Patent ID: 8380220

Claim:
A method of estimating the location of a mobile device in a geographic region comprising the steps of: (a) providing calibration data for each of one or more calibration points in a geographic region, said calibration data including at least one characterizing parameter (b) receiving a network measurement report from a mobile device at an unknown location, said network measurement report also including at least one characterizing parameter; (c) defining a first region within said calibration data as a function of a first characterizing parameter of said network measurement report and a predetermined range of said first parameter; (d) defining a second region within said calibration data as a function of another characterizing parameter of said network measurement report and a predetermined range of said another parameter; (e) repeating steps (c)-(d) for each characterizing parameter in said network measurement report; (f) determining an intersection of each defined region; and (g) estimating the location of a mobile device in said geographic region as a function of said intersection, wherein the step of estimating the location of a mobile device comprises: (i) comparing an ordered list of cells neighboring a cell serving said mobile device in said network measurement report to an ordered list of neighboring cells in each calibration point of said intersection, said ordering being a function of any parameter of said network measurement report; and (ii) generating an estimated location of said mobile device wherein said estimated location is selected from the group consisting of: a centroid of a cluster of matching calibration points in said intersection; a highest joint probability matching calibration point in said intersection; a weighted sum of the locations of a set of matching calibration points in said intersection; a weighted sum of clustered locations of a set of matching calibration points in said intersection; and as a function of estimated locations determined from a subset of said network measurement report.