LOCATION OF WIRELESS MOBILE TERMINALS

• US 20110034179A1
• Filed: 04/07/2009
• Published: 02/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Wavemarket Incorporated (Gen Digital Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Seeker Wireless Pty., Limited
• Inventors: Brown, Stephen Frank, Scott, Craig Andrew, David, Malcolm, Drane, Christophe Ridgway
• Application Number:
  US12/736,430
• Publication Number:
  US 20110034179A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0236 Assistance data, e.g. base station almanac
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/18 Network planning tools
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 locating network equipment

Abstract

Methods, systems, processor-readable media, and devices for collecting information pertaining to the configuration of one or more wireless networks and using this information in turn to estimate the location of mobile wireless devices associated with those networks are disclosed. Also disclosed are methods, systems, processor-readable media, and devices for discovering and/or maintaining wireless transmitter characteristics corresponding to one or more wireless networks. Also disclosed are methods, systems, processor-readable media, and devices for aggregating wireless network transmitter characteristics from a plurality of wireless network transmitters. The present disclosure can be used across multiple networks, without requiring information from the operators of those networks, in which the information concerning those networks is collected and maintained in a current state efficiently and with rapid response to changes in the network configuration.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of aggregating wireless network transmitter characteristics corresponding to a plurality of wireless network transmitters comprising the steps of:

receiving a report from a mobile radio terminal, wherein the report includes at least one measurement of at least one radio network parameter from a first wireless network transmitter and GPS location information; and

estimating or updating a set of characteristics for the first wireless network transmitter based at least in part on the reported measurements and the GPS location information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of characteristics include one or more location dependent parameters describing the coverage footprint of the first wireless network transmitter.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the method includes the step of storing the set of characteristics for the first wireless network transmitter.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more location dependent characteristics comprise a mean and a covariance of a 2D Gaussian probability density function approximating the coverage footprint of the first wireless network transmitter.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first wireless network transmitter is selected from a group consisting of a GSM cell, a Wi-Fi Access Point, a CDMA cell, a UMTS cell, an LTE cell or a WiMax Base Station.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of authenticating a client on the mobile radio terminal.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one measurement of at least one radio network parameter of the first wireless network transmitter includes an identifier.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the report is received via a bearer selected from the group consisting of SMS, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA, and EV-DO.

5. A computer-implemented method of updating a database having characteristics of a plurality of wireless network transmitters comprising the steps of:

receiving a report from a mobile radio terminal, wherein the report includes one or more measurements of at least one radio parameter corresponding to a first wireless network transmitter; and

one or more measurements of at least one radio parameter corresponding to a second wireless network transmitter;

estimating a location for the radio terminal based at least in part on the report and characteristics corresponding to the first and second wireless transmitters; and

estimating or updating a set of characteristics for the first wireless network transmitter based at least in part on the reported measurements and the estimated location.

7. The method of claim 5 comprising the further steps of:

estimating a set of characteristics for the second wireless network transmitter based at least in part on the estimated location of the radio terminal and the at least one measurement of at least one radio network parameter of the second wireless network transmitter; and

storing the set of characteristics for the second wireless network transmitter.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein the first and the second wireless network transmitters are selected from a group consisting of GSM, UMTS, LTE, or Mobile WiMAX transmitters.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the first wireless network transmitter is a cellular base station or a Wi-Fi Access Point and the second wireless network transmitter is a cellular base station or a Wi-Fi Access Point.

11. The method of claim 5 wherein estimating the location of the mobile radio terminal comprises:

applying a cost function to the at least one measurement of the at least one radio network parameter of the first wireless network transmitter and one or more characteristics associated with the at least one wireless network transmitter; and

minimizing a sum of costs generated by the cost function to determine the estimated location of the mobile radio terminal.

12. The method of claim 5 wherein estimating the location of the mobile radio terminal comprises:

applying a cost function to the at least one measurement of the at least one radio network parameter of the first wireless network transmitter and to the at least one measurement of the at least one radio network parameter of the second wireless network transmitter and one or more characteristics associated with the first wireless network transmitter and/or one or more characteristics associated with the second wireless network transmitter; and

minimizing a sum of costs generated by the cost function to determine the estimated location of the mobile radio terminal.

15. A processing system that is capable of determining a location of a radio terminal comprising:

at least one wireless network comprising a plurality of wireless network transmitters;

at least one mobile radio terminal in communication with said at least one wireless network;

at least one database containing characteristics corresponding to transmitters of said at least one wireless network;

wherein the processing system is configured to execute steps comprising;

measuring in a mobile radio terminal one or more radio network parameter corresponding to at least one wireless network transmitter;

receiving at a server the radio network parameter measurements;

applying a cost function to the one or more measurements and one or more characteristics corresponding to the at least one wireless network transmitter; and

minimizing a sum of costs generated by the cost function to calculate the location of the mobile radio terminal.

16. The processing system of claim 15 wherein the one or more characteristics are parameters describing the reception footprint of the at least one wireless transmitter.

17. The processing system of claim 16 wherein the one or more characteristics are a mean and a covariance of a 2D Gaussian probability density function approximating the coverage footprint of the at least one wireless transmitter.

18. The processing system of claim 16 wherein calculating the location of the radio terminal comprises the steps of:

applying a cost function to the at least one measurement of the at least one radio network parameter of the first wireless network transmitter; and

minimizing a sum of costs generated by the cost function to determine the location of the mobile radio terminal.

19. A computer-implemented method of discovering and/or maintaining wireless transmitter characteristics for wireless transmitters in a wireless network comprising the steps of:

receiving from a mobile radio terminal, at least one measurement of at least one radio parameter corresponding to a first wireless transmitter and at least one measurement of at least one radio parameter corresponding to at least one other wireless transmitter;

retrieving a set of characteristics for the at least one other transmitter from a database; and

estimating or updating in a processing system a set of characteristics for the first wireless transmitter based at least in part on the characteristics of the at least one other transmitter, and the collected measurements corresponding to the first wireless transmitter and the at least one other wireless transmitter.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19 wherein the set of characteristics for the first wireless transmitter include location dependent characteristics describing the coverage footprint of the first wireless transmitter.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 20 wherein, the set of characteristics for the first wireless transmitter include a mean and a covariance of a 2D Gaussian probability density function approximating the coverage footprint of the first wireless transmitter.