Direction finding for legacy bluetooth devices

• US 10,142,778 B2
• Filed: 01/07/2016
• Issued: 11/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm technologies international, ltd. (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm technologies international, ltd. (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Inventors: Banerjea, Raja
• Primary Examiner(s): Khan, Mehmood B.
• Application Number:
  US14/990,482
• Publication Number:
  US 20170201859A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,055 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/48 the waves arriving at the antennas being continuous or intermittent and the phase difference of signals derived therefrom being measured
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/27 for locating or positioning the transmitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0805 with single receiver and antenna switching H04B7/0822 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/086 using weights depending on external parameters, e.g. direction of arrival [DOA], predetermined weights or beamforming
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

An apparatus includes an antenna array including at least a first antenna element and a second antenna element separated by a first distance. The apparatus receives a wireless advertising message, having a known bit pattern, via the first and second antenna elements. The apparatus samples a first portion of the known bit pattern from the wireless advertising message received via the first antenna element, and samples a second portion of the known bit pattern from the wireless advertising message received via the second antenna element, and determines a phase difference between the received wireless advertising message at each of the first and second antenna elements by correlating the first sampled portion and the second sampled portion to the known bit pattern. The apparatus then determines an angle of arrival (AoA) of the wireless advertising message based at least in part on the phase difference and the first difference.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an antenna array including at least a first antenna element and a second antenna element separated by a first distance;

one or more processors; and

a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to;

receive a first number of bits of a Bluetooth wireless advertising message via the first antenna element;

receive a second number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message via the second antenna element, wherein data corresponding to the second number of bits is different than data corresponding to the first number of bits;

sample the first number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received via the first antenna element to obtain a first sampled portion;

compare the first sampled portion to a corresponding first number of bits of a Bluetooth advertising access address;

sample the second number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received via the second antenna element to obtain a second sampled portion;

compare the second sampled portion to a corresponding second number of bits of the Bluetooth advertising access address;

determine a phase difference between the first and second sampled portions based on the comparisons; and

determine an angle of arrival (AoA) of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message based at least in part on the phase difference and the first distance.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the antenna array includes a number (N) of antenna elements spaced apart by the first distance, and wherein execution of the instructions further causes the apparatus to:

receive the Bluetooth wireless advertising message via the N antenna elements;

determine a respective phase of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received at each of the N antenna elements; and

determine the AoA of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message based at least in part on the respective phases and the first distance.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein execution of the instructions to determine the AoA of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message causes the apparatus to:

map phase differences among the respective phases to an incident direction of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the AoA is determined based on a probability density function including at least one of a Gaussian or normal distribution, a hyperbolic distribution, or another suitable distribution that maps the phase differences and the first distance to the AoA.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein execution of the instructions to determine the respective phases of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message causes the apparatus to:

convert a portion of the received Bluetooth wireless advertising message from each of the N antenna elements to a corresponding received waveform; and

compare the received waveforms with an expected waveform to determine the respective phases of the received Bluetooth wireless advertising message at each of the N antenna elements.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the apparatus to:

determine an AoA for each of a predetermined number (P) of Bluetooth wireless adverting messages received via the antenna array.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the apparatus to:

generate a smoothed AoA based at least in part on an average of the AoAs determined for the P Bluetooth wireless advertising messages.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the predetermined number P is selected to provide the smoothed AoA with an error of less than 20 degrees over a range of ±

60 to ±

70 degrees.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the apparatus to:

determine an AoA for each of a plurality of Bluetooth wireless advertising messages received during a time interval.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the apparatus to:

generate a smoothed AoA based at least in part on an average of the AoAs determined for the plurality of Bluetooth wireless advertising messages.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first portion is sampled during a first time period and the second portion is sampled during a second time period following the first time period by a switching interval.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the first time period, the second time period, and the switching interval are equal in duration.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the first time period is a length of time to allow sampling of one bit of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the known bit pattern corresponds to at least a portion of an advertising access address of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message.

15. A method of determining angle of arrival (AoA) of wireless signals received via an antenna array, the method comprising:

receiving a first number of bits of a Bluetooth wireless advertising message via a first antenna element of the antenna array;

receiving a second number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message via a second antenna element of the antenna array, wherein data corresponding to the second number of bits is different than data corresponding to the first number of bits;

sampling the first number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received via the first antenna element to obtain a first sampled portion;

comparing the first sampled portion to a corresponding first number of bits of a Bluetooth advertising access address;

sampling the second number of bits of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received via the second antenna element to obtain a second sampled portion;

comparing the second sampled portion to a corresponding second number of bits of the Bluetooth advertising access address;

determining a phase difference between the first and second sampled portions based on the comparisons; and

determining an AoA of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message based at least in part on the phase difference and a distance of separation between the first and second antenna elements.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the Bluetooth wireless advertising message includes an 8-bit preamble and a 32-bit access address field, and wherein each of the first and second sampled portions comprises 16 bits of the access address field.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the antenna array includes a number (N) of antenna elements spaced apart by the distance of separation, the method further comprising:

receiving the Bluetooth wireless advertising message via the N antenna elements;

determining a respective phase of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message received at each of the N antenna elements; and

determining the AoA of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message based at least in part on the respective phases and the distance of separation.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining the AoA of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message comprises:

mapping phase differences among the respective phases to an incident direction of the Bluetooth wireless advertising message.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the AoA is determined based on a probability density function including at least one of a Gaussian or normal distribution, a hyperbolic distribution, or another suitable distribution that maps the phase differences and the distance of separation to the AoA.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

determining an AoA for each of a predetermined number (P) of Bluetooth wireless advertising messages received via the antenna array; and

generating a smoothed AoA based at least in part on an average of the AoAs determined for the P Bluetooth wireless advertising messages.