Determining Path Traversed by a Mobile Communication Device

• US 20140213305A1
• Filed: 08/03/2011
• Published: 07/31/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sriram Kannan
• Original Assignee: Sriram Kannan
• Inventors: Kannan, Sriram
• Granted Patent: US 9,294,879 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.6
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0027 of actual mobile position, i.e. position determined on mobile
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0054 of actual mobile position, i.e. position calculation on base station
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0294 Trajectory determination or predictive filtering, e.g. target tracking or Kalman filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for determining path traversed by a mobile communication device in an unobtrusive manner. The method involves providing a tower transition data involving identifying a set of GPS coordinates associated with a cellular network tower ID, and identifying the tail GPS coordinate and head GPS coordinate of consecutive cellular network tower IDs. Then the distance between the tail and head is estimated, based on which the sequence of cellular network tower IDs are determined, which provides the path traversed by the mobile communication device.

Claims

1. A method for generating a tower transition data, the method comprising:

receiving at least two cellular network tower ID;

receiving at least one GPS coordinate for each cellular network tower ID periodically; and

identifying a head GPS coordinate and a tail GPS coordinate associated with at least one pair of cellular network tower ID to generate tower transition data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the tower transition data is in a tabular form.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the tower transition data comprises a plurality of a respective head GPS coordinate and a respective tail GPS coordinate corresponding to a plurality of pair of cellular network tower IDs.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the tower transition data further comprises at least one of location packet, mode of transportation, nature of path taken, time of transition, date of transition, or combinations thereof.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing the tower transition data in an electronic medium.

13. A tool that uses the method of claim 1 or 6.

6. A method for determining a path traversed by a mobile communication device, the method comprising:

providing a tower transition data;

receiving at least two cellular network tower IDs sequentially;

identifying at least one head GPS coordinate and at least one tail GPS coordinate associated with each transition between two consecutive cellular network tower IDs from the tower transition data;

estimating a distance between each tail GPS coordinate and each head GPS coordinate between two consecutive transitions; and

selecting at least one most probable transition associated with a minimum distance between two consecutive transitions; and

determining the path traversed by the mobile communication device based on the at least one most probable transition.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein the tower transition data comprises at least one of location packet, mode of transportation, nature of path taken, time of transition, date of transition, or combinations thereof.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the selecting the most probable transition is also based on at least one of location packet, mode of transportation, nature of path taken, time of transition, date of transition, or combinations thereof.

11. The method of claim 6 wherein the method is used to determine if the mobile communication device is moving or stationary.

12. The method of claim 6 wherein the tower transition data is in a tabular form.

7. The method of claim 7 wherein the most probable transition is also determined based on user profile.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the most probable transition is also determined based on at least one predefined point of interest.

14. A method for constructing a path to be taken by a user wherein the method comprises:

providing a start location GPS coordinates and an end location GPS coordinates;

providing a tower transition data; and

selecting at least one most probable transition between the start location GPS coordinate and end location GPS coordinates from the tower transition data.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the selecting the at least one most probable transition further comprises at least one constraint.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the at least one constraint is selected from the group consisting of shortest distance, least cost, best standardized route, and combinations thereof.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein the tower transition data is in a tabular form.

18. A system for determining path traversed by a mobile communication device, the system comprising:

a mobile communication device in communication with at least one cellular network tower, wherein the mobile communication device is associated with at least one GPS coordinate;

a recording module for recording the at least one cellular network tower ID;

a processing module for processing the at least one cellular network tower ID, wherein the processing module comprises a tower transition data;

a communication module to enable communication between the mobile communication device, the recording module and the processing module.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the system is used to determine if the mobile communication device is moving or stationary.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the tower transition data is in a tabular form.

21. The system of claim 18 wherein the processing module further comprises user profile.

22. The system of claim 18 wherein the processing module further comprises at least one predefined point of interest.