A Trackable Laser Tag System

Kelly Waller1, Justin Luck1, Adam Hoover1, Eric Muth2

1
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
2
Psychology Department
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0915
wallerk, ahoover, muth @clemson.edu
Keywords: laser tag, embedded system, 802.11b wireless, augmented reality gaming
Abstract
In this paper we describe a laser tag system
that tracks the weapon and head orientations
of the users, as well as firing and hits. The
data is computed onboard the devices by
custom designed embedded systems, and
wirelessly broadcast using the 802.11b
standard. Eight prototype systems have been
constructed for research in training 4-man
teams in building clearing exercises. The
system has applications in research, training,
and augmented reality gaming.

I. INTRODUCTION
Laser tag systems allow users to simulate
firearms combat. Typical equipment consists of
a weapon that emits infrared pulses upon firing,
and an infrared detector, usually placed on a
vest. Each user is given a weapon and a vest.
The combat can be for entertainment, in which
case hits are typically used to active visual and
sonic feedback to the user (the vest lights up
and rings when hit). The combat can also be
used for training, in which case the firing and
hits can be recorded. Typically, counts of shots
fired and hits detected are downloaded at the
end of a combat session by connecting the
equipment to a base computer station.
The most common feedback from laser
tag data is the number of losses taken and kills
accomplished by a team. However, this does
not provide any detailed information about how
well the team coordinated its actions, or how it
could improve its performance.
For that

purpose, more detailed tracking information is

necessary, providing information covering the
entire exercise and not just during the brief
periods of firing activity. Specifically, we are
interested in tracking the aiming of weapons,
and which direction team members are looking,
throughout an exercise.
Given the desired orientation data, a
team could review its collective weapons and
observation coverage. In some cases, it is
desirable to have the team concentrating
coverage towards one area, while in other cases,
it is desirable to have the team spreading
coverage over all surrounding terrain. During
the exercise, an instructor could observe the
data in real-time to provide a deeper critique
and analysis of the teams performance. After
the exercise, the team could replay the exercise,
observing individual as well as team activity.
Expert recordings could be replayed for further
instruction.
Several military and commercial laser
tag systems have been developed, but none of
them meet our desired criteria. The Multiple
Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES)
is currently in use by the US Army and Marines
for war games involving not only solders, but
also vehicles and artillery. It can be attached to
existing equipment, so that soldiers carry real
weapons (firing blanks).
However, this
equipment only tracks firing and hits; it does
not track the orientation of weapons or where
team members are looking. Battlefield Sports
constructs a commercial system for outdoor

gaming. It also does not track weapon or head

orientation. A variety of other commercial
systems have been developed and sold, usually
as toys designed for kids, with similar
shortcomings.
In this paper we describe a trackable
laser tag system. Our system consists of a rifle
that shoots infrared beams and a helmet with
infrared detectors. Both the helmet and the rifle
contain an integrated orientation tracker to
provide the desired data. Previous laser tag
systems typically either do not communicate
wirelessly to a base computer, or if they do,
they use custom RF signals and circuits. Our
system communicates to a base computer
wirelessly using the 802.11b standard. Thus,
each piece of equipment has its own IP address,
and communicates with the base computer
through an off-the-shelf 802.11 router. Our
system was designed specifically for use
indoors, for use in building clearing exercises.
However, it could readily find applications in
other areas, such as augmented reality research
and gaming.

II. METHODS
Our laser tag system consists of two pieces of
equipment: a rifle and a helmet. We desired to
minimize wiring and clutter on users, so the
pieces are completely unconnected. Each piece
of equipment needed to implement orientation
tracking independently in addition to the
wireless capability. Only the rifle needed to
implement the laser firing, but both the helmet
and rifle could implement hit detection (the rifle
being a backup). Given all these common
features, we decided to implement a single
embedded circuit board that could operate in
either piece of equipment, to save in
development and operation costs.
Figure 1.1 shows a block diagram of our
circuit board. We consider the design to have
four main components: orientation tracking,
the laser-tag firing and detection circuits, the
wireless data transmission scheme, and
combining these three sub-systems into one

coherent system. Using a modular design, each

sub-system can be implemented in a different
circuit or chip.
Orientation
Tracking
Circuit

Laser
Tag
Circuit

Wireless
Circuit

Control Circuit
Figure 1: Block diagram of circuit board.

Figure 2: DPAC 802.11b Wireless LAN

Module.
The wireless circuit is implemented
using the 802.11b Wireless LAN Node Module
from DPAC Technologies (the DPAC).
Figure 2 shows a DPAC chip. It contains an
802.11b radio as well as an application
processor that implements a web server, telnet
server, and controls 8 analog-to-digital
converters. The module also packs a UART,
twelve digital I/O pins, and several other
interfaces. The 802.11b protocol provides a
theoretical 11 megabits per second and a range
of 300 meters. At the time of this writing, a
DPAC chip costs about $110 (US). The added
benefit of this chip is the fact that the
application processor is packaged with the
wireless module. This allows the DPAC to
function as both the interface to the base
station, and the collection point for the data
coming in from the other sub-systems. This
eliminates the need for a separate
microcontroller to tie all the sub-systems

together. Several of the digital I/O pins are

used to control the infrared circuit (described
below). Two pins are set as inputs and monitor
if the trigger has been pulled or if a hit has been
detected. Two other pins are used to clear the
hit and trigger circuits. Another pin is used to
interface a hit indicator and is set to a high
output if a hit is detected. The module can also
be placed into Pass Through mode, which
redirects all data coming to the module through
telnet to its serial UART. This mechanism
allows direct communication between the base
station and the orientation tracking solution
(described next).

Figure 3:
Compass.

Honeywell HMR3300 Digital

The orientation tracking circuit is

implemented using a digital compass from
Honeywell. Figure 3 shows a picture of the part
used. The Honeywell HMR3300 is a triple-axis
magnetometer and a two-axis accelerometer.
This solution combines two ways of finding
orientation in order to address the weaknesses
of each technology. An accelerometer performs
well at measuring quick changes in direction,
but suffers from drift as each calculation is
based on the previous, making small errors add
up over time. Frequent recalibration via aiming
in a known direction is commonly used to
overcome this weakness, but for our purposes,
this constant recalibration was not acceptable.
A magnetometer on the other hand does not
suffer from drift as it calculates orientation
based off the strength of the flux of the
magnetic field of the earth. However, it is
much slower than an accelerometer to react to a
change in orientation, and it is far less accurate.

The Honeywell part combines these two

sensors. At the time of this writing, the
Honeywell part costs approximately $400 (US).

Figure 4: Infrared receiver and emitter.

The laser tag circuit is implemented
using an infrared led emitter, specifically tuned
infrared receivers, and custom circuits to drive
both.
Vishay Semiconductors produces
commodity detectors at negligible cost (less
than $0.10 US) that operate with a carrier
frequency between 30kHz to 60kHz. For our
implementation, the carrier frequency of 56kHz
was arbitrarily chosen, to match the
TSOP34856 infrared receiver. A sketch of the
emitter and receiver is shown in Figure 4.
When the receiver detects a 56kHz signal, its
one output pin is pulled low. The receiver
features several filters aimed at reducing the
effect of ambient light. One of these filters
requires the receiver to see a minimum
sequence of 10 cycles and a maximum
sequence of 70 cycles before it will activate.
Also, there must be a gap of at least 14 cycles
between each burst.
The system has a simple hit or no-hit
setup which means no information is sent from
the emitter to the receiver. The circuit for the
transmitter can be seen in Figure 5 (at end of
paper). The circuit uses a J-K flip flop and two
555 timers. One 555 timer is uses as a one shot
that is active for approximately 40 cycles, and
the other is used as a multivibrator tuned to
56Khz. The 40 cycles is exactly in the middle
of the 10-70 cycles that the receiver is looking
for. The output of each timer is fed to an AND
gate, which is then fed into a standard NP2222
transistor that provides the high current, up to
100mA, needed by the infrared emitter. In
Figure 5, R4 and C5 determine the active time

of the one shot, while J1-1 and J1-2 are where

the switch is mounted to the trigger of the rifle.
R3 acts as a current limiter, while C1 and C4
are connected to the control pins to eliminate
noise from the control offset. R1, R2, C2, and
C3 are used to tune the multivibrator 555 timer
to 56kHz. The SFH4503 Infrared LED from
Osram Opto Semiconductors is wired to J1-3
(power) and J1-4 (ground) and was chosen for
its narrow emission field (approximately 4
degrees half-angle), and its capability for
emission of large amounts of radiant light. The
amount of radiant light determines the
maximum range, while the emission field
determines the size of the hit-zone. The J-K
flip flop is used to record a trigger pull. In the
configuration shown, the flip flop will set the
output, Q, to the high voltage level if the reset
pin, R, is high, and there is a falling edge on the
clock pin. Q is then fed to a buffer chip that
handles the change in voltage from +5v to the
DPACs 3.3v, and the output of this buffer is
sent to the DPAC. The simple buzzer circuit
connected to the trigger switch gives feedback
to the participants that shots are being fired.
The diode, D3 prevents current from entering
and destroying the DPAC and 555 timers.
The circuit for the receiver can be seen
in Figure 6 (at end of paper). The circuit uses
the aforementioned infrared receiver part along
with a low-pass filter and a J-K flip-flop. The
J-K flip flop is in the same configuration as in
the trigger circuit, and will set Q to the high
voltage level if the reset pin is high, and there is
a falling edge on the clock pin. This is done
because the infrared receivers are low active.
Multiple receivers are used so they can be
placed on different parts of the helmet. Our
current implementation uses 4 detectors, one on
each side of the helmet. The infrared receivers
themselves are hooked to a noise and power
fluctuation reduced 5 volt power supply, and
output is connected to a low-pass filter via a
wired-OR configuration. The diodes D1 and
D2 are used to isolate the receivers in an effort
to avoid a cascading response action that causes

multiple hits to be recorded. The first-order

low pass filter is tuned to 60Hz using R2 and
C2, and filters out the noise generated by the
802.11b transmission antenna. The output of
the low-pass filter is fed to the J-K flip flop
clock pin. With this system design, the only
limit to the number of detectors that can be used
is the total current draw of the detectors, and
with a max draw of only 3mA, that limit is
high. Also, the design allows the addition of
detectors to the design post implementation if
needed.
In order to notify the user if he has been
hit, a red LED, D5, that is fed current from a
NP2222 transistor is used. The transistor is
connected to J1-14, and is turned off via the
previously mentioned digital I/O pin of the
DPAC that resets the flip flop. Since the helmet
is out of view of the participant, an audio
feedback was included. A NexxTech LED
Memo Recorder Keychain module was
modified to be powered by our system and to
play its recording whenever a 5 volt signal is
applied to an added signal wire. The signal
wire is interfaced to the reset line of the hit
detection circuit, and plays a You are dead!
message whenever activated. Figure 7 shows a
picture of the sound module.

Figure 7: NexxTech Memo Voice Recorder.

The base station needs only to be a PC
with a wireless or Ethernet card and an off-theshelf 802.11b router. The code currently in use
is written in C, and opens 2 sockets per device
for communication. One socket is used to
receive the orientation data, and the other is

used to receive the hits and trigger data. Using

two sockets allows the orientation tracking and
laser tag circuits to be polled at different rates.
After setting up the socket connections and
initializing the I/O pins of the DPAC, the hit
and trigger pins are polled continuously to see if
either has occurred. The DPAC is also put into
pass-through mode, and the Honeywell digital
compass is polled continuously for the current
heading. The Honeywell part computes a new
orientation at a rate of about 8 Hz. Polling the
part on its own socket provides the largest
possible update rate.

the system on, and removal of the clip turns it

off.

III. RESULTS
We employed EEEA, Inc. (Mauldin, South
Carolina) to manufacture a printed circuit board
(PCB) implementing our design. Figure 8
shows a picture of the PCB, with the DPAC
chip mounted on it. A US quarter is placed
next to the board for size comparison. Printing
in quantities of 25, including design, parts
(excluding the DPAC chip and the Honeywell
sensor) and fabrication, cost about $1200 (US)
per board.
Figure 9 shows a picture of our
trackable laser tag system. The rifle uses a
gutted Carbine Panther M16-A1 airsoft rifle for
a shell. The circuit board is mounted in the
stock of the rifle. The spring-powered firing
mechanism was removed from the rifle to make
room for wiring. The Honeywell sensor was
mounted in the original plastic casing
surrounding the barrel, and positioned at right
angles to the barrel and stock for easy
interpretation of the data. All metal in and
around the barrel was removed to minimize
distortions of the reading of the magnetic field.
The emitter was placed in the tip of the barrel.
An electronic bounceless trigger was molded
into the casing to detect when the mechanical
trigger is pulled. The clip was gutted and is
used to house the battery that powers the
embedded system. Connecters were mounted
on the top of the clip and within the clip
receiver so that simple insertion of the clip turns

Figure 7: Final circuit board with DPAC.

Figure 8: Rifle and helmet comprising the

trackable laser tag system.
The helmet uses a Petzl climbing helmet
for a shell. The circuit board is mounted in a
notch cut in the side of the helmet. Four
detectors are molded into the helmet, one on
each side. The battery is housed inside the
helmet between the foam padding and the shell.
A simple connector between the battery and the
rest of the embedded system turns everything
on and off. Obviously, the infrared emitter and
triggering mechanisms were not implemented
on the helmet.

Thus far, we have constructed 8

prototype rifles and 8 prototype helmets. The
equipment is currently being used in a
shoothouse built at the 263rd Army National
Guard, Air and Missile Defense Command site
located in Anderson, South Carolina. The
shoothouse is equipped with a network of video
cameras that is used to track the spatial
positions of trainees during exercises. Our
trackable laser tag system is used to combine
weapon and head tracking data with the
position tracking data to provide a detailed
recording of a building clearing exercise.
Ambient war sounds are added for realism via 4
speakers positioned at the corners of the house.
We have recorded approximately 1,000
building clearing exercises using over 100
subjects. We are in the process of coordinating
this data; it will be made publicly and freely
available on the internet.

IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper we have described a trackable
laser tag system. Compared to previously
available laser tag systems, ours provides
orientation tracking of both the weapons and
heads of the users. It also communicates all
data wirelessly to a base computer using the
802.11b standard, so that a commodity router
can be used.
We provided a detailed
description of our circuits, design, and cost. To
our knowledge, no such system has previously
been reported in the literature.
We envision several improvements that
could be made to our design. First, a third piece
of equipment, a vest, could be constructed and
integrated into the overall system. Marines who
have used our equipment related that they are
trained to go for body shots, while our current
system requires head shots. It is uncertain
whether an orientation tracking capability on
the torso would be useful. Second, we could
move the hit indicator to its own digital I/O pin
on the DPAC chip and thus could control when

and for how long the LED and sound device

would operate independently of the actual
infrared detection. This would enable us, for
example, to provide feedback for a selected
variable duration, or to verify that feedback
should be provided. Finally, we plan to explore
incorporating a position sensing sub-system
within the circuit board, to track the location of
the device. The system could be based upon
GPS, but that typically provides accuracy on the
order of 1 meter. We plan to investigate RFID
and other local area tracking systems.

V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Office of Naval
Research,
Virtual
Environments
and
Technologies (VIRTE) Program. The authors
would also like to thank the South Carolina
National Guard for the use of space at their
Anderson, South Carolina site.

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OUTPUT

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6
7

1
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Figure 5: Infrared emitter circuit.

Low Pass Filter
R2
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R3
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Figure 6: Infrared detector circuit.

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