LOCATION TRACKING BASED ON OVERLAPPING GEO-FENCES

• US 20150327015A1
• Filed: 05/09/2014
• Published: 11/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Eberhardy, Peter, Khan, Rubaiyat, Lin, Hong, So, Alisa, Welbom, Abigail, Larsen, Daniel, Stiner, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 9,774,995 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0294 Trajectory determination or predictive filtering, e.g. target tracking or Kalman filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0272 System arrangements wherein the object is to detect exact location of child or item using triangulation other than GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0277 Communication between units on a local network, e.g. Bluetooth, piconet, zigbee, Wireless Personal Area Networks [WPAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/022 with dynamic range variability
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/04 using triggered events

Abstract

A system for controlling a device to track the location of the device is provided. The system identifies an initial location of the device. The system then identifies a plurality of areas having different sizes. Each area encompasses the identified location. For each of the areas, the system registers the area with a location provider to receive a notification when the location provider detects that the device has left the area. Upon receiving a notification that the device has left an area, the system may repeat the process of identifying the location and the areas and registering the areas to continue tracking the location of the device.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for controlling a device to track a location of the device, the computer-executable instructions comprising instructions that:

identify a location of the device;

identify a plurality of areas having different sizes, each area encompassing the identified location; and

for each of the areas, register the area with a location provider to receive a notification when the location provider detects that the device has left the area.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the areas are concentric circles centered on the location of the device.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 wherein the radius of at least one of the circles is based on speed of travel associated with the device.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 wherein the radius of at least one of the circles is derived from an accuracy associated with the location of the device as reported by the location provider.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions that register with the location provider to receive a notification of a significant change in the location of the device.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions that set a timeout period so that the location of the device can be identified if the location provider fails to detect that the device has left the area during that timeout period.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the instructions are part of an application that runs in background mode in which access to a satellite navigation system of the device is restricted.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, further comprising instructions that, when the application enters a foreground mode in which access to the satellite navigation system is not restricted, identify the location of the device using the satellite navigation system.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, further comprising instructions that, upon receiving a notification that the location provider has detected that the device has crossed a boundary of an area, repeat the identifying of the location and the areas and registering the areas with the location provider.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the location provider fails to detect that the device crossed a boundary because the registration was not completed after the device exited the area.

11. A device for tracking the location of the device, the device comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that

initialize tracking of the device by;

identifying a location of the device;

identifying circular areas of different radiuses, each circular area with a center derived from the identified location, at least one of the radiuses being based on a speed of travel of the device; and

registering the circular areas with a location provider of the device to receive notification that the location provider has detected that the device has crossed the boundary of a circular area; and

upon receiving a notification that the location provider has detected that the device has crossed a boundary, re-initialize tracking of the device so that the tracking is based on circular areas derived from a new location of the device; and

a processor for executing the computer-executable instructions of the computer-readable storage medium.

12. The device of claim 11 wherein the radius of at least one of the circular areas is derived from an accuracy associated with the identified location.

13. The device of claim 11 wherein the computer-executable instructions further register with the location provider to receive a notification of a significant change in the location of the device and, upon receiving a notification that the location provider has detected a significant change in the location of the device, re-initialize tracking of the device.

14. The device of claim 11 wherein the computer-executable instructions further publish the location of the device so that the other device can track the location of the device.

15. A method in a device for tracking a location of the device, by a method comprising:

identifying the location of the device;

defining multiple areas that encompass the identified location, the multiple areas having different sizes wherein a smaller area allows for detecting fine-grained changes in location and a larger area allows for detecting larger-grained changes in location in case the device fails to detect when the device crosses a boundary of the smaller area, the areas being circles centered on the identified location and with radiuses based on a speed of travel of the device and the accuracy of the identified location; and

after defining the multiple areas,

repeatedly identifying the location of the device without using a satellite navigation system; and

when a previously identified location and a newly identified location indicate that the device has crossed a boundary of an area, providing a notification that the device has changed location.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the repeated identification of the location uses information derived from a cellular network.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the repeated identification of the location uses information derived from a Wi-Fi network.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein the notification is provided to an application that is executing in background mode and further comprising identifying the location of the device using a satellite navigation system when the application starts executing in foreground mode.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein the repeatedly identifying and providing the notification are performed by a location provider of the device.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising registering with the location provider to receive a notification of a significant change in location.