Wherenet Corporation

Timothy C Harrington

Donald K Belcher

Robert W Boyd

Michael Andrew Wohl

Ronald J Hash

Robert E Boyd

David S Wisherd

David J Stryker

David Stryker

A wireless local area network system includes a plurality of access point stations at known locations that receive and transmit communication signals within the wireless local area network. A mobile access point station receives and transmits communication signals within the wireless local area network. A location processor is operatively connected to each of the access point stations and operative to process communication signals transmitted from the mobile access point station and determining which communication signals are first-to-arrive signals based on a common timing signal and conducting differentiation of the first-to-arrive signals to locate the mobile access point station.

Wireless local area network system with mobile access point station determination

A system of the present invention is operative for locating a wireless mobile device in communication with a wireless local area network (WLAN) that includes a plurality of cells defining a wireless local area network each having an access point base station. The access point base stations communicate with wireless mobile devices using wireless communication signals as typically spread spectrum communication signals. A processor is operatively connected to each of the access point base stations and operative to process communication signals transmitted from a mobile device and determine which signals are first-to-arrive signals based on a common timing signal and conduct differentiation of the first-to-arrive signals to locate the mobile device.

Wireless local area network with geo-location capability

An object tracking system for locating radio-tagged objects within a monitored environment has a plurality tag transmission readers that detect RF transmissions from the tags, and generate output signals representative of the time-of-arrival of first-to-arrive tag transmissions. An object location processor processes the first to arrive signals in accordance with a multilateration algorithm to geolocate a tag. In order to modify the operation of a tag that comes within a prescribed region of the monitored environment (such as passing through a doorway), one or more relatively short range, magnetic field proximity-based, tag-programming 'pingers', are placed proximate to the region. A magnetic field receiver on the tag detects the field generated by the pinger and causes the tag to change operation such as increase its RF transmission rate.

Proximity-based magnetic field generator for controlling operation of RF burst-transmitting tags of geolocation system

A distributed radio geo-location and tracking system has a distributed subsystem architecture that distributes its processing workload over a plurality of information handling and processing subsystems. For maximum detection capability, each of a plurality of tag emission receivers is equipped with a circularly polarized, omnidirectional antenna, to provide hemispherical coverage. The receivers are coupled to a partitioned plurality of detection processors, that are coupled via distributed association processors to multiple location processors. Each detection processor demodulates and time stamps received energy correlated to known spreading codes of the tags, to associate received energy with only one tag. It transmits a message containing this information over a communication framework to an association processor. The computational load is equitably distributed by a flow control mechanism among available association processors, with all receptions of a single tag transmission being directed to the same association processor. An association processor organizes received messages by tag and time-of-arrival (TOA), and transmits association reports over an association communication process of the communication framework to one of plural distributed location processors. A location processor determines the geographical locations of tags using the TOA information in the association reports.

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Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Timothy C Harrington