Polaris Wireless, Inc.

Ntt Docomo, Inc.

Tarun Kumar Bhattacharya

Scot Douglas Gordon

David Stevenson Spain, Jr

Martin J Feuerstein

Hassan Mohamed El-Sallabi

Yasuhiro Oda

Jiyun Shen

Robert Lewis Martin

Mahesh B Patel

Ankit Bansal

Hassan Mohamed Ei-Sallabi

A technique for estimating the location of a wireless terminal at an unknown location in a geographic region is disclosed. The technique is based on the recognition that there are location-dependent traits of electromagnetic signals. In environments where multiple antennas are radiating the same signal, as in the case of distributed antennas or host-repeater configurations, one or more possible locations of the wireless terminal can be designated as improbable based on i) a measure of the propagation delay of a signal traveling between a) a base station and b) the wireless terminal or an infrastructure antenna, or ii) the maximum distance at which a signal is detectable by the wireless terminal. Additionally, the applicable set of values for the location-dependent traits is selected based on similar criteria.

Estimating the location of a wireless terminal in wireless telecommunications systems that comprise distributed and/or repeater antennas

A method and apparatus are disclosed for estimating whether or not a wireless terminal is in a geographic zone. The illustrative embodiment employs a pattern classifier that is trained on traits of electromagnetic signals at various locations. A computer-executable program is then generated based on the trained pattern classifier, and the program is installed and executed on a subscribed identity module of the terminal.

Estimating whether or not a wireless terminal is in a geographic zone using pattern classification

An apparatus and method are disclosed for tracking a large number of wireless terminals and for estimating the location of the terminals at each instant. Some embodiments of the present invention use a wide variety of factors to determine the order and frequency with which each wireless terminal is located. These factors include, but are not limited to, the history of the location of the wireless terminal, the time of day, and the weather.

Tracking large numbers of wireless terminals

A method of using a non-GPS-derived technique to estimate the location of an Assisted-GPS-enabled wireless terminal for the purposes of generating location-specific assistance data for the wireless terminal is disclosed. The wireless terminal then uses the assistance data to acquire and process one or more GPS signals and to derive information that is probative of the wireless terminal's location. The GPS-derived location information is then combined with non-GPS-derived location to form an estimate of the location of the wireless terminal that is better than can be derived from either alone. This combination of GPS-derived and non-GPS techniques is particularly useful when the wireless terminal can only acquire one or two GPS signals because it is not possible to determine the location of the wireless terminal with only two GPS signals alone.

Estimating the location of a wireless terminal based on assisted GPS and pattern matching

A system and method are disclosed for triggering location estimation of mobile stations in a geographic region of interest. The disclosed system includes a list of International Mobile Subscriber Identities ('IMSI') used to track which mobile stations are to have location estimates generated, a database of Network Measurement Reports ('NMR') used for generating the location estimates, and a location engine. The system operates as a group of concurrently executing processes that i) process IMSIs and NMRs that are extracted by and received from probes that monitor communication links; ii) generate location estimates of mobile stations in the region of interest, based on a sequential indexing of the IMSI list; iii) maintain the freshness of the NMR database; and iv) maintain the freshness of the IMSI list. These processes operate such that the triggering of the location estimations occurs asynchronously with respect to the detection of information on the communication links.

Asynchronous triggering of mobile station location estimation

A technique for estimating the location of a wireless terminal at an unknown location in a geographic region is disclosed. The technique is based on the recognition that there are traits of electromagnetic signals that are dependent on topography, the receiver, the location of the transmitter, and other factors. For example, if a particular radio station is known to be received strongly at a first location and weakly at a second location, and a given wireless terminal at an unknown location is receiving the radio station weakly, it is more likely that the wireless terminal is at the second location than at the first location.

Estimating the location of a wireless terminal based on signal path impairment

Search area reduction based on indoor detection for estimating the location of a wireless terminal

A method and apparatus for estimating whether or not a wireless terminal is indoors are disclosed. The illustrative embodiment employs a pattern classifier that is trained on a plurality of input/output mappings, where each mapping corresponds to a respective location, the output of the mapping is a Boolean value that indicates whether the location is indoors, and the input of the mapping is based on empirical and predicted signal data for the location. In accordance with the illustrative embodiment, a computer-executable program is generated based on the trained pattern classifier. The computer-executable program estimates whether or not a wireless terminal is indoors based on empirical data reported by the terminal, and on a location estimate for the terminal that might be crude or inaccurate (e.g., based on Cell Identifier [Cell-ID], GPS, etc.).

Estimating whether a wireless terminal is indoors using pattern classification

A method for estimating whether or not a wireless terminal is in a zone is described. The method is based on the following observation: when a wireless terminal is at a particular location, the values of the traits of the ambient electromagnetic signals that vary with location represent a 'fingerprint' or 'signature' for that location. This enables the location of a wireless terminal to be estimated by comparing the observed values of the traits of the ambient electromagnetic signals with the fingerprint for each potential location for the wireless terminal.

Estimating whether or not a wireless terminal is in a zone using radio navigation

It is an object of the present invention to obtain a positioning result corresponding to the state of a receiver in less time. A positioning servercomprises a reception state information acquisition componentthat acquires reception state information indicating the reception state of a radio wave at a cellular terminal, a base station positioning calculatorthat estimates the approximate position of the cellular terminalon the basis of reception state information and computes the precision of the approximate position, an end decision componentthat decides whether or not to end the estimation of position on the basis of the precision of the approximate position, and, if it is decided to end the estimation, estimates the position of the cellular terminalas the approximate position and ends the estimation of the position, an indoor/outdoor determination componentthat determines whether the cellular terminalis indoors or outdoors on the basis of the reception state information, and a positioning controllerthat controls the execution of the GPS positioning of the cellular terminalon the basis of the result of decision by the end decision componentand the result of determination by the indoor/outdoor determination component

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Tarun Kumar Bhattacharya