Pulsar Active LED Marker Clusters for LBVR Tracking

Pulsar is an active marker system, which sets it apart from traditional passive markers: instead of reflecting light back to the cameras, each Pulsar cluster emits its own light through adaptive, customizable strobing LED patterns. This allows automatic identification of every participant, full synchronization, and reliable tracking of numerous people at once. Compact, lightweight, and wireless with long battery life, Pulsar is built for effortless multi-person full-body tracking.

Active marker technology uses markers that generate their own light, typically LEDs, rather than passive markers that reflect light from external sources. Because each active marker can strobe in its own controlled pattern, the system can identify markers automatically and keep every participant distinct. Pulsar applies this with adaptive, automated, and customizable strobing LED patterns, enabling clean, self-identifying tracking across multiple people and props.

Pulsar is designed for location-based virtual reality (LBVR) and multi-person tracking, and its compact, lightweight, wireless design means it performs across a wide range of environments. It’s especially suited to free-roam VR and large-space experiences where several participants are tracked simultaneously in full body. Paired with Origin by Vicon, it delivers scalable, error-free tracking built for immersive LBVR setups.

Yes. Pulsar’s adaptive strobing patterns are built to capture any type of movement, delivering robust, low-latency tracking even in demanding, fast-moving scenarios. Its self-identifying active markers stay reliable through dynamic motion, so participants can move freely without losing tracking integrity.

Pulsar works as part of a Vicon optical system: you’ll need Vicon optical cameras to track the clusters and Vicon software to run the capture. Each participant wears lightweight Pulsar clusters, and the color-coded footstraps, gloves and mounting plates make setup and player identification straightforward. USB-powered Nova Active Strand LEDs can be added to track props, and each Pulsar has an optical range of 10m with around nine hours of battery life per charge.

Active markers improve accuracy by emitting strong, consistent light rather than relying on reflected light, which gives cameras a clearer, more reliable signal to track. Their unique strobing patterns allow automatic identification, so markers don’t get confused or swapped between participants, and full synchronization keeps all data precisely aligned. The result is robust, stable tracking that holds up across multiple participants and challenging capture conditions.

Pulsar is an optical active-marker system tracked by Vicon cameras, and it also fits neatly into the wider Vicon ecosystem that supports hybrid workflows. Within that ecosystem, optical data from Pulsar can be combined and synchronized with inertial data, for example from Blue Trident sensors aligned via Beacon, to support hybrid capture. This makes Pulsar a flexible foundation for both purely optical setups and broader hybrid tracking pipelines.