System and Methods for Obtaining Coarse Location for a Mobile Device

• US 20080248813A1
• Filed: 04/04/2008
• Published: 10/09/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Palm, Inc. (TCL Technology Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Chatterjee, Manjirnath
• Granted Patent: US 8,478,299 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.2
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 1/68 Marker, boundary, call-sign, or like beacons transmitting signals not carrying directional information
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02524 Creating or updating the radio-map
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Various embodiments are described for obtaining coarse location for a mobile device. In one embodiment, a mobile device may comprise one or more interfaces for detecting location reference nodes in view of the mobile device and a client module to send a location query to a location database. The location query may comprise node data identifying the reference nodes in view of the mobile device. The location database may be configured to respond to the location query with positioning information for providing an estimated position of the mobile device. The positioning information may be based on correlated position data and node data received from one or more client devices having Global Positioning System (GPS) position determination capability and configured to report position data and node data for location reference nodes in view. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

20. The mobile device of claim 19, the location database to update the estimated positions whenever a location reference node is used.

21. The mobile device of claim 20, the location database to update the estimated positions of a client device and the location nodes seen by the client device in response to the client device reporting position data and node data associated with the location nodes it sees.

22. The mobile device of claim 20, the location database to update the estimated positions of the mobile device and the location nodes in view of the mobile device in response to the location query.

25-1. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the positioning information is adjusted based on a type of location reference node.

29. A method comprising:

detecting location reference nodes in view of a mobile device; and

sending a location query to a location database, the location query comprising node data identifying the reference nodes in view of the mobile device; and

receiving positioning information from the location database for providing a coarse location of the mobile device, the positioning information based on correlated position data and node data received from one or more client devices having Global Positioning System (GPS) position determination capability and configured to report position data and node data for location reference nodes in view.

30. A computer-readable storage medium comprising executable computer program instructions that when executed enable a computing system to:

detect location reference nodes in view of a mobile device; and

send a location query to a location database, the location query comprising node data identifying the reference nodes in view of the mobile device; and

receive positioning information from the location database for providing a coarse location of the mobile device, the positioning information based on correlated position data and node data received from one or more client devices having Global Positioning System (GPS) position determination capability and configured to report position data and node data for location reference nodes in view.