DEVICE LOCATION DETERMINED BY WIRELESS SIGNALS

• US 20160373897A1
• Filed: 06/19/2015
• Published: 12/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lenovo PC International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Lenovo Singapore Pte Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Morris, Joseph Bryan, Luna, Joaquin F., Waltermann, Rod D., Acquesta, Erin Carolyn Solfiell, Kingsbury, Timothy Winthrop
• Granted Patent: US 10,353,047 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02521 using a radio-map
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02524 Creating or updating the radio-map
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 locating network equipment

Abstract

One embodiment provides a method, including: obtaining a list of detected wireless signals; determining, using a processor, that a previous list of detected wireless signals shares at least some commonality with the list of detected wireless signals; for common entries in the list, analyzing with a processor, a characteristic of an entry of the list of detected wireless signals and a characteristic of an entry of the previous list of detected wireless signals; establishing, if the similarity metric meets a criterion, an estimated location of a device; and requesting, from a third party location service, a device location if the similarity metric does not meet the criterion. Other aspects are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

obtaining a list of detected wireless signals;

determining, using a processor, that a previous list of detected wireless signals shares at least some commonality with the list of detected wireless signals;

for common entries in the list, analyzing with a processor, a characteristic of an entry of the list of detected wireless signals and a characteristic of an entry of the previous list of detected wireless signals;

establishing, if the similarity metric meets a criterion, an estimated location of a device; and

requesting, from a third party location service, a device location if the similarity metric does not meet the criterion.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the previous list of detected wireless signals is stored on the device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the device is a cloud server.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the previous list of detected wireless signals is shared with other devices.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the commonality comprises entry overlap.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the characteristic comprises signal strength.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the criterion comprises a threshold.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the threshold is a statistical threshold and the statistical threshold includes two standard deviations.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of detectable wireless signals comprises a MAC address.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of detectable wireless signals comprises a wireless access point SSID.

12. The information handling device of claim 1, wherein the previous list of detected wireless signals is stored on the device.

13. The information handling device of claim 2, wherein the device is a cloud server.

14. The information handling device of claim 3, wherein the previous list of detected wireless signals is shared with other devices.

15. The information handling device of claim 1, wherein the commonality comprises entry overlap.

16. The information handling device of claim 1, wherein the characteristic comprises signal strength.

17. The information handling device of claim 1, wherein the criterion comprises a threshold.

18. The information handling device of claim 7, wherein the threshold is a statistical threshold and the statistical threshold includes two standard deviations.

19. The information handling device of claim 1, wherein the list of detectable wireless signals comprises at least one of a MAC address and a SSID.

11. An information handling device, comprising:

a processor;

a memory device that stores instructions executable by the processor to;

obtain a list of detected wireless signals;

determine that a previous list of detected wireless signals shares at least some commonality with the list of detected wireless signals;

for common entries in the list, analyzing a characteristic of an entry of the list of detected wireless signals and a characteristic of an entry of the previous list of detected wireless signals;

establish, if the similarity metric meets a criterion, an estimated location of a device; and

requesting, from a third party location service, a device location if the similarity metric does not meet the criterion.

20. A product, comprising:

a storage device having code stored therewith, the code being executable by a processor and comprising;

code that obtains a list of detected wireless signals;

code that determines that a previous list of detected wireless signals shares at least some commonality with the list of detected wireless signals;

for common entries in the list, analyzing a characteristic of an entry of the list of detected wireless signals and a characteristic of an entry of the previous list of detected wireless signals;

code that establishes, if the similarity metric meets a criterion, an estimated location of a device; and

code that requests, from a third party location service, a device location if the similarity metric does not meet the criterion.