Abstract:
The disclosure provides a visual positioning system, server, and method for positioning a location of a mobile user equipment with camera. The method comprising receiving a still containing at least one visual cue, taken by camera of the mobile user equipment in the location; recognizing the visual cue contained in the still according to a database storing predetermined data sets of visual cues; and calculating the location according to the still and the data set of recognized visual cue. Each data set further comprising location, dimensions, and orientation of corresponding visual cue.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    This invention is related to positioning, and particularly related to visual positioning for mobile user equipment. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Prior Art 
         [0004]    Currently, mobile user equipment, such as smart phone and PDA, usually has of three functionalities, including photograph, telecommunication, and limited computing. Conventional mobile user equipment could have two kinds of positioning mechanism. The first independent approach is to attach a satellite positioning receiver to resolve the position of this user equipment independently. The second approach relies on the radio frequency triangulation of mobile user equipment performed by the value-added core network of base stations. 
         [0005]    For the first approach, it requires additional antenna and dedicated processing module to resolve satellite signal. The volume of the additional antenna and dedicated processing module is a big burden for mobile user equipment. Moreover, due to the compact size of mobile user equipment, the transmitting bursts of telecommunication antenna would heavily influence the satellite receiver antenna nearby. In urban environment, the small satellite antenna could simultaneously track multiple signals hardly from various satellites. Reflecting and deflecting of multiple-path effect would serious downgrade the resolved precision degree and acquisition time of satellite signals. The most critical problem happened in the indoor environment, which requires extremely high signal-to-ratio for acquiring signal from multiple satellites. 
         [0006]    For the second approach, an intelligence network (IN) architecture of the public land mobile network (PLMN) is required for this kind of positioning service, which is referred generally to location base service (LBS) in GSM/3GPP standards. Depending on the installed network topologies of base stations, LBS of IN could provide positions in various precision degree. A usual coarse grain position is defined in a grid of 100×100 meters. A fine grain position could be reported in a grid of 25×25 meters, which is comparable with precision degree of civil code of United States Global Position System. However, this LBS is closely tied to the PLMN since the triangulation of mobile user equipment RF signal demands accurate and synchronized reports from multiple base stations. Also, in urban environment, the triangulation also suffers from reflecting and deflecting of multiple-path effect. 
         [0007]    Therefore it exist a need to have a precise positioning mechanism on mobile user equipment without additional antenna and dedicated processing module. Moreover, it also exist a need to have a precise positioning mechanism on mobile user equipment without dedicated PLMN support architecture. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0008]    Therefore, in accordance with the previous summary, objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become apparent to one skilled in the art from the subsequent description and the appended claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
         [0009]    The disclosure provides a visual positioning system, server, and method for positioning a location of a mobile user equipment with camera in order prevent the drawbacks described above. 
         [0010]    In one embodiment, a visual positioning system for positioning a location of a mobile user equipment with camera is provided. The system comprises a plurality of visual cues and a positioning server. Each visual cue has a predetermined data set, each data set further comprising location, dimensions, and orientation of corresponding visual cue. The positioning server is configured to receive at least one still, containing at least one visual cue, shot by the mobile user equipment for reporting the location. It further comprises a database is configured to store the data sets of the plurality of visual cues; a recognition unit is configured to recognize and identify the visual cue contained in the still according to the data sets stored in the database; and a calculation unit is configured to calculate the location of the mobile user equipment according to the data set of the recognized visual cue by the recognition unit. 
         [0011]    In one embodiment, a positioning server for positioning a location of a mobile user equipment with camera is disclosed. The server comprises a database, a recognition unit, and a calculation unit. The database is configured to store data sets of a plurality of visual cues. Each visual cue has predetermined data set, each data set further comprising location, dimensions, and orientation of corresponding visual cue. The recognition unit is configured to recognize and identify the visual cue contained in a received still according to the data sets stored in the database. The received still is shot by the mobile user equipment for reporting the location. The calculation unit is configured to calculate the location of the mobile user equipment according to the data set of the recognized visual cue by the recognition unit. 
         [0012]    In one embodiment, a visual positioning method for positioning a location of a mobile user equipment with camera is provided. The method comprising receiving a still containing at least one visual cue, taken by camera of the mobile user equipment in the location; recognizing the visual cue contained in the still according to a database storing predetermined data sets of visual cues; and calculating the location according to the still and the data set of recognized visual cue. Each data set further comprising location, dimensions, and orientation of corresponding visual cue. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]    The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. In the drawings: 
           [0014]      FIG. 1  is a diagram shows a conventional method for calculating distance and viewing angle; 
           [0015]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram depicts a visual positioning system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  is a flowchart diagram of a processing iteration in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and 
           [0017]      FIG. 4  is a complete flowchart diagram in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0018]    The present disclosure can be described by the embodiments given below. It is understood, however, that the embodiments below are not necessarily limitations to the present disclosure, but are used to a typical implementation of the invention. 
         [0019]    Having summarized various aspects of the present invention, reference will now be made in detail to the description of the invention as illustrated in the drawings. While the invention will be described in connection with these drawings, there is no intent to limit it to the embodiment or embodiments disclosed therein. On the contrary the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. 
         [0020]    It is noted that the drawings presents herein have been provided to illustrate certain features and aspects of embodiments of the invention. It will be appreciated from the description provided herein that a variety of alternative embodiments and implementations may be realized, consistent with the scope and spirit of the present invention. 
         [0021]    It is also noted that the drawings presents herein are not consistent with the same scale. Some scales of some components are not proportional to the scales of other components in order to provide comprehensive descriptions and emphasizes to this present invention. 
         [0022]    Digital camera is becoming a basic integrating part of mobile user equipment. In recent two years, the pixel element number of digital camera embedded mainstream mobile user equipment sky rockets from less than 300 thousands to more than 2 million. Besides, most of the embedded cameras feature with electronic automatic focusing capability and a few ones feature with mechanical automatic focusing function. The photographing information such as diaphragm, shutter speed, lens, and etc could be electronically reported and documented with the file. For example, Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) is an industrial standard which is a part of the Design rule for Camera File (DCF) standard created by Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) to encourage interoperability between imaging devices, implemented by various vendors, for reporting such photographing information. In addition to shot still photo, the embedded of digital camera subsystem is also capable for recoding video slice in popular formats such as .3GP and .MP4. Since the photographing subsystem is integrated to the whole mobile user equipment, the still or video slice could be recorded and processed by the mobile user equipment. Moreover, the still or video slice could also be delivered to other computing devices attached to the PLMN via some communication protocols such as multimedia message service (MMS) and/or GPRS. 
         [0023]    Please refer to  FIG. 1  which is a diagram shows a conventional method for calculating distance and viewing angle. For a given visual cue  110 , a still  122  and/or a video slice  124  of this visual cue  110  could tell the distance and viewing angle between the visual cue  110  and the still camera  120  if the lens information is known as well as the dimension, shape, and orientation of the visual cue  110 . 
         [0024]    Ordinary in the skill could easily understand that a plurality of still  122  could be extracted from the video slice  124  in various time frames. Usually the video slice recorded is compressed, depending on the format of the video slice  124 , how to choose appropriate stills  122  from a video slice is not concerned in this disclosure. 
         [0025]    Furthermore, the image processing technologies for retrieving information in the still  122  could be categorized into three levels. The easiest level is usually referred as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), the second level is more complicated as pattern recognition from a plain image, and the third level involves three dimensional object recognition and modeling from time diversity image information. Ordinary in the skill could easily understand that all of these technologies could be used to distill information from the still  122  or the video slice  124 . 
         [0026]    Please refer to  FIG. 2 , which is a visual positioning system  200  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The visual positioning system  200  comprises at least one known visual cue  210 , a mobile user equipment  220 , a PLMN  230 , and a positioning server  240 . For each visual cue  210 , there would be an associated physical data set stored in the positioning server  240 . The associated data set may include the dimension, shape, and orientation of the visual cue  210  itself and the exact location of the installed site, such as elevation, longitude, and latitude. The positioning data of the visual cue  210  is relevant to the coordination system embodied in this visual positioning system  200 . In one embodiment, the coordination system may be a GPS coordination system. Ordinary in the skill could easily understand the mapping between different geographical coordination systems is well-known and not included in this disclosure. 
         [0027]    In this system  200 , the dimensions, shape, and orientation of each visual cue  210  could be different to help identification more easily. The visual cue  210  may be made and installed purposely in one embodiment. Or the well-known landmark may be taken as the visual cue  210  in another embodiment. In an urban environment, a big and tall landmark such as Eiffel Tower in Paris and Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur with enormous visual range is quite suitable for being taken as visual cue  210 . However, for some landmarks with symmetric shape, such as Taipei 101 building, they are restricted for calculating the distance only between the landmark and the mobile user equipment  220 . 
         [0028]    In one embodiment, the associated data set may also include the lighting patterns of the corresponding visual cue  210  in the various lighting conditions. For example, the illumination provided by the famous landmarks in the night is very different to the appearance in the day time. Dealing with the lighting patterns could help to improve the correct recognition rate as well as the precision of the estimated range and angle of the visual cue  210 . 
         [0029]    With a digital camera  222 , the mobile user equipment  220  is attached to the PLMN  230  such that the mobile user equipment  220  is communicative with the positioning server  240 . In one embodiment, the interconnection channel between the mobile user equipment  220  and the positioning server  240  may be but not restricted to SMS, MMS or GPRS such that the mobile user equipment  220  could send the still or motion slice as well as the photographing to the positioning server  240 . Furthermore, as long as the positioning server  240  could be reachable by the mobile user equipment  220 , the invention does not have to include the PLMN  230 . In this disclosure, the PLMN  230  may be implemented but not restricted to GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, CDMA, CDMA2000, Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA), or any other trunked radio network. 
         [0030]    The positioning server  240  may comprises a network interface  242 , a visual cue recognition unit  244 , a visual cue database  246 , and a calculation unit  248 . The network interface  242  is configured to connect at least one PLMN  230  to be communicative with the mobile user equipment  220 . The visual cue recognition unit  244  is configured to retrieve the imaged visual cue from the received still or motion slice sent by the mobile user equipment  220 . The visual cue database  246  is configured to store the data sets of every visual cue  210  in this system  200 . At last, the calculation unit  248  is configured to calculate the position of the mobile user equipment  220  according to the visual cue data sets provided by the visual cue database  244  and the photographing information provided by the mobile user equipment  220 . 
         [0031]    In one embodiment, depending on the specifications or standard of the PLMN  230  attached to the positioning server  240 , the PLMN  230  may provide further information including but not restricted to identity of mobile user equipment  220 , telephone number, identity of the user, identity of the PLMN  230  itself, and even the identities of the base stations communicating with the mobile user equipment  220 . The positioning server  240  may use the information to help the positioning of the mobile user equipment  220 . 
         [0032]    Please refer to  FIG. 3 , which is one iteration  300  of a flowchart diagram in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In a first step  310 , the positioning server  240  receives at least one imaged visual cue still or motion slice with its photographing information from the mobile user equipment  220  via the network interface  242  and the PLMN  230 . Next, the imaged visual cue is recognized from the still or motion slice by the visual cue recognition unit  244  in recognition step  320 . In the optional step  322 , since the recognition step  320  takes quite a lot of comparisons, the network interface  242  may inform the visual cue recognition unit  244  with the information provided by the PLMN  230  for limiting the search range of visual cues  210 . Once the imaged visual cue is identified by the recognition unit  242 , the corresponding data set of the recognized visual cue  210  would be provided by the database  244  to the calculation unit  246  in the subsequent step  330 . Combining the data set with the photographing information, the calculation unit  248  could tell an estimated position in the calculation step  340 . In the following determination step  350 , any further still or slices required to process is determined. In one embodiment, the step  350  further comprises a location precision analysis. If the required precision is achieved by previous iterations, the flowchart goes to end; otherwise, it looped back to the first step  310 . 
         [0033]    Please refer to  FIG. 4 , which is a complete flowchart in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. In a first step  410 , the positioning server  240  checks whether there is un-calculated visual cue still or motion slice shot by the digital camera  222  of the mobile user equipment  220  in the same position. If so, the flow goes to run the iteration  300  shown in the  FIG. 3  to get an estimated position. Otherwise, the flow will go to a summary step  420  to average all estimated positions from all imaged visual cue still or motion slices to get a best estimation one. In this flow  400 , each iteration  300  is counting on still or motion slice shooting at different visual cue  210 . 
         [0034]    In one embodiment, the mobile user equipment  220  may embody another mobile visual cue recognition unit  224  for identify the visual cue  210  during the preview process in or near real-time. Moreover, the mobile visual cue recognition unit  224  could reach the database  246  to retrieve visual cue data sets for recognition. In another alternative, the mobile visual cue recognition unit  224  could cache or store some or all visual cue data sets in the database  246  for recognition. During the preview process in or near real-time, the photographing subsystem may indicate whether at least one visual cue  210  appear in the preview window or display by the mobile visual cue recognition unit  224 . 
         [0035]    In one embodiment, since the position could be recorded with time, a motion speed or rate of the mobile user equipment  220  could be calculated by itself or positioning server  240 . 
         [0036]    In one embodiment, the system  200  may comprise one authentication-authorization-accounting (AAA) server coupled to the positioning server  240  and/or the PLMN  230  for providing the authentication, authorization, and accounting functionalities. 
         [0037]    In one embodiment, the system  200  may further comprise an interception module  250  for intercepting any still or video slice transported from the mobile user equipment  220  via wireless or wired communication. The intercepted stills or video slices are sent to the positioning system  240  by the interception module  250 . In another embodiment, the interception module  250  could be installed in the PLMN  230  for intercepting any still or video slice communicating between the mobile user equipment  220  and the PLMN  230 . 
         [0038]    In one embodiment, the visual cue  210  may comprise human-readable or machine readable codes. For example, an insignia, a registered trademark, a logo, or words may be also recognized by the positioning server  240 . Once the human-readable or machine readable codes are decoded or comprehended, it is more easily to help limiting the search range of visual cues  210 . 
         [0039]    Since the positioning server  240  could be independent to the PLMN  230 , the visual positioning system  200  could be free of the restrictions of conventional LBS provided by the intelligent network. Moreover, the conventional mobile user equipment  220 , such as smart phone and PDA, could be used in this system  200  without additional hardware and software to resolve satellite signals. 
         [0040]    The foregoing description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Obvious modifications or variations are possible in light of the above teachings. In this regard, the embodiment or embodiments discussed were chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principles of the invention and its practical application to thereby enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. All such modifications and variations are within the scope of the inventions as determined by the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breath to which they are fairly and legally entitled. 
         [0041]    It is understood that several modifications, changes, and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosure and in some instances some features of the invention will be employed without a corresponding use of other features. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the appended claims be construed broadly and in a manner consistent with the scope of the invention.