GEOGRAPHICALLY SELF-LABELING ACCESS POINTS

• US 20090088183A1
• Filed: 09/29/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Piersol, Kurt W., Savitzky, Stephen R., Chemishkian, Sergey, Barrus, John W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,711,034 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.100
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/206 specially adapted for indoor navigation
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0236 Assistance data, e.g. base station almanac
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 locating network equipment

Abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for self-labeling access points with their geographic location from received beacon frames. In particular, the present invention transmits beacon frames including temporary location information from mobile devices. The beacon frames are received by an access point, filtered by the access point and then used to determine a location. Once the location has been determined, the access point uses the determined location to self-label itself by converting the location information to a geographic code and inserting it as part of the SSID of the access point'"'"'s beacon signal. The present invention also includes a number of methods using geographic codes including a method for generating and transmitting geographic codes for mobile devices, a method for determining a location of an access point, a method for self-labeling an access point, and a method for filtering beacon frames.

Claims

1. A method for self-labeling an access point, the method comprising:

receiving signals including geographic codes at the access point;

extracting the geographic codes from the received signals;

determining a location of the access point; and

setting a location of the access point to be the determined location.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the signals are from mobile devices.

3. The method of claim 1 comprising labeling the access point with the determined location.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating a geographic code for the determined location;

inserting the generated geographic code into a beacon frame; and

transmitting by the access point the beacon frame.

5. The method of claim 1 comprising filtering the received signals.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the filtering is based on one from the group of time, sender and historical data.

7. The method of claim 1 comprising determining an amplitude for each received signal.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the determining the location of the access point includes:

determining a location corresponding to the geographic codes;

determining the location of the access point using the locations and amplitudes of received signals.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of setting is performed after a predetermined number of signals have been received.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the predetermined number is greater than 100.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the predetermined number is greater than 1000.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of setting is performed after a predetermined amount of time since the location of the access point was last reset.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the predetermined time is more than 12 hours.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the predetermined time is more than 24 hours.

15. A method for sending a signal including a geographic code from a mobile device, the method comprising:

determining a location of the mobile device;

encoding the location into a geographic code; and

transmitting a signal including the geographic code.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein determining the location of the mobile device is performed using information from a GPS system.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein determining the location of the mobile device includes receiving geographic codes, decoding the geographic codes to locations, and generating the location of the mobile device from the decoded locations.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein encoding the location into a geographic code comprises:

creating a first character by combining two highest order bits of a longitude value with two highest order bits of a latitude value;

creating a second to fifth characters using four lowest order characters produced by multiplying a latitude value by 144000 and converting it to base 60;

creating a sixth to ninth characters using four lowest order characters produced by multiplying a longitude value by 144000 and converting it to base 60; and

appending the first character, the second to fifth characters and the sixth to ninth characters.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein transmitting a signal including the geographic code comprises:

generating a beacon frame;

adding the geographic code to the beacon frame; and

transmitting the beacon frame.

20. The method of claim 20 wherein the geographic code is added to the SSID of the beacon frame.