Method and apparatus for detecting received radiation power

• US 20050215268A1
• Filed: 03/26/2004
• Published: 09/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BenQ Corporation (Qisda Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BenQ Corporation (Qisda Corporation)
• Inventors: Cheng, Steven D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,031,726 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.100
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/3838 Arrangements for reducing RF exposure to the user, e.g. by changing the shape of the transceiver while in use
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/318 Received signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements

Abstract

A radiation detection method and apparatus thereof for estimating radiation power received by the mobile station. The locations of nearby base stations and the mobile station are obtained from the broadcast system messages and the location service provided by the service provider, and based on the location information, the radiation power is estimated according to the distances between the base stations and the mobile station. In addition, the radiation estimation process also utilizes the radiation power of monitored base stations constantly measured by the mobile station for cell selection to determine the effects of interference. Based on a preset safety value and the estimated radiation power, the radiation detection device of the present invention automatically issues an alert when entering a high radiation environment.

Claims

1. A method for a mobile station to detect and estimate radiation power received thereby, comprising the following steps:

obtaining a current mobile station location;

generating a base station combination and corresponding base station information, wherein the base station combination and the corresponding base station information are retrieved by searching in a first database while using location information of a serving base station as a search index, the base station combination comprising the serving base station and nearby base stations close to the serving base station;

calculating a distance between the mobile station and each base station listed in the base station combination according to the current mobile station location and the base station information in the base station combination;

estimating total radiation power by substituting calculated distances into a predetermined equation;

checking whether the total radiation power is greater than a preset minimal safety value; and

informing the mobile user if the total radiation power is greater than the preset value.

2. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the base station combination and the corresponding base station information are retrieved from the first database built in the serving base station and sent to the mobile station.

3. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 2, wherein the first database of the serving base station is accessed through a wireless packet data protocol.

4. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the step of generating a base station combination and corresponding base station information comprises the following steps:

acquiring the location information from the serving base station; and

obtaining the base station combination from the first database while using the location information of the serving base station as the search index, wherein the first database is downloaded into a secondary memory device.

5. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, further comprising preparing the first database offline before the first database is activated.

6. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the location information is part of broadcasted cell information for location registration, which is acquired by the mobile station through broadcasting system messages.

7. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the location information comprises a Mobile Country Code (MCC), a Mobile Network Code (MNC), and a Location Area Code (LAC) of the serving base station.

8. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the first database stores a set of base station information for each base station, and the base station information for a corresponding base station comprises a Mobile Country Code (MCC), a Mobile Network Code (MNC), a Location Area Code (LAC), a base station identification number, power level, longitude, latitude, and altitude of the corresponding base station.

9. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the current mobile station location is derived using a location service feature embedded in the mobile station.

10. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 9, wherein the location service feature is provided by Assisted Global Positioning System (AGPS).

11. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined equation is derived by summing received radiation power emitted from each base station in the base station combination, and the radiation power emitted from a base station is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the base station and the mobile station.

12. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, further comprising:

deriving a new mobile station location for updating the current location when the change in location does not trigger the change of base station combination; and

updating the total radiation power according to the new mobile station location.

13. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 7, further comprising:

deriving adjacent LACs using the LAC of the location information when the mobile station is located in an area covered by several LACs; and

updating the location information to include the LAC and all the adjacent LACs, to update the base station combination.

14. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 13, wherein the adjacent LACs are derived by searching a second database.

15. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, further comprising:

comparing each of the calculated distances between the mobile station and the base station in the base station combination with a predetermined distance; and

excluding a far base station from the base station combination if the calculated distance of the far base station is greater than the predetermined distance, thereby simplifying the radiation power estimation calculation.

16. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining a list of monitored base stations including the serving base station;

measuring and calculating radiation power of the monitored base stations using a protocol stack inside the mobile station;

excluding the monitored base stations from the base station combination obtained by searching the first database; and

combining measured radiation power with estimated radiation power obtained from the predetermined equation as the total radiation power.

17. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 1, further comprising:

counting a consecutive number of times the total radiation power is greater than the preset value; and

informing the mobile user only if the number of times is greater or equal to a tolerance index.

18. The radiation detection and estimation method according to claim 17, wherein the tolerance index is set by the mobile user.