Position and orientation tracking system, apparatus and method

An apparatus comprising:

• a constellation of antennae including at least one transmitter antenna, and at least three receiver antennae;
• a radio frequency (RF) unit in communication with each antennae of the constellation of antennae;
• a memory configured to store executable instructions;
• and
• a processor configured to execute the instructions to determine a three-dimensional position and three-axis angular orientation of an external RF device relative to the apparatus by calculating a carrier phase difference (CPD) measurement of phase difference based on signals received from the external RF device between each discrete pair of receiving antennae of the at least three receiver antennae.

A controller apparatus comprising:

• a constellation of antennae including at least one transmitter antenna, and at least two receiver antennae;
• a radio unit in communication with each antennae of the constellation of antennae;
• a memory configured to store executable instructions;
• and
• a processor configured to execute the instructions to determine a three-dimensional position and three-axis angular orientation of the controller apparatus relative to an external RF device by calculating a carrier phase difference (CPD) measurement of phase difference based on signals received from the external RF device between each discrete pair of receiving antennae of the at least two receiver antennae.

A system that tracks and determines a position and orientation of an RF device, the system comprising:

• a first hand-held radio frequency (RF) device comprising
• an antenna pair, wherein a baseline distance between the antenna pair is between 0.1 to 100 times a radio frequency wavelength used by the first hand-held RF device,
• a first RF transceiver in communication with the antenna pair;
• a second head-mounted RF device comprising
• an antenna array including at least three antennae, wherein each baseline distance between the antenna array between 0.1 to 100 times the radio frequency wavelength, and
• a second RF transceiver in communication with the antenna array;
• and
• a processor configured to determine a three-dimensional position and three-axis angular orientation of the first RF device relative to the second RF device based on a carrier phase difference (CPD) measurement of phase difference based on signals received between each antenna of the antenna pair and received signals between each discrete pair of receiving antennae in the antennae array.