Audio Location: Accurate Low-Cost Location Sensing

Audio location is a technique for performing accurate 3D location sensing using off-the-shelf audio hardware. The use of off-the-shelf hardware allows audio location deployment to be low-cost and simple for users, as compared to other currently available centimetre-scale location sensing systems which have significant custom hardware and installation labour requirements. Another advantage of audio location is the ability to locate users who are not carrying any special location-enabling “tag”, by using sounds that the user themselves can make such as finger clicking. Described herein are the various design parameters for audio location systems, the applicability of audio location for novel 3D user interfaces based on human sounds, and a quantitative evaluation of a working prototype.