Patent ID: 11894912
Assignee: OQ TECHNOLOGY S.á.R.L.
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G  Y | IPC H

Claim 14:
15. A non-terrestrial cellular data communication system comprising:
one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations each configured to transmit a reference timing signal,
a location service node storing information describing each airborne or spaceborne base station's respective flight trajectory, and
a terminal device comprising:
a data transmission unit,
a data reception unit,
a memory element for storing flight trajectory data of the one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations and for storing location data of the terminal device, and
a processing unit, wherein the processing unit is configured to:
determine at least one time slot during which a wireless communication channel between the terminal device and one of the one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations is estimated to be available, based on said flight trajectory data and on said terminal location data, and
schedule a data reception or transmission between said terminal device and said one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations during the determined at least one time slot,
accumulate over time the respective arrival times of the reference timing signal received from at least three different positions taken by at least one of the one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations;
compute, from said arrival times, at least two arrival time differences with respect to one reference arrival time; and
transmit the computed differences to the location service node, through one of the one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations,

wherein the location service node is configured to receive the computed differences, compute a location estimate of the terminal device using the computed differences and the stored information describing each of the reference timing signal transmitting airborne or spaceborne base station's respective flight trajectory, and transmit the location estimate to the terminal device, through one of the one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations;
wherein the terminal device is further configured to receive the location estimate from one of said one or more airborne or spaceborne base stations and store the location estimate in the memory element thereof.