Source: http://www.google.de/patents/US7714778?hl=de
Timestamp: 2015-08-30 22:32:21
Document Index: 23291333

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 10', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 09', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60', 'Application No. 60']

Patent US7714778 - Wireless location gateway and applications therefor - Google PatenteSuche Bilder Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive Mehr »Anmelden Erweiterte Patentsuche PatenteA system for wirelessly locating mobile station/units (MS) and using resulting location determinations for providing a product or service is disclosed. The system is useful for routing an MS user to a plurality of desired locations, alerting an MS user to a nearby desired product or service based on...http://www.google.de/patents/US7714778?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7714778 - Wireless location gateway and applications therefor Erweiterte Patentsuche Ver�ffentlichungsnummerUS7714778 B2PublikationstypErteilung AnmeldenummerUS 10/297,449 PCT-NummerPCT/US2001/017957 Ver�ffentlichungsdatum11. Mai 2010Eingetragen4. Juni 2001 Priorit�tsdatum20. Aug. 1997Geb�hrenstatusBezahltAuch ver�ffentlicht unterUS20040266457 Ver�ffentlichungsnummer10297449, 297449, PCT/2001/17957, PCT/US/1/017957, PCT/US/1/17957, PCT/US/2001/017957, PCT/US/2001/17957, PCT/US1/017957, PCT/US1/17957, PCT/US1017957, PCT/US117957, PCT/US2001/017957, PCT/US2001/17957, PCT/US2001017957, PCT/US200117957, US 7714778 B2, US 7714778B2, US-B2-7714778, US7714778 B2, US7714778B2 ErfinderDennis J. DuprayUrspr�nglich Bevollm�chtigterTracbeam LlcZitat exportierenBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatentzitate (374), Nichtpatentzitate (149), Referenziert von (53), Klassifizierungen (13), Juristische Ereignisse (1) Externe Links: USPTO, USPTO-Zuordnung, EspacenetWireless location gateway and applications therefor
US 7714778 B2 Zusammenfassung
Bilder(29) Anspr�che(13)
1. A method for locating mobile units, wherein for each of the mobile units, wireless signal measurements are obtained from transmissions between the mobile unit and a plurality of terrestrial communication stations, and wherein the mobile unit is independently moveable from each of the communication stations, and each of said communications stations includes one or more of: a transmitter for transmitting wireless signals to the mobile units, and a receiver for receiving wireless signals from the mobile units, comprising:
first requesting a location of a first of the mobile units;
second requesting a location of a second of the mobile units;
wherein for at least the first mobile unit, one of the following location techniques (A-1) through (A-5) is used for locating the first mobile unit, and for at least the second mobile unit, a different one of the following location techniques (A-1) through (A-5) is used for locating the second mobile unit;
(A-1) a first technique for recognizing a pattern of wireless signal transmission characteristics, wherein said pattern of characteristics is indicative of a plurality of wireless signal transmission paths between the mobile unit and each of one or more of the communication stations;
(A-2) a second technique for estimating a location of said mobile unit, wherein the following steps (A-2-1) through (A-2-3) are performed:
(A-2-1) determining a time difference of arrival (TDOA) location estimate of said mobile unit based upon timing information of signals transmitted between the mobile unit and the communication stations;
(A-2-2) determining a timing advance (TA) location estimate for the mobile unit and at least one of the communication stations; and
(A-2-3) determining a location of the mobile unit using the TDOA location estimate, and the TA location estimate;
(A-3) a third technique for estimating a location of said mobile unit, wherein the following steps (A-3-1) through (A-3-3) are performed:
(A-3-1) obtaining a first measurement for a time of travel of a transmission transmitted by a wireless transmitter not supported on the earth's surface, wherein the transmission is received at the mobile unit;
(A-3-2) obtaining a second measurement for a time of travel of a transmission communicated between the mobile unit, and one of the communication stations (CS) of a cell based communications system providing wireless two-way communication with a plurality of additional mobile units; and
(A-3-3) determining a position of said mobile unit using at least the first measurement to determine a geographical extent from the transmitter, and the second measurement to determine a geographical extent from the communication station CS;
(A-4) a fourth technique for estimating a location of said mobile unit using values of at least one location related characteristic of signals communicated between the mobile unit and the communication stations, wherein the following steps (A-4-1) through (A-4-10) are performed:
(A-4-1) estimating a channel power profile for each of M samples received at one of the communication stations;
(A-4-2) selecting a first set of N samples from the M samples;
(A-4-3) performing incoherent integration for said estimated channel power profiles for said first set of N samples to form a first integrated signal;
(A-4-4) if a quality level of the first integrated signal with respect to signal to noise is less than a predetermined threshold, selecting another sample from the M samples;
(A-4-5) performing incoherent integration for the estimated channel power profiles for said first set of N samples and said another sample to form a second integrated signal;
(A-4-6) if a quality level of said second integrated signal with respect to signal to noise is greater than or equal to said predetermined threshold, determining a location related signal characteristic value for a maximum level of the second integrated signal;
(A-4-7) using the signal characteristic value to provide a corresponding entry in a frequency of occurrence data structure;
(A-4-8) selecting a second set of N samples from the M samples;
(A-4-9) repeating all of the steps (A-4-3) through (A-4-7) for the second set of N samples; and
(A-4-10) determining a preferred value for the signal characteristic from the frequency of occurrence data structure; and
(A-5) a fifth technique for estimating a location of said mobile unit, wherein the following steps (A-5-1) and (A-5-2) are performed:
(A-5-1) determining a joint probability from location related information obtained from each of two different location providing information sources; and
(A-5-2) using the joint probability to determine a location estimate of the mobile unit; combining the values indicative of amplitude and phase for two tone components of signals received at the communication stations to determine the position of the mobile unit;
first obtaining a first information of a location of the first mobile unit;
second obtaining second information of a location of the second mobile unit;
first obtaining first additional information using: (a) the first information, and (b) information for a first destination determined using an input for identifying a first one or more geographic locations of interest, wherein when at least a first geographical condition related to both the location of the first mobile unit and the information for the first destination is satisfied, the first additional information includes information for a user of the first mobile unit to access the first destination;
second obtaining second additional information using: (a) the second information, and (b) information for a second destination determined using an input for identifying a second one or more geographic locations of interest, wherein when at least a second geographical condition related to both the location of the second mobile unit and the information for the second destination is satisfied, the second additional information includes information for a user of the second mobile unit to access the second destination;
first transmitting the first additional information to the first mobile unit; and
second transmitting the second additional information to the second mobile unit.
2. The method of claim 1, further including for a third mobile unit,
third requesting a location of the third mobile unit, wherein the third request results in an activation of a sixth technique for estimating a location of said mobile unit, wherein the following steps (A-6-1) through (A-6-4) are performed:
(A-6-1) receiving global positioning system satellite (GPS) signals from a plurality of global positioning system satellites;
(A-6-2) receiving a plurality of cellular position signals that contain data in a GPS-like format;
(A-6-3) calculating the geographic position of the third mobile unit using signals received from a requisite number of satellites of a global positioning system signals when the requisite number of the plurality of global positioning system satellites are in view of a global positioning system receiver coupled to the third mobile unit; and
(A-6-4) calculating the geographic position of the third mobile unit using measurements of wireless transmissions between the third mobile unit and both said received plurality of cellular position signals and substantially all of said received global positioning system satellite signals when the requisite number of the plurality of global positioning system satellites are not in view of the global positioning system receiver.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second mobile units are the same.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second mobile units are different.
5. The method of claim 1, further including a step of transmitting routing information to at least the first mobile unit, wherein the routing information is for a route to the first destination.
6. The method of claim 1, further including a step of selecting advertising information to transmit to at least one of the first and second mobile units, wherein the advertising information identifies a corresponding one of the first and second destinations.
7. An apparatus for locating mobile units wherein for each of the mobile units, wireless signal measurements are obtained from transmissions between the mobile unit and a plurality of terrestrial communication stations, and wherein the mobile unit is independently moveable from each of the communication stations, and each of said communications stations includes one or more of: a transmitter for transmitting wireless signals to the mobile units, and a receiver for receiving wireless signals from the mobile units, comprising:
an interface for requesting a location of a first of the mobile units, and for requesting a location of a second of the mobile units;
wherein for at least the first mobile unit, the interface transmits activation information for one of the following location techniques (A-1) through (A-5) used for locating the first mobile unit, and for at least the second mobile unit, the interface transmits activation information to a different one of the following location techniques (A-1) through (A-5) used for locating the second mobile unit;
a common interface for first receiving first information of a location of the first mobile unit, and for second receiving second information of a location of the second mobile unit;
one or more common components, including at least a presentation component for providing, for each of a plurality of users, a corresponding presentation for identifying one or more corresponding geographic locations of interest to the user, wherein:
(a) information for: (a) a first location determined using an input for identifying one or more geographic locations of interest, and (b) the first information are used by the one or more common components to determine first additional information related to the first location, wherein when at least one geographical condition related to both the location of the first mobile unit and the first location is satisfied, the first additional information includes information for a user of the first mobile unit to access the first location; and
(b) information for: (a) a second destination determined using an input for identifying one or more geographic locations of interest, and (b) the second information are used by the one or more common components to determine second additional information, wherein when at least one geographical condition related to both the location of the second mobile unit and the second location is satisfied, the second additional information includes information for a user of the second mobile unit to access the second location;
first transmitting the first additional information to the first mobile unit for presenting to the user of the first mobile unit; and
second transmitting the second additional information to the second mobile unit for presenting to the user of the second mobile unit.
8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the first and second mobile units are the same.
9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the first and second mobile units are different.
10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the one or more components perform a step of determining routing information to transmit to at least one of the first and second mobile units, wherein the routing information is for a route to a corresponding one of the first and second destinations.
11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the one or more components perform a step of selecting advertising information to transmit to at least one of the first and second mobile units, wherein the advertising information identifies a corresponding one of the first and second destinations.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein the first geographical condition includes information for determining whether the first destination is:
(a1) within one of: a specified travel distance of the location of the first mobile unit, or a specified geographical area of the location of the first mobile unit,
(a2) within a specified expected elapsed time of travel from the location of the first mobile unit; and
(a3) nearer to the location of the first mobile unit than at least one other destination for accessing an instance of the at least one desired item.
13. The method of claim 1, wherein the first geographic locations interest include at least one location for accessing a product or service identified as of interest prior to the step of first requesting.
is the U.S. National Stage filing of International Application No. PCT/US01/17957 filed Jun. 4, 2001; and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/299,115 filed Apr. 23, 1999 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,252); and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/176,587 filed Oct. 21, 1998; and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/194,367 filed Nov. 24, 1998; and
the above-identified International Application No. PCT/US01/17957 claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/209,278 filed Jun. 2, 2000, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/293,094 filed May 22, 2001;
U.S. application Ser. No. 09/299,115 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,252):
is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/176,587 filed Oct. 21, 1998; and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/194,367 filed Nov. 24, 1998; and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser No. 09/230,109 filed Jan. 22, 1999 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,365); and claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/083,041 filed Apr. 23, 1998;
U.S. application Ser. No. 09/176,587:
claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional 06/062,931, filed Oct. 21, 1997;
U.S. application Ser. No. 09/194,367:
is the National Stage of International Application No. PCT/US97/15892, filed Sep. 8, 1997 which claims the benefit of the following three provisionals:
U.S. Provisional Application No. 10/297,449; Response to Office Action dated Feb. 23, 2006.
Application No. 60/056,590 filed Aug. 20, 1997; U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/044,821 filed Apr. 25, 1997; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/025,855 filed Sep. 9, 1996;
U.S. Application No. 09/230,109 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,365):
is the National Stage of International Application No. PCT/US97/15933 filed Sep. 8, 1997 which claims the benefit of the following three provisionals: U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/056,603 filed Aug. 20, 1997; U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/044,821 filed Apr. 25, 1997; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/025,855 filed Sep. 9, 1996. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
i. U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/025,855 filed Sep. 9, 1996 ii. U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/044,821, filed Apr. 25, 1997; iii. U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/056,590, filed Aug. 20, 1997; iv. International Application No. PCT/US97/115933 filed Sep. 8, 1997 entitled “LOCATION OF A MOBILE STATION USING A PLURALITY OF COMMERCIAL WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURES” v. International Application No. PCT/US97/15892 filed Sep. 8, 1997; entitled “LOCATION OF A MOBILE STATION”; vi. U.S. application Ser. No. 09/194,367 filed Nov. 24, 1999 entitled “Location Of A Mobile Station”; vii. U.S. application Ser. No. 09/176,587 filed Oct. 21, 1998 entitled “Wireless Location System For Calibrating Multiple Location Estimators”; viii. U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,365 filed Jan. 22, 1999 entitled “Location of a Mobile Station Using A Plurality Of Commercial Infrastructures”; ix. U.S. application Ser. No. 09/299,115 filed: Apr. 23, 1999 entitled “WIRELESS LOCATION USING MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS LOCATION ESTIMATORS”; and (b) if a primary wireless location technique fails (e.g., due to an electronics malfunction), then assuming an alternative technique is available that does not use, e.g., the malfunctioning electronics of the primary technique, then the alternative technique can be used for MS location. However, the variety of wireless location techniques available is also problematic for at least the following reasons:
(2.1) time-of-arrival wireless signal processing techniques; (2.2) timing advance techniques; (2.2) time-difference-of-arrival wireless signal processing techniques; (2.3) adaptive wireless signal processing techniques having, for example, learning capabilities and including, for instance, artificial neural net and genetic algorithm processing; (2.4) signal processing techniques for matching MS location signals with wireless signal characteristics of known areas; (2.5) conflict resolution techniques for resolving conflicts in hypotheses for MS location estimates; (2.6) techniques for enhancing MS location estimates through the use of both heuristics and historical data associating MS wireless signal characteristics with known locations and/or environmental conditions; (2.7) angle of arrival techniques (also denoted direction of arrival) for estimating an angle and/or direction of wireless signals transmitted from an MS; (2.8) location techniques that use satellite signals such as GPS signals received at the MS; (2.9) hybrid wireless location techniques that combine a two or more of the above location techniques (2.1)–(2.2) or other wireless location techniques. (2.10) Wireless location techniques that use Doppler, phase coherency, and other signal characteristics for determining MS location, MS velocity and MS direction of movement. A related object is to integrate handset centric, network centric and hybrid systems so that the problems identified hereinabove are mitigated.
(3.1) The term “wireless” herein is, in general, an abbreviation for “digital wireless”, and in particular, “wireless” refers to digital radio signaling using one of standard digital protocols such as Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Narrowband Advanced Mobile Phone Service (NAMPS), code division multiple access (CDMA) and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Global Systems Mobile (GSM), and time division multiple access (TDMA) as one skilled in the art will understand.
(3.2) As used herein, the term “mobile station” (equivalently, MS) refers to a wireless device that is at least a transmitting device, and in most cases is also a wireless receiving device, such as a portable radio telephony handset. Note that in some contexts herein instead or in addition to MS, the following terms are also used: “personal station” (PS), and “location unit” (LU). In general, these terms may be considered synonymous. Note that examples of various MSs are identified in the Background section above.
(3.3) The terms, “wireless infrastructure” (or simply “infrastructure”), denotes one or more of: (a) a network for one or more of telephony communication services, (b) a collection of commonly controlled transceivers for providing wireless communication with a plurality of MSs, (c) the wireless Internet, (d) that portion of communications network that receives and processes wireless communications with wireless mobile stations. In particular, this infrastructure includes telephony wireless base stations (BS) such as those for radio mobile communication systems based on CDMA, AMPS, NAMPS, TDMA, and GSM wherein the base stations provide a network of cooperative communication channels with an air interface to the MS, and a conventional telecommunications interface with a Mobile Switch Center (MSC). Thus, an MS user within an area serviced by the base stations may be provided with wireless communication throughout the area by user transparent communication transfers (i.e., “handoffs”) between the users MS and these base stations in order to maintain effective telephony service. The mobile switch center (MSC) provides communications and control connectivity among base stations and the public telephone network.
(3.4) The phrase, “composite wireless signal characteristic values” denotes the result of aggregating and filtering a collection of measurements of wireless signal samples, wherein these samples are obtained from the wireless communication between an MS to be located and the base station infrastructure (e.g., a plurality of networked base stations). However, other phrases are also used herein to denote this collection of derived characteristic values depending on the context and the likely orientation of the reader. For example, when viewing these values from a wireless signal processing perspective of radio engineering, as in the descriptions of the subsequent Detailed Description sections concerned with the aspects of the present invention for receiving MS signal measurements from the base station infrastructure, the phrase typically used is: “RF signal measurements”. Alternatively, from a data processing perspective, the phrases: “location signature cluster” and “location signal data” are used to describe signal characteristic values between the MS and the plurality of infrastructure base stations substantially simultaneously detecting MS transmissions. Moreover, since the location communications between an MS and the base station infrastructure typically include simultaneous communications with more than one base station, a related useful notion is that of a “location signature” (also denoted “loc sig” herein) which is the composite wireless signal characteristic values for signal samples between an MS to be located and a single base station. Also, in some contexts, the phrases: “signal characteristic values” or “signal characteristic data” are used when either or both a location signature(s) and/or a location signature cluster(s) are intended.
For example, for a wireless location system utilizing the present invention, each location hypothesis, H, identifies an area for a target MS, and H can used to identify additional related locations included in archived hypotheses generated by the same FOM as generated H. For instance, such related locations may be the area centroids of the archived hypotheses, wherein these centroids reside within the area hypothesized by H. Accordingly, such centroids may be used to retrieve the corresponding actual verified MS locations (i.e., the corresponding desired results), and these retrieved verified locations may be used to generate a new adjusted area that is likely to be more accurate than H. In particular, a convex hull of the verified locations may be used as a basis for determining a new location hypothesis of the target MS. Moreover, this aspect of the invention may include the preprocessing of such adjustments throughout a wireless coverage area to produce a geolocation vector gradient field, wherein for each archived hypotheses H (having LH as an MS location estimate) for a designated FOM, throughout the coverage area, a corresponding verified location version VLH is determined. Subsequently, the adjustment vector AVH=(VLH−LH) is determined as one of the adjustment vectors of the vector gradient field. Thus, LH and AVH are associated in the data archive as a record of the vector gradient field. Accordingly, when a location hypothesis H0 for a target MS at an unknown location is generated (the hypothesis H0 having L0 as the target MS location estimate), records within the vector gradient field having their corresponding location LH “near” L0, (e.g., within area of a predetermined distance about L0 or a “neighborhood: of L0) can be retrieved. Accordingly, an adjustment to L0 can be determined as a function of the LH and AVH values of the retrieved records. Note that an adjustment to L0 may be simply an average of these AVH vectors for the retrieved records. Alternatively, the AVH values may be weighted such that the AVH having LH closer to L0 are more influential in the resulting derived location for the target MS. More generally, the adjustment technique includes a method for interpolating an adjustment at L0 from the verified adjustments at locations about L0. Enhancements on such adjustment/interpolation techniques are also within the scope of the present invention. For example, the weightings (or other terms of an such an interpolation technique) may be combined with other known wireless signal characteristics of the area such as an identification of: (a) a known sharp change in the geolocation gradient vector field, and/or (b) a subarea having reduced wireless transmission capabilities, and/or (c) a subarea wherein the retrieved records for the subarea have their estimates LH widely spaced apart, and/or (d) a subarea wherein there is an insufficient number of retrieved records. For other application domains, the present step requires a first technique to determine both “nearby” archived data from previously archived hypotheses, and a second technique to determine an “adjusted” hypothesis from the retrieved desired results. In general, such techniques can be relatively straightforward to provide when the hypothesized results reside in a vector space, and more particularly, in a Cartesian product of the real numbers. Accordingly, there are numerous applications that can be configured to generate hypothesized results in a vector space (or Cartesian product of the real numbers). For instance, economic financial forecasting applications typically result in numeric predictions where the first and second techniques can be, e.g., substantially identical to the centroid and convex hull techniques for the wireless location application; and (4.1.5) A step of subsequently computing a “most likely” target MS location estimate is computed for outputting to a location requesting application such as 911 emergency, the fire or police departments, taxi services, etc. Note that in computing the most likely target MS location estimate a plurality of location hypotheses may be taken into account. In fact, it is an important aspect of the present invention that the most likely MS location estimate is determined by computationally forming a composite MS location estimate utilizing such a plurality of location hypotheses so that, for example, location estimate similarities between location hypotheses can be effectively utilized. Referring to (4.1.3) there may be hypotheses for estimating not only desired result(s), but also hypotheses may be generated that indicate where the desired result(s) is not. Thus, if the confidence values are probabilities, an hypothesis may be generated that has a very low (near zero) probability of having the desired result. As an aside, note that in general, for each generated hypothesis, H, having a probability, P, there is a dual hypothesis Hc that may be generated, wherein the Hc represents the complementary hypothesis that the desired result is in the space of hypothesized results outside of H. Thus, the probability that the desired result(s) is outside of the result hypothesized by H is 1-P. Accordingly, with each location hypothesis having a probability favorably indicating where a desired result may be (i.e., P>=0.5), there is a corresponding probability for the complement hypothesis that indicates where the desired result(s) is unlikely to be. Thus, applying this reasoning to a wireless location application utilizing the present invention, then for an hypothesis H indicating that the target