measure depth based on the speed of the sound emitted, though the patent outlines additional uses for it:
As used herein, one-way sound communication refers to transmitting information from a sender to a receiver using sound waves. In some embodiments, the sound waves are ultrasonic waves, therefore not audible by humans. In some embodiments, the sender corresponds to a first end of the sound communication, and the receiver corresponds to a second end. In other embodiments, the roles are reversed where the first end corresponds to the receiver and the second end corresponds to the sender. Still yet, some embodiments include two-way, or bi-directional, communications between the first end and the second end, where at any time the first end or the second end can act as a sender or a receiver.
I don’t know if I could play next to someone flailing about with four of these peripherals stuck to their limbs, but then, I thought the same thing about the Wii Remote and all I ever got from one of those was a relatively harmless whack in the kidneys.
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Determination of controller three-dimensional location using image analysis and ultrasonic communication [Free Patents Online, via Reddit]
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