US 7,359,121 · Granted 2008-04-15
The Patent Behind Real-Time Sports Motion Tracking
Imagine a video game that watches your exact body position in 3D space and responds to your moves like a real opponent. This patent covers the technology that captures how you move in three dimensions and uses smart coaching feedback to train your athletic skills in real time.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a system that uses electronic sensors to track a player's three-dimensional body position and movement across three or more axes of motion, combined with a computer-controlled virtual opponent that responds interactively to the player's movements in real time. What's protected here is the combination of real-time motion capture with sport-specific feedback mechanisms—meaning a virtual training system that 'sees' you move and reacts to challenge you accordingly.
Why it matters
This patent creates the technical foundation for interactive athletic training systems that simulate real competition without needing an actual opponent. By quantifying movement in three dimensions and pairing it with responsive virtual feedback, it enables coaches and athletes to measure performance metrics that were previously impossible to capture objectively, making personalized training more efficient and scientifically rigorous.
Real-world use
When an athlete steps into a motion-capture training booth and a virtual opponent reacts to their footwork, positioning, or swing in real time, they're using the exact technology this patent describes.
Original USPTO abstract
Accurate simulation of sport to quantify and train performance constructs by employing sensing electronics for determining, in essentially real time, the player's three dimensional positional changes in three or more degrees of freedom (three dimensions); and computer controlled sport specific cuing that evokes or prompts sport specific responses from the player that are measured to provide meaningful indicia of performance. The sport specific cuing is characterized as a virtual opponent that is responsive to, and interactive with, the player in real time. The virtual opponent continually delivers and/or responds to stimuli to create realistic movement challenges for the player.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 7,359,121
- Filing date
- 2006-05-01
- Grant date
- 2008-04-15
- Assignee
- Impulse Technology Ltd.
- Inventor(s)
- FRENCH BARRY J., FERGUSON KEVIN R.
- CPC class
- A63B24/0062
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