DETERMINING A WIFI SCAN LOCATION

• US 20150172854A1
• Filed: 11/13/2012
• Published: 06/18/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Stogaitis, Marc, Sun, Zhentao
• Granted Patent: US 9,100,778 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0242 Determining the position of transmitters to be subsequently used in positioning G01S5/0289 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0244 Accuracy or reliability of position solution or of measurements contributing thereto
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0249 Determining position using measurements made by a non-stationary device other than the device whose position is being determined
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 locating network equipment

Abstract

The subject matter of this specification can be implemented in, among other things, a method for determining a wireless access point location. The method includes a step for receiving session data from at least one mobile device, wherein each instance of the received session data includes one or more global positioning system (GPS) data points, one or more sensor data points, and one or more WiFi scan data points, wherein the one or more WiFi scan data points are associated with one or more wireless access points (WAPs). The method also includes a step for calculating a location of at least one of the one or more WAPs using at least a portion from each of the received one or more global positioning system (GPS) data points, the one or more sensor data points, and the one or more WiFi scan data points.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for determining a wireless access point location, the method comprising:

receiving, by one or more computing devices, session data from at least one mobile device, wherein each instance of the received session data includes one or more global positioning system (GPS) data points, one or more sensor data points, and one or more WiFi scan data points, wherein the one or more WiFi scan data points are associated with one or more wireless access points (WAPs); and

calculating, by the one or more computing devices, a location of at least one of the one or more WAPs using at least a portion from each of the received one or more global positioning system (GPS) data points, the one or more sensor data points, and the one or more WiFi scan data points;

wherein the location of the at least one of the one or more WAPs is calculated based at least in part by calculating a path for each instance of session data in a selected subset of session data, determining which instances of the selected subset of session data have an error greater than a predetermined error threshold based on a distance between the calculated paths for each instance of session data, and filtering out from the selected subset of session data those instances of the selected subset of session data for which the determined error is greater than the predetermined error threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein session data is received periodically from the at least one mobile device for session data gathered periodically by the at least one mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one mobile device comprises multiple devices, such that the received session data corresponds to crowd-sourced data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the calculated location of the at least one of the one or more WAPs in a location database.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising;

determining an activity type for each instance of session data in the selected subset of session data; and

filtering out from the selected subset of session data those instances of session data that have a determined activity type which is unsuitable for calculating a path.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the calculating of the path is based on a dead-reckoning algorithm.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

grouping the selected subset of session data by a geographical region; and

selecting one group of session data from the grouping for location calculations for WAPs in the geographical region.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

selecting a first set of WiFi data points from a first session of data in the selected group of session data that have similar WiFi features to a second set of WiFi data points in a second session of data in the selected group of session data, wherein WiFi data points are considered to have similar WiFi features where the two sets of WiFi data points correspond to a similar physical location.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising;

determining a location hr the first set of WiFi data points having similar WiFi features to the second set of WiFi data points.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the location for the first set of WiFi data points comprises:

determining latitude and longitude coordinates for a first point having a time stamp immediately before the WiFi scan data point and for a second point having a time stamp immediately after the WiFi scan data point on the calculated path; and

interpolating latitude and longitude coordinates for the first set of WiFi data points based on the determined latitude and longitude coordinates for the first and second points on the calculated path.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

using the interpolated latitude and longitude coordinates for the first set of WiFi data points to calculate the location of the at least one of the one or more WAPs.

5. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

9. (canceled)

15. A computer-readable medium storing instructions that when executed causes a computer to perform operations for determining location for a WiFi scan, the operations comprising:

receiving session data from a plurality of mobile devices, wherein each instance of the received session data includes a plurality of global positioning system (GPS) data points, a plurality of sensor data points, and a plurality of WiFi scans, gathered periodically by the plurality of mobile devices;

selecting, from the received session data, a subset of session data for calculating a location of a WiFi scan; and

calculating a location of at least one of the plurality of WiFi scans using the selected subset of session data;

wherein the location of the at least one WiFi scan is calculated based at least in part by calculating a path for one or more instances of session data in the selected subset of session data, determining which instances of the selected subset of session data have an error greater than a predetermined error threshold based on a distance between the calculated paths for each instance of session data, and filtering out from the selected subset of session data those instances of the selected subset of session data for which the determined error is greater than the predetermined error threshold.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

storing the calculated location of the at least one of the one or more WiFi scans in a location database.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

calculating the location of a wireless access point using the calculated location of the at least one of the one or more WiFi scans.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein calculating the location of the WiFi scan further comprises:

aligning the calculated paths using received GPS data points; and

inferring the location of the at least one of the one or more WiFi scans by determining latitude and longitude coordinates for two points on the calculated paths for one or more instances of session data in the selected subset of session data.

19. A computer-implemented system for determining wireless access point location, the system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory comprising instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

receive session data from a plurality of mobile devices, wherein the received session data includes a plurality of global positioning system (GPS) data points, a plurality of sensor data points, and a plurality of WiFi scans, gathered periodically by the mobile devices;

group the received session data by small predetermined regions;

select a subset of sessions within one of the groups that have similar WiFi scan features;

calculate a path for each session in the selected subset of sessions; and

determine a location for a WiFi scan within the plurality of WiFi scans based on the calculated paths for the selected subset of sessions;

wherein the location for the WiFi scan is determined based at least in part by;

determining which sessions in the selected subset of sessions have an error greater than a predetermined error threshold based on a distance between the calculated paths for each session, and filtering out from the selected subset of sessions those sessions in the selected subset of sessions for which the determined error is greater than the predetermined error threshold.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

determine an activity type for each session data in the received set of session data; and

filter out some of the received session data based on the determined activity type for that session.