Patent ID: 8843155
Filing Date: 2014-09-23
Classification: G06F,H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: providing a wireless communications sensor system that includes multiple individual RF sensors disposed at different physical locations at a site; using each individual RF sensor to individually detect one or more RF energy bursts produced by one or more wireless devices; using each individual RF sensor to identify burst data, which includes time of reception, frequency and signal strength information, for each of one or more RF energy bursts detected by the individual RF sensor; for each individual RF sensor, producing one or more tracked events stored in a computer readable storage device, wherein each tracked event includes burst data identified using the individual RF sensor; wherein for each individual RF sensor, producing one or more tracked events includes, comparing burst data identified by the individual RF sensor for different RF energy bursts detected by the individual RF sensor, and including within the same tracked event burst data for different RF energy bursts that include time of reception information that fall within a configurable time difference threshold and that include frequency information that fall within a configurable frequency difference threshold; producing individual call-in progress events that are stored in a computer readable storage device and that correspond to individual calls-in progress by one or more wireless devices; wherein individual call-in progress events include burst data information from multiple tracked events; wherein producing the individual call-in progress events includes, comparing different burst data included within tracked events produced for different RF sensors, and including different burst data information from tracked events produced for different RF sensors within the same call-in progress event in response to a determination that the different burst data within tracked events produced for different RF sensors have frequencies that fall within a configurable frequency difference threshold and have times of reception that fall within a configurable time difference threshold; for each of multiple call-in progress events, using different signal strength information, that is included in the call-in progress event from different tracked events produced for different RF sensors, to determine a position of a wireless device that corresponds to the event; determining, for each of multiple call-in progress events, a unique identifier of a wireless device that corresponds to the call-in progress event; providing a rules storage that provides one or more site location dependent wireless device usage rules that define one or more parameters to check to determine whether usage of an identified wireless device at the site meets the one or more wireless device usage conditions according to the one or more rules; for each of multiple call-in progress events, using the wireless communications sensor system to check RF transmissions of a corresponding identified wireless device to determine values for the one or more of the parameters associated with the identified wireless device; and using the one or more rules to determine whether the determined parameter values indicate that usage of the identified wireless device at the determined positions at the site meets the one or more device usage conditions.