Patent ID: 8140265

Claim:
A computer implemented method of tracking the position of an object, the method comprising: receiving positioning data with respect to the object's position in timed intervals; calculating, by operation of one or more processors, a position estimate and associated error bound for each timed interval based upon the received positioning data; fitting each calculated position estimate and associated error bound to a grid of cells, wherein each cell is assigned a price in a pricing map; calculating statistical weight of positional certainty of each position measurement by distributing geometric weight of each associated error bound over the cells which said error bound overlaps; and calculating a maximum-likelihood path of travel based upon the weighted position measurements, wherein the maximum-likelihood path of travel is stored as a data set in a quad tree including a grid cell designator, weighted time in cell, weighted distance travelled in cell, time of earliest position estimate in cell, and time of latest position estimate in cell.