System for automatically determining cell transmitter parameters to facilitate the location of wireless devices
First Claim
1. A system for automatically determining cell transmitter parameters to facilitate the location of wireless devices, comprising:
- a location processing node;
a first wireless device, wherein said first wireless device is configured to communicate with said location processing node via a communications link, and to make scanning measurements of signals from one or more geographically distributed transmitters, wherein said first wireless device is further configured to assist the location processing node in determining key transmitter information by receiving and measuring characteristics of said signals and providing information about said characteristics via the communications link to said location processing node; and
a server configured to communicate with a second wireless device, and to cause said second wireless device to make signal measurements of signals from one or more transmitters and to provide measurement information to said location processing node;
wherein said characteristics measured by said first wireless device are useful, in combination with characteristics measured by other wireless devices, to determine the key transmitter information; and
wherein said key transmitter information includes cell identification information, cell transmitter location information, and cell transmitter signal timing information.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Several techniques for locating wireless devices involve the Mobile Stations (MS) making measurements of the signals transmitted by geographically distributed base stations within a wireless network. If some key site information is known about these transmitters, such as the transmitter location, transmit signal power, signal propagation, and transmit signal timing, measurements of these transmit signals by a MS can be used to determine the position of the MS. An automatic method to detect transmitters, identify key transmitter information, and utilize the base station transmit signals to perform location is presented. In addition, this method facilitates the use of cell site transmit signals that are part of multiple wireless networks.
-
Citations
18 Claims
-
1. A system for automatically determining cell transmitter parameters to facilitate the location of wireless devices, comprising:
-
a location processing node; a first wireless device, wherein said first wireless device is configured to communicate with said location processing node via a communications link, and to make scanning measurements of signals from one or more geographically distributed transmitters, wherein said first wireless device is further configured to assist the location processing node in determining key transmitter information by receiving and measuring characteristics of said signals and providing information about said characteristics via the communications link to said location processing node; and a server configured to communicate with a second wireless device, and to cause said second wireless device to make signal measurements of signals from one or more transmitters and to provide measurement information to said location processing node; wherein said characteristics measured by said first wireless device are useful, in combination with characteristics measured by other wireless devices, to determine the key transmitter information; and wherein said key transmitter information includes cell identification information, cell transmitter location information, and cell transmitter signal timing information. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A method for locating a mobile wireless device, comprising:
-
instructing a first wireless device to communicate with a location processing node via a communications link, and to make scanning measurements of signals from one or more geographically distributed transmitters, and further instructing said first wireless device to assist the location processing node in determining key transmitter information by receiving and measuring characteristics of said signals and providing information about said characteristics via the communications link to said location processing node, wherein said characteristics are useful to determine the key transmitter information; instructing a second wireless device to make signal measurements of signals from one or more transmitters and to provide measurement information to said location processing node; and at the location processing node, using said key transmitter information and said measurement information to determine the geographic location of said wireless device to be located; wherein said key transmitter information includes cell identification information, cell transmitter position information, and cell transmitter signal timing information; and wherein the method further comprises periodically checking for new cell identification information and determining the coordinates for cell transmitters associated with new cell identification information. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A system for automatically determining cell transmitter parameters to facilitate the location of wireless devices, comprising:
-
a location processing node; a first wireless device, wherein said first wireless device is configured to communicate with said location processing node via a communications link, and to make scanning measurements of signals from one or more geographically distributed transmitters, wherein said first wireless device is further configured to assist the location processing node in determining key transmitter information by receiving and measuring characteristics of said signals and providing information about said characteristics via the communications link to said location processing node; and a server configured to communicate with a second wireless device to be located, and to cause said second wireless device to make signal measurements of signals from one or more transmitters and to provide measurement information to said location processing node; wherein said characteristics measured by said first wireless device are useful, in combination with characteristics measured by other wireless devices, to determine the key transmitter information; and wherein said location processing node is programmed to; compute an error function based on known and unknown information, and to solve for the unknown information by minimizing the error function; compute the error of each of the measurements as a function of the unknown information; and compute the square error of each of the measurements based on the unknown information, and to weight the square error of each of the measurements based on the quality of the measurement, and to sum the weighted errors to create an error value which is a function of the unknown data, and to solve for the unknown data by minimizing the error function. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
-
Specification