DEVICE-TO-DEVICE RELATIVE LOCALIZATION

• US 20130102324A1
• Filed: 10/21/2011
• Published: 04/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Moscibroda, Thomas, Qiu, Jian, Chu, David Chiyuan, Meng, Xiangying
• Granted Patent: US 9,674,661 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0284 Relative positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/16 using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/18 using ultrasonic, sonic, or infrasonic waves
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

Techniques for generating a real-time 3D position of one device relative another device are described herein. In one embodiment, a first device may be equipped with one or more transmitters and receivers to collect location information based on direct localized signal transmission between the first device and a second device. The first device may also be equipped with an accelerometer and/or digital compasses to assist in resolving ambiguous locations when the first device and the second device are not at an alignment position. Each device may transmit part or all of its collected location information to another device to assist in obtaining the relative location. Alternatively, a separate server may receive the location information from the devices and calculate the relative location of each device based on the received location information.

Claims

1. A method performed by a first handheld device configured with computer executable instructions, the method comprising:

collecting, by the first handheld device, location information of a second handheld device at least partly based on one or more localized signals sent directly from the second handheld device and received by one or more receivers of the first handheld device; and

obtaining, by the first handheld device, a location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device at least partly based on differences in reception of the localized signals received by the one or more receivers.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more localized signals are transmitted over a distance of at most 10 meters.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more localized signal include one or more forms of:

an audio signal;

an ultra-sonic signal;

a sub-sonic signal;

a radio frequency signal;

or

an infrared signal.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

collecting, by the first handheld device, location information of the second handheld device at different times; and

obtaining a substantially real-time three-dimension (3D) location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device due to a movement of the first handheld device and/or the second handheld device.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the collecting location information comprises:

simultaneously transmitting, by the first handheld device, multiple localized signals to the second handheld device through multiple transmitters on the first handheld device,

the multiple localized signals configured to be received by a receiver of the second handheld device to allow the second device to determine a real-time three-dimension (3D) location of the first handheld device relative to the second handheld device.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the differences in reception comprise:

a time-of-arrival (TOA) difference between the one or more localized signals received at the multiple receivers of the first handheld device; and

an amplitude difference between the one or more localized signals received at the multiple receivers of the first handheld device.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the collecting location information comprises collecting information generated by one or more sensors of the first handheld device that determine whether the first handheld device is at an alignment position with the second handheld device, the one or more sensors detecting orientations, the one or more sensors including one or more of following sensors including an accelerometer, a compass, and a gyroscope.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising receiving location information collected by the second handheld device.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein the obtaining the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device comprises processing the collected location information and/or received location information to generate the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device.

11. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the obtaining the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device comprises:

transmitting, by the first handheld device, the collected location information to a server separate from the first handheld device and from the second handheld device, the server being configured to process the collected location information to generate the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device; and

receiving, by the first handheld device, the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device.

12. A method as recited in claim 7, wherein the obtaining comprises using the TOA difference to triangulate the location of the second handheld device relative to the first handheld device.

16. One or more computer storage medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

in response to determining that the first device is not at the alignment position with the second device,

providing an estimate of the location of the second device relative to the first device based on data collected from the accelerometer and compass; and

detecting when the first device is at the alignment position with the second device.

6. (canceled)

13. One or more computer storage medium having stored thereupon a plurality of computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the processor(s) to perform a method comprising:

determining whether a first device is at an alignment position with a second device, the alignment position being a predetermined orientation and a predetermined proximity relative to the second device at least partly based on a rotation matrix by sampling data from one or more sensors that detect orientations, the one or more sensors including at least one of an accelerometer, a compass, or a gyroscope;

in response to determining that the first device is at the alignment position with the second device,

establishing a time synchronization between the first device and the second device; and

collecting, by the first device, location information of the second device at least partly based on one or more communications received directly from the second handheld device, wherein the location information comprises a time-of-arrival (TOA) difference and an amplitude difference of a localized signal sent by a transmitter of the second device.

14. One or more computer storage medium as recited in claim 13, further comprising in response to determining that the first device is at the alignment position with the second device,

receiving location information collected by the second device;

and

calculating a location of the second device relative to the first device based on the collected location information and the received location information.

15. One or more computer storage medium as recited in claim 14, further comprising using a Kalman filter to smooth a result of the calculation.

17. A first device comprising:

one or more transmitters that send one or more localized signals to a second device;

one or more receivers that receive one or more localized signals from the second device;

memory storing one or more modules;

one or more processors operably coupled to the memory to execute the one or more modules to;

collect location information of the second device relative to the first device based on analyzing differences in reception of one or more localized signals sent by the second device and received by the one or more receivers of the first device without relying on an external location service to collect the location information of the second device.

18. A first device as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

one or more sensors that collect a rotation matrix of the first device, the one or more sensor including at least one of an accelerometer, a compass, or a gyroscope; and

the one or more processors operably coupled to the memory to execute the one or more modules to further determine whether the first device and the second device are at an alignment position based on data collected by the one or more sensors, the alignment position being a predetermined orientation and a predetermined proximity relative to the second device.

19. A first device as recited in claim 17, wherein the location information comprises:

a time-of-arrival (TOA) difference between multiple received signals at different receivers of the first device, the multiple received signals corresponding to one signal send by a transmitter of the second device; and

an amplitude difference between the multiple received signals.

20. A first device as recited in claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are operably coupled to the memory to further execute the one or more modules to:

send the collected location information to a server separate from the first device; and

receive a location of the second device relative to the first device, the location having been calculated by the server based on the collected location information.

21. The first device as recited in claim 17, wherein the one or more localized signals include one or more forms of:

an audio signal;

an ultra-sonic signal;

a sub-sonic signal;

a radio frequency signal;

or

an infrared signal.