High-performance location management platform
First Claim
1. An apparatus to determine, within an acceptable time of setup of a wireless telephone call, a classification of a geographic point, comprising:
- a computer system in turn comprising one or more mass storage subsystems, one or more main memory subsystems, one or more interconnected processors, and one or more connections to a telephone network;
a first database stored in one or more of the mass storage subsystems and containing a set of all classifications used, wherein each member of the set identifies a distinct classification of a geographical area and its geographical boundaries;
a second database stored in one or more of the main memory subsystems and containing all information from the first database necessary to determine the classification of a geographic point using the geographic point'"'"'s coordinates;
a retrieval program, operating within one or more of the processors, whereby the geographic point'"'"'s classification is found within the second database and retrieved for use.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for rapid translation of geographic latitude and longitude into any of a number of application-specific location designations or location classifications, including street address, nearest intersection, PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) zone, telephone rate zone, franchise zone, or other geographic, administrative, governmental or commercial division of territory. The speed of translation meets call-setup requirements for call-processing applications such as PSAP determination, and meets caller response expectations for caller queries such as the location of the nearest commercial establishment of a given type. To complete its translation process in a timely manner, a memory-stored spatial database is used to eliminate mass-storage accesses during operation, a spatial indexing scheme such as an R-tree over the spatial database is used to locate a caller within a specific rectangular area, and an optimized set of point-in-polygon algorithms is used to narrow the caller'"'"'s location to a specific zone identified in the database. Additional validation processing is supplied to verify intersections or street addresses returned for a given latitude and longitude. Automatic conversion of latitude-longitude into coordinates in different map projection systems is provided.
The memory-stored database is built in a compact and optimized form from a relational spatial database as required. The R-tree spatial indexing of the memory-stored database allows for substantially unlimited scalability of database size without degradation of response time. Maximum performance for database retrievals is assured by isolating the retrieval process from all updating and maintenance processes. Hot update of the in-memory database is provided without degradation of response time.
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Citations
84 Claims
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1. An apparatus to determine, within an acceptable time of setup of a wireless telephone call, a classification of a geographic point, comprising:
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a computer system in turn comprising one or more mass storage subsystems, one or more main memory subsystems, one or more interconnected processors, and one or more connections to a telephone network;
a first database stored in one or more of the mass storage subsystems and containing a set of all classifications used, wherein each member of the set identifies a distinct classification of a geographical area and its geographical boundaries;
a second database stored in one or more of the main memory subsystems and containing all information from the first database necessary to determine the classification of a geographic point using the geographic point'"'"'s coordinates;
a retrieval program, operating within one or more of the processors, whereby the geographic point'"'"'s classification is found within the second database and retrieved for use. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43)
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23. A location management platform apparatus to determine, within an acceptable time of setup of a wireless telephone call, a classification of a geographic point, comprising:
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a computer system in turn comprising one or more mass storage subsystems, one or more main memory subsystems, one or more interconnected processors, and one or more connections to a telephone network;
a first database stored in one or more of the mass storage subsystems and containing a set of all classifications used, wherein each member of the set identifies a distinct classification of a geographical area and its geographical boundaries;
a second database stored in one or more of the main memory subsystems and containing all information from the first database necessary to determine the classification of a geographic point using the geographic point'"'"'s coordinates;
a retrieval program, operating within one or more of the processors, whereby the geographic point'"'"'s classification is found within the second database and retrieved for use.
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44. An apparatus to determine, within an acceptable caller waiting time during a wireless telephone call, a geographic point, comprising:
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a computer system in turn comprising one or more mass storage subsystems, one or more main memory subsystems, one or more interconnected processors, and one or more connections to a telephone network;
a first database stored in one or more of the mass storage subsystems and containing the set of all classifications used, wherein each member of the set identifies a distinct classification of a geographical area and its geographical boundaries;
a second database stored in one or more of the main memory subsystems and containing all information from the first database necessary to determine the classification of a geographic point using said point'"'"'s coordinates;
a retrieval program, operating within one or more of the processors, whereby the geographic point'"'"'s location identifier may be estimated using known reference points in the second database. - View Dependent Claims (45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61)
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62. A method of determining, within an acceptable time of setup of a wireless telephone call, a classification of a geographic point using said point'"'"'s geographic latitude and longitude, comprising the steps of:
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accepting from a requesting entity a latitude and longitude for the geographic point;
converting the latitude and longitude to coordinates in a specific coordinate system uniquely identifying the point;
determining one or more minimum enclosing areas in the coordinate system for the point;
determining the specific classification of the geographic point within the minimum enclosing area;
returning to the requesting entity the specific classification of the geographic point. - View Dependent Claims (63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73)
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68. A method of determining, within an acceptable caller waiting time during a wireless telephone call, a location identifier of a geographic point using said point'"'"'s geographic latitude and longitude, comprising the steps of:
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accepting from a requesting entity a latitude and longitude for the geographic point;
converting the latitude and longitude to coordinates in a specific coordinate system uniquely identifying the point;
determining a minimum enclosing area in the coordinate system for the point;
determining the location identifier of the minimum enclosing area;
associating the location identifier with the geographic point;
returning to the requesting entity the location identifier of the geographic point.
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74. A method of increasing the size of a combined geographic classification database and spatial index storable in the memory of a computer system, without altering substantially the physical structure, logical structure, software content or software operation within the system, comprising the steps of:
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creating a combined geographic classification database and spatial index stored in a database in the mass storage of a computer system;
converting the combined geographic classification database and spatial index into a form capable of access by a client retrieval process;
compressing the converted geographic classification database and spatial index into a form capable of storage in the memory of a computer system;
storing the compressed geographic classification database and spatial index in the memory of a computer system.
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75. A method of increasing the size of a combined geographic classification database and spatial index storable in the memory of a computer system, without altering substantially the physical structure, logical structure, software content or software operation within the system, comprising the steps of:
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creating a combined geographic classification database and spatial index stored in a database in the mass storage of a computer system;
dividing the combined geographic classification database and spatial index into components independently retrievable;
converting each divided geographic classification database and spatial index into a form capable of access by a client retrieval process;
compressing each converted geographic classification database and spatial index into a form capable of storage in the memory of a computer system;
storing each compressed geographic classification database and spatial index in the memory of a computer system.
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76. A location management platform apparatus for determining, within an acceptable time of setup of a wireless telephone call, a classification of a geographic point using said point'"'"'s geographic latitude and longitude, comprising:
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means for accepting from a requesting entity a latitude and longitude for the geographic point;
means for converting the latitude and longitude to coordinates in a specific coordinate system uniquely identifying the point;
means for determining one or more minimum enclosing areas in the coordinate system for the point;
means for determining the specific classification of the geographic point within the minimum enclosing area;
means for returning to the requesting entity the specific classification of the geographic point. - View Dependent Claims (77, 78, 79)
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80. A location management platform apparatus for determining, within an acceptable caller waiting time during a wireless telephone call, a location identifier of a geographic point using said point'"'"'s geographic latitude and longitude, comprising:
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means for accepting from a requesting entity a latitude and longitude for the geographic point;
means for converting the latitude and longitude to coordinates in a specific coordinate system uniquely identifying the point;
means for determining a minimum enclosing area in the coordinate system for the point;
means for determining the location identifier of the minimum enclosing area;
means for associating the location identifier with the geographic point;
means for returning to the requesting entity the location identifier of the geographic point. - View Dependent Claims (81, 82, 83)
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84. A software program stored on machine-readable media for operating a location management platform to perform the following operations:
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accept the coordinates of a geographic point from an input source;
access a classification database having a spatial index;
find in the spatial index a first rectangle that encloses the point;
find in the spatial index each subordinate rectangle within the first rectangle;
repeat the previous two steps using each subordinate rectangle as a first rectangle until no more subordinate rectangles that enclose the point are found;
return as minimum enclosing rectangles the set of all subordinate rectangles found in the final step to enclose the point;
for each subordinate rectangle found that encloses the point, determine from the classification database the classification that corresponds to the subordinate rectangle found;
for each classification, determine the set of polygon coordinates defining that classification associate the point with each classification and said classification'"'"'s set of polygon coordinates.
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Specification