Concept for localizing a position on a path

• US 8,174,447 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Issued: 05/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forsching E.V.
• Original Assignee: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forsching E.V.
• Inventors: Loidl, Karin, Meyer, Steffen, Hupp, Juergen
• Primary Examiner(s): Tarcza, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Galt, Cassie
• Application Number:
  US12/441,984
• Publication Number:
  US 20100097269A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,708 Days
• Field of Search: 342/451, 342/457, 701/207, 701/300, 701/302
• US Class Current: 342/451
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/206 specially adapted for indoor navigation
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0252 Radio frequency fingerprinting

Abstract

An apparatus for localizing a position on a path, radio signals of fixedly positioned radio transmitters being receivable along the path, the apparatus including a determiner for determining properties of the radio signals of the fixedly positioned radio transmitters at the position, and a comparator for comparing the determined electromagnetic properties with previously recorded properties which characterize a reference path, and for determining a relation between the position and the reference path on the basis of a result of the comparison.

Claims

1. An apparatus for localizing a current position of a terminal device or for navigating the terminal device on a guidance path, radio signals of fixedly positioned radio transmitters being receivable along the path, the apparatus comprising:

a comparator arranged to compare previously recorded electromagnetic properties of the radio signals of the fixedly positioned radio transmitters, which unambiguously identify a measurement point, so as to examine several reference paths to search for an intersection point on the basis of common features of the previously recorded electromagnetic properties, wherein the intersection point characterizes an identical geographic position in different reference paths, and to interconnect the reference paths to form a graph, the intersection point and the current position of the terminal device being regarded as nodes, and portions of paths between the intersection point and the current position of the terminal device being regarded as edges of the graph, and a reference path being distinguished by a temporal succession of the previously recorded electromagnetic properties;

a guidance path determiner arranged to determine the guidance path from the current position to the intersection point, the guidance path determiner being configured to determine the guidance path by use of a routing algorithm on the basis of the graph, the guidance path having associated previously recorded electromagnetic properties; and

a properties determiner arranged to determine current properties of the radio signals of the fixedly positioned radio transmitters at the current position of the terminal device, the current properties of the radio signals comprising electromagnetic properties of the radio signals of the fixedly positioned radio transmitters;

wherein

the comparator is configured to compare the current electromagnetic properties of the radio signals with the previously recorded electromagnetic properties of the radio signals associated with the guidance path, and to determine a relation between the current position of the terminal device and the guidance path on the basis of a result of the comparison.

2. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the properties determiner is configured to determine a received field strength, a received power spectrum, and/or a signal/noise power ratio of the radio signals at the current position of the terminal device.

3. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the properties determiner is configured to determine, from the properties determined, a transmitter identification identifying a fixedly positioned radio transmitter.

4. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, configured to learn about the current transmitting power of a fixedly positioned radio transmitter.

5. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the apparatus further comprises a processor arranged to process the determined electromagnetic properties of the radio signals.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processor is configured to associate a predetermined electromagnetic signal property with a radio signal of a stationary radio transmitter if no electromagnetic signal property of the radio transmitter may be determined, so as to acquire an identical number of determined electromagnetic properties per time interval Δ

T for a plurality of radio transmitters at the position, respectively.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processor is configured to set RSSI_k(i+1)=RSSI_k(i) if RSSI_k(i+1)<

(RSSI_k(i)−

Δ

RSSI_k), wherein RSSI_k(i+1)=RSSI_k(i) may only repeat itself twice for two successive measurement values, and wherein RSSI_k(i) is a measure of an electromagnetic field strength, determined at the current position of the terminal device at the i^th measurement value, of a radio signal of a k^th stationary radio transmitter, and wherein Δ

RSSI_k is a redetermined value.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processor comprises a low-pass filter to be able to determine an average waveform of the electromagnetic properties of the radio signals of the stationary radio transmitters.

9. The apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein the processor further comprises an interpolator arranged to interpolate the average waveform, the interpolator being configured to interpolate the average waveform when:

a maximum between second and third zero crossings of a derivation of the waveform in relation to time is larger than a value X₁ and when a minimum between a first and the second zero crossings of the derivation of the waveform is smaller than a value X₂, or

when the maximum between the second and third zero crossings of the derivation of the waveform is larger than a value X₃, and when the minimum between the first and second zero crossings of the derivation of the waveform is smaller than a value X₄.

10. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the comparator is configured to associate, with a sought-for measurement package of field strengths which corresponds to the current position of the terminal device on the path, N stationary radio transmitters which at the position comprise the highest N field strengths, and to place the N stationary radio transmitters comprising the highest N field strengths at the position into an order in accordance with the field strengths, and to then compare the sought-for measurement package with a measurement package, which was previously determined accordingly, of one of the reference paths.

11. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the comparator identifies, via a first comparison stage, a similarity between the sought-for measurement package and the reference measurement package precisely when at least the N radio transmitters of the sought-for measurement package are comprised within the reference measurement package, and when the strongest radio transmitter from the sought-for measurement package is among the two strongest radio transmitters of the reference measurement package, and when the N^th strongest radio transmitter of the sought-for measurement package is not among the two strongest radio transmitters from the reference measurement package, and when the second strongest radio transmitter from the sought-for measurement package is among the N−

1 strongest radio transmitters from the reference measurement package, wherein with a similarity found the respective reference measurement package is used to determine a result quantity of the first comparison stage.

12. The apparatus as claimed in claim 11, wherein the comparator further comprises a second comparison stage configured to determine, with the result quantity of the first comparison stage, a standard deviation between the result quantity of the first comparison stage and the sought-for measurement package in accordance with

13. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the comparator is configured to check the previously recorded electromagnetic properties characterizing one of the reference paths for a loop and/or a standstill within the reference path, and to remove these electromagnetic properties which correspond to the loop and/or the standstill, if need be.

14. A method of localizing a current position of a terminal device or for navigating the terminal device on a guidance path, radio signals of fixedly positioned radio transmitters being receivable along the path, the method comprising:

comparing previously recorded electromagnetic properties of the radio signals, which unambiguously identify a measurement point, of several reference paths so as to search, on the basis of common features of the previously recorded electromagnetic properties, for an intersection point, wherein an intersection point characterizes an identical geographic position in different reference paths, a reference path being distinguished by a temporal succession of previously recorded electromagnetic properties of the radio signals;

interconnecting the reference paths to form a graph, an intersection point and a current position of the terminal device being regarded as nodes, and portions of paths between the intersection point and the current position of the terminal device being regarded as edges of the graph;

determining the guidance path from the current position to the intersection point by use of a routing algorithm on the basis of the graph, the guidance path having associated previously recorded electromagnetic properties; and

receiving the radio signals at the current position of the terminal device on the guidance path;

determining current properties of the radio signals at the current position of the terminal device on the guidance path, the current properties comprising electromagnetic properties of the radio signals; and

comparing the current electromagnetic properties with the previously recorded electromagnetic properties associated with the guidance path; and

determining a relation between the current position of the terminal device and the guidance path on the basis of a result of the comparison.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program comprising program code for performing when the computer program runs on a computer, the method of claim 14.