Patent ID: 7638755

Claim:
A device for sensing an absolute position of an encoded object, comprising: a position tracking module comprising: a track illumination module configured to illuminate said encoded object with one or more light beams, and to detect one or more light beams resulting from said illumination of said encoded object, wherein said track illumination module comprises: a source of light configured to generate a light beam, a light steering subsystem configured to divide said light beam into said one or more light beams incident on said encoded object, and a detector module configured to detect said one or more light beams resulting from said illumination of said encoded object by said incident light beams; an absolute position determinator configured to determine the absolute position of the encoded object based on said one or more light beams resulting from said illumination of said encoded object; and wherein said encoded object comprises an object having one or more embossed encoded tracks therein; wherein said one or more embossed encoded tracks comprise: 1) one or more quadrature tracks, said one or more quadrature tracks comprising: a sine track configured such that the reconstruction of illumination from said sine track results in the reconstruction of a sine curve; and a cosine track shifted from said sine track such that the reconstruction of illumination from said cosine track results in the reconstruction of a cosine curve phase shifted 90 degrees from said sine curve; and 2) an address track; and wherein said detector module is configured to detect a light beam transmitted through each of said encoded tracks.