Position reporting cellular telephone

• US 5,625,668 A
• Filed: 04/12/1994
• Issued: 04/29/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/1994
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Froeberg, Peter L., Loomis, Peter V. W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cumming, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): MAUNG, NAY AUNG
• Application Number:
  US08/226,773
• Time in Patent Office: 1,113 Days
• Field of Search: 379/58, 379/59, 379/63, 340/989, 340/991, 340/993, 340/996, 342/357, 342/450, 342/451, 342/457
• US Class Current: 455/456.5
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/17 Emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2205/002 for traffic control, mobile tracking, guidance, surveillance or anti-collision
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2205/008 using a mobile telephone network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal

Abstract

A cellular telephone system embodiment of the present invention comprises a combination global positioning system (GPS) receiver and cellular transceiver and a data processing facility for converting latitude, longitude, velocity and bearing information provided by the GPS receiver into meaningful descriptors that are spoken with a speech synthesizer back to the cellular transceiver or an outsider who calls in an inquiry to a "1-900" service.

Claims

1. An improved cellular locating system (10) comprising a remote unit (12) for receiving transmissions from orbiting overhead navigation satellites (18), a cell station (20) for receiving satellite range information from the remote unit (12) over a cellular-radio-telephone-network signal, and a clock (30) for displaying local time, the improvement comprising:

a database processing facility (22) connected (26,

     80) to receive a plurality of latitude, longitude and bearing information from the cell station (20);

an indexer (82) connected to index into a plurality of databases (84-90) according to said plurality of latitude, longitude and bearing information;

a speech synthesizer (94) provides to an output a spoken voice phrase information about the location of the remote unit (12);

a street segment database (84) wherein the latitudes and longitudes of various continuous streets within a region are related to street names, block addresses and bearings and latitude, longitude and bearing information is provided in real-time for remote unit (12) are used relationally to obtain the name of the street, the block address and bearings of streets in the area of remote unit (12) and each such candidate is test-fit to find a best fit, and wherein if a bearing constraint is sensible in a particular application the bearing is used to constrain which street solution is ultimately decided upon, and wherein further constraints include regional constraints, where street segments far removed from an estimated immediate area of remote unit (12) are removed from the relational access and search;

a street hierarchy database (85) wherein the latitudes and longitudes of various continuous streets within a region are related to classes of streets, and latitude, longitude and bearing information is provided in real-time for the remote unit (12) and used relationally to obtain the name of a street at an appropriate classification level;

a street intersection database (86) that includes relational data for each intersection of a street with another street in a regional geographic area and the earth navigation locations of such intersections and their corresponding common street names;

a zip code database (87) that includes relational data for each mailing code in a regional geographic area and the earth navigation locations of such areas and their corresponding numbers;

a time zone database (88) that includes relational data for each time zone in a regional geographic area, and alternatively including the whole earth, and the earth navigation locations of such time zones together with their corresponding offsets from Universal Standard Time, wherein the time zone database (88) is used to convert incoming latitude and longitude information into earth time zone data and such converted data is transmitted back to the remote unit (12) and used by an update device (32) to periodically correct a local time display of said clock (30);

a road services database (89) that includes relational data for each roadside service in a regional geographic area and the earth navigation locations of such businesses and their corresponding common street names and addresses; and

a landmarks database (90) that includes relational data for each landmark in a regional geographic area and the earth navigation locations of such landmarks and their corresponding common street addresses or common location descriptions;

wherein, the indexer (82) is configured to express through the speech synthesizer (94) a route necessary to take to get from a current position to another location verbally described in terms of one of the intersections, landmarks or road side businesses or other points stored in said databases (84-90).