PEER AND COMPOSITE LOCALIZATION FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

• US 20100105409A1
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Published: 04/29/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Banerjee, Nilanjan, Bahl, Paramvir, Chandra, Ranveer, Agarwal, Sharad, Wolman, Alastair
• Granted Patent: US 8,812,013 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.100
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0263 by combining or switching between positions derived from two or more separate positioning systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0289 of multiple transceivers, e.g. in ad hoc networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A system and method for peer based localization system using radio technology, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi ad-hoc technology that enables mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones, laptops, handheld communication devices, handheld computing devices, satellite radios, global positioning systems, PDAs, etc. to discover their physical location relative to one another. In addition, the peer based localization can use a plurality of radio technologies to increase the accuracy of the physical location estimates. Additionally or alternatively, the peer based localization technique can be combined with infrastructure based location techniques, such as triangulation, GPS, or infrastructure based Wi-Fi localization in order to transpose virtual coordinates into physical coordinates.

Claims

1. A mobile device, comprising:

a radio component that establishes peer-to-peer communication with at least one additional mobile device; and

a localization component that estimates the physical distance between the mobile devices based on one or more characteristics of the peer-to-peer communication;

wherein at least one of;

the radio component uses a plurality of radio technologies simultaneously to establish and maintain the peer-to-peer communication, or the localization component enables multi-hop peer-localization, and maps the location of the mobile devices onto a grid.

2. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the radio technologies include at least one of Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi ad hoc technology.

3. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the localization component determines the global physical location of the mobile device via at least one of GPS, infrastructure based Wi-Fi localization, or triangulation.

4. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein the localization component transposes the virtual coordinates obtained by the infrastructure localization into the physical coordinates obtained via the radio component.

5. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein a surrogate device handles at least one of a process of scanning for other mobile devices, or estimating the distance.

6. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the localization component estimates the physical distance between the mobile devices based at least in part on a received signal strength indication of the radio communication.

7. The mobile device of claim 1, further comprising an energy management component that controls the energy consumption of the mobile device via at least one of adaptive Bluetooth scanning, cloud coordination, or leveraging application behavior.

8. A method for mobile device localization, comprising:

establishing peer-to-peer communication with at least one additional mobile device;

enabling multi-hop peer-localization;

estimating the physical distance between the mobile devices based at least in part on a received signal strength indication; and

mapping the location of the mobile devices on at least one of a two dimensional or three dimensional grid.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein establishing the peer-to-peer communication further comprises using two or more radio technologies, wherein the radio technologies includes at least one of a Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi ad hoc technology.

21. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining the global physical location of the mobile device using infrastructure based localization including at least one of GPS, infrastructure based Wi-Fi localization, or triangulation.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising transposing the virtual coordinates obtained via the infrastructure based localization onto the physical coordinates obtained based on the peer localization.

23. The method of claim 8, further comprising managing the energy consumption of the mobile device localization via at least one of adaptive Bluetooth scanning, cloud coordination, or leveraging application behavior.

10. A method for mobile device localization, comprising:

establishing peer-to-peer communication with at least one additional mobile device via two or more radio technologies simultaneously; and

estimating the physical distance between the mobile devices based at least in part on the received signal strength indication of at least one of the radio technologies.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the radio technologies includes at least one of a Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi ad hoc technology.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining the global physical location of the mobile device using infrastructure based localization including at least one of GPS, infrastructure based Wi-Fi localization, or triangulation.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising transposing the virtual coordinates obtained via the infrastructure based localization onto the physical coordinates obtained based on the peer localization.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising enabling multi-hop peer-localization.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising mapping the location of the mobile devices on grid.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising using a surrogate device to handle at least one of a process of scanning for other mobile devices, or estimating the distance.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising managing the energy consumption of the mobile device localization via at least one of adaptive Bluetooth scanning, cloud coordination, or leveraging application behavior.

18-20. -20. (canceled)