Augmentation of commercial wireless location system (WLS) with moving and/or airborne sensors for enhanced location accuracy and use of real-time overhead imagery for identification of wireless device locations

• US 7,427,952 B2
• Filed: 04/06/2006
• Issued: 09/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Skyhook Holding, Inc. (Liberty Broadband Corp.)
• Original Assignee: TruePosition Incorporated
• Inventors: Anderson, Robert J., Ward, Matthew L., Bull, Jeffrey F., Ginter, Thomas Stephan
• Primary Examiner(s): Issing; Gregory C
• Application Number:
  US11/398,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20060262011A1
• Time in Patent Office: 901 Days
• Field of Search: 342/387, 342/465, 342/453
• US Class Current: 342/387
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 11/00 Photogrammetry or videogrammetry, e.g. stereogrammetry; Photographic surveying
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0226 Transmitters
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/06 Position of source determined by co-ordinating a plurality of position lines defined by path-difference measurements G01S5/12 takes precedence

Abstract

Mobile LMUs can be used in a Wireless Location System to provide detection coverage in areas lacking adequate receiver coverage. The mobile LMUs can be used to detect the radio frequency (RF) transmissions from wireless handsets and devices over a period of time to permit determination of their location. The mobile LMU'"'"'s time, position, and velocity is calculated and transmitted to a SMLC along with any transmissions received from wireless devices. The SMLC analyzes and resolves the Doppler component of the wireless device while compensating for the Doppler component of the mobile LMU. The position and velocity of the wireless device can be compared with real-time imagery taken by the mobile LMU platform to accurately determine the location of the wireless device. To enhance the mobile LMU'"'"'s ability to detect a signal of interest, which may be very weak and/or corrupted by noise, a process may be employed whereby the low power mobile terminals'"'"' signals are received at receiving sites and stored in memory. Then, a more powerful replica of the SOI is received at a later time from a network controller, or BTS, and this is employed to enhance the correlation processing of the SOI in memory.

Claims

1. A mobile LMU-enhanced wireless location system (WLS), comprising:

a WLS comprising a plurality of stationary location measuring units (LMUs) overlaid on a commercial wireless communications system such that said plurality of LMUs are collocated with respective base transceiver stations (BTSs) of said wireless communications system; and

a mobile platform supporting a mobile LMU and a Global Positioning System (GPS) module, wherein the GPS module is configured to provide a time and frequency reference as well as data representing the position and velocity of the mobile LMU, and wherein said mobile LMU includes a downlink receiver configured to receive a downlink signal from a base transceiver station and for deriving a replica signal from said downlink signal, said replica signal representing a replica of a transmission received at said base transceiver station, and wherein said mobile LMU further includes a receiver configured to receive uplink radio frequency (RF) transmissions from a wireless device and memory for storing data samples of received transmissions, wherein said mobile platform further supports a correlation processor configured to correlate stored data representing a received transmission with a replica of said received transmission received via said downlink signal.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said mobile platform comprises an aircraft.

3. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said mobile platform comprises a ground-based vehicle.

4. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the mobile platform further comprises antennae and receivers configured to receive downlink transmissions from a base station, uplink transmissions from a mobile station, and GPS signals.

5. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the mobile platform further comprises a wireless communications link configured to receive command and control signals from a ground station and to provide said command and control signals to the mobile LMU.

6. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said mobile platform comprises an aircraft;

wherein said mobile LMU comprises a receiver configured to receive radio frequency (RF) transmissions from a wireless device, and memory for storing data samples of transmissions received by said receiver;

further comprising a processor for correlating stored data representing a transmission received by said receiver with a replica;

further comprising means for receiving a downlink signal from a base transceiver station and for deriving said replica from said downlink signal;

further comprising at least one stationary LMU at a known location, wherein the at least one stationary LMU and the mobile LMU are configured to be time and frequency synchronized with one another;

wherein said at least one stationary LMU is collocated with cell site equipment to permit sharing of resources including an antenna, environmentally controlled enclosure space, power, and backhaul communications resources;

wherein the mobile LMU and the stationary LMU are configured to receive radio frequency (RF) transmissions from wireless devices over a period of time to permit determination of their location and velocity via time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) and frequency-difference-of-arrival (FDOA) processing;

wherein, for the determination of the wireless devices'"'"' location and velocity via TDOA and FDOA processing, the system is configured such that a plurality of LMUs receive a signal from the wireless device over a period of time and that the location and velocity of each LMU is known during the time that the signal is being received;

wherein the mobile platform comprises antennae and receivers configured to receive downlink transmissions from a base station, uplink transmissions from a mobile station, and GPS signals;

wherein the mobile platform further comprises a wireless communications link configured to receive command and control signals from a ground station and to provide said command and control signals to the mobile LMU;

wherein the at least one mobile platform comprises an imaging device configured to provide imagery of the geographic area in which a wireless device to be located is deployed; and

further comprising means for associating the location of the wireless device provided by the WLS with the imagery.

7. A system as recited in claim 1, comprising means for receiving a downlink signal from a network controller and for deriving said replica from said downlink signal.

8. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising at least one stationary LMU at a known location, wherein the at least one stationary LMU and the mobile LMU are configured to be time and frequency synchronized with one another.

9. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein said at least one stationary LMU is collocated with cell site equipment to permit sharing of resources including an antenna, environmentally controlled enclosure space, power, and backhaul communications resources.

10. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein the mobile LMU and the stationary LMU are configured to receive radio frequency (RF) transmissions from wireless devices over a period of time to permit determination of their location and velocity via time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) and frequency-difference-of-arrival (FDOA) processing.

11. A system as recited in claim 10, wherein, for the determination of the wireless devices'"'"' location and velocity via TDOA and FDOA processing, the system is configured such that a plurality of LMUs receive a signal from the wireless device over a period of time and that the location and velocity of each LMU is known during the time that the signal is being received.

12. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one mobile platform comprises an imaging device configured to provide imagery of the geographic area in which a wireless device to be located is deployed.

13. A system as recited in claim 12, further comprising means for associating the location of the wireless device provided by the WLS with the imagery, whereby additional information about the location of the wireless device is provided.

14. A system as recited in claim 12, wherein the imaging device is capable of infrared imaging.

15. A method for locating a mobile station (MS) operating within a region covered by a wireless location system (WLS), comprising:

receiving a transmission from the MS at at least three geographically separated signal collection sites, including at least one mobile location measurement unit (LMU);

transmitting a downlink signal from at least one signal collection site or network controller, said downlink signal including data permitting said mobile LMU, after receiving said downlink signal, to derive a replica of said transmission from the MS as received at a signal collection site;

at said mobile LMU, performing correlation processing on said replica and the transmission from the MS as received at the mobile LMU to determine one of time of arrival (TOA) and time difference of arrival (TDOA) data at said mobile LMU; and

using the TOA or TDOA data determined at the mobile LMU to estimate a location of the MS.

16. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising providing images of the area surrounding the location of the MS for comparison with the estimated location of the MS.

17. A method as recited in claim 16, wherein the images are recorded and saved.

18. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising providing a time and frequency reference as well as a three dimensional position and velocity of the mobile LMU through the use of a GPS module mounted on the mobile platform.

19. A method as recited in claim 18, further comprising compensating for the three dimensional position and velocity of the mobile LMU when estimating the location of the MS using time difference of arrival (TDOA).

20. A method as recited in claim 15, further comprising digitizing and storing the MS transmission as received by the mobile LMU, and then correlating the stored transmission with a replica of the MS transmission.

21. A method as recited in claim 20, further comprising deriving said replica from a downlink transmission from a base transceiver station.

22. A method as recited in claim 20, further comprising deriving said replica from a downlink transmission from a network controller.

23. A mobile system for use in a wireless location system (WLS), comprising:

a location measuring unit (LMU) borne by a mobile platform, said LMU comprising a receiver configured to receive radio frequency (RF) transmissions and memory for storing data samples of received transmissions;

a GPS module borne by said mobile platform and operatively coupled to said mobile LMU, wherein said GPS module determines the three dimensional position and velocity of the mobile LMU, as well as a frequency reference and precise time; and

a downlink receiver configured to receive a downlink signal from at least one BTS or network controller, said downlink signal including data permitting said LMU to derive a replica of a transmission from mobile station (MS) as received at a signal collection site remote from said mobile system, and a processor configured to correlate stored data representing a received transmission with a replica of said received transmission.

24. A mobile system as recited in claim 23, wherein the mobile platform comprises an aircraft.

25. A mobile system as recited in claim 23, wherein the mobile LMU is configured to receive radio frequency (RF) transmissions from wireless devices.

26. A mobile system as recited in claim 25, wherein said mobile platform comprises antennae configured to receive downlink transmissions from a base transceiver station, uplink transmissions from a mobile station, and GPS signals.

27. A mobile system as recited in claim 26, wherein the mobile platform further comprises a wireless communications link configured to provide command and control signals to the mobile LMU.

28. A mobile system as recited in claim 23, wherein the mobile platform further comprises an imaging device.

29. A mobile system as recited in claim 28, further comprising means for associating the location of the wireless device with imagery obtained by said imaging device.

30. A mobile system as recited in claim 28, wherein the imaging device is configured to provide infrared imagery.