Location aware services infrastructure
First Claim
1. A system for automatically advising a subscriber application of changes with respect to the identity of at least one or more entities or a location in which an entity is located, each entity having a unique tag identifier, said system comprisinga plurality of beacon transmitters, each transmitting an identifier of the region of the beacon transmitter, said entity tags monitoring for beacon identifiers broadcast by the beacon transmitters, a base station for receiving from an entity both its identity and the identity of the broadcast beacon identifier, an entity identity register which specifies the locations of entities, and a location identity register which specifies the entities within a particular location, each of said registers containing criteria predetermined by a subscriber application as to the change of conditions with respect to an entity or a location which is to be brought to the attention of the subscriber application, said registers notifying the subscriber application when changes of an entity or location meet said criteria.
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0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Entity identity information and location identity information are sensed and made available to subscriber applications through a secure location-aware services infrastructure, thereby allowing for the creation of location-based services. Information detected by a sensor is passed to an interface aggregator for conversion to a standardized format and then forwarded to location registers for the domain of the sensors. Subscriber applications query the registers to determine which entities are in a particular location and to determine the location of entities. By unifying diverse sensing technologies, location information can be simultaneously obtained on varying degrees of granularity. In addition, the system is scalable to large scenarios by using a plurality of sensors, interface aggregators, and registers.
67 Citations
5 Claims
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1. A system for automatically advising a subscriber application of changes with respect to the identity of at least one or more entities or a location in which an entity is located, each entity having a unique tag identifier, said system comprising
a plurality of beacon transmitters, each transmitting an identifier of the region of the beacon transmitter, said entity tags monitoring for beacon identifiers broadcast by the beacon transmitters, a base station for receiving from an entity both its identity and the identity of the broadcast beacon identifier, an entity identity register which specifies the locations of entities, and a location identity register which specifies the entities within a particular location, each of said registers containing criteria predetermined by a subscriber application as to the change of conditions with respect to an entity or a location which is to be brought to the attention of the subscriber application, said registers notifying the subscriber application when changes of an entity or location meet said criteria.
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5. A method for automatically advising a subscriber application of changes with respect to the identity of an entity or a location in which an entity is located, each entity having a unique tag identifier, said method comprising the steps of:
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periodically transmitting from a beacon an identifier of the region of the beacon, receiving at a base station from an entity in response to a periodic transmission both the identity of the entity and the identification of the transmitting beacon;
receiving from the base station at an entity identity register and a location identity register the identity of the entity and the identification of the transmitting beacon, said registers containing criteria predetermined by the subscriber application as to the changes of conditions with respect to an entity or a location which are to be brought to the attention of the subscriber application, and providing to the subscriber application information as to a change in condition of either an entity or a location if such change of the entity or location meets said criteria.
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Specification