Blackberry Corporation

I-Ming Tsai

Daryl Joseph Martin

Jason Christopher Beckett

Krishnam Raju Jampani

Jerry Mailloux

Bruce A Bernhardt

Jingwei Xu

Bruce Allen Bernhardt

An indoor positioning system and method that correlates map locations to respective wireless access point (AP) fingerprints, and wherein each wireless AP fingerprint is a plurality of wireless AP signal measurements associated with the correlated map location. The method includes receiving position-inference data associated with a user; determining a probable location inside the building based on the position-inference data; receiving wireless AP signal measurements detected by a wireless device associated with the user; associating the probable location with the wireless device based on the association between the position-inference data and the user of the wireless device; and updating the wireless AP fingerprint correlated to the probable location using the received wireless AP signal measurements. The method and system use crowd-sourcing to build and refine the wireless AP fingerprints.

Indoor positioning systems and wireless fingerprints

A method of determining room occupancy of a room in a facility having an indoor positioning system with wireless access point fingerprints each correlated to a location in the facility. The method may include receiving a request from a computing device for a room occupancy assessment associated with the room. It may further include obtaining location data that correlates to the location of one or more people from the indoor positioning system and determining from the location data associated with the room whether the room is occupied. The determination of whether the room is occupied is then sent to the computing device.

Indoor positioning systems and meeting room occupancy

A method of determining room occupancy of a room in a facility having an indoor positioning system with wireless access point fingerprints each correlated to a location in the facility. The method may include receiving a request from a computing device for a room occupancy assessment associated with the room. It may further include obtaining location data that correlates to the locations of wireless devices associated with one or more people from the indoor positioning system and determining based on the location data whether the room is occupied. The determination of whether the room is occupied is then sent to the computing device.

Mobile devices are able to determine their location based radio transmitters that are visible at the device to provide geographic location services. A knowledge of the location of the transmitters is required for the mobile device to determine a location estimate, however this can be difficult in network environments where the transmitters are temporary and their locations are not identified in location databases. Locations of temporary transmitters can be provided to mobile devices in order to augment the available location data used in determining the mobile device location. 3parties can provide temporal location data on transmitters that are set up for short period of time, as well as better control the distribution of the location data.

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Waterloo, Canada

I-Ming Tsai