Method of determining position in a hybrid positioning system using a dilution of precision metric

• US 8,279,114 B2
• Filed: 10/02/2009
• Issued: 10/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Skyhook Wireless Incorporated (Liberty Broadband Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Skyhook Wireless Incorporated (Liberty Broadband Corp.)
• Inventors: Alizadeh-Shabdiz, Farshid, Heidari, Mohammad A.
• Primary Examiner(s): LIU, HARRY K
• Application Number:
  US12/572,524
• Publication Number:
  US 20110080317A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,096 Days
• Field of Search: 342/357.31, 342/357.29
• US Class Current: 342/357.31
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/40 Correcting position, velocity or attitude
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/46 the supplementary measurement being of a radio-wave signal type

Abstract

The disclosed subject matter relates to a method for determining the position of a device in a hybrid positioning system. The method includes determining an initial position estimate of a device using a non-satellite positioning system, obtaining satellite measurements from less than four satellites, wherein the measurements include each satellite'"'"'s position with respect to the initial position estimate, determining a dilution of precision (DOP) based on the satellite measurements, if the DOP is small, refining the initial position estimate using the satellite measurements, and if the DOP is large, providing the initial estimate as a final position estimate for the device. In some embodiments, the non-satellite positioning system is a WLAN positioning system. In some embodiments, the method includes obtaining satellite measurements from two satellites or three satellites.

Claims

1. A method for determining position of a device in a hybrid positioning system, the method comprising:

determining an initial position estimate of a device using a non-satellite positioning system;

obtaining satellite measurements from three satellites, wherein the measurements include each satellite'"'"'s position with respect to the initial position estimate;

determining a dilution of precision (DOP) based on the satellite measurements;

if the DOP is small, refining the initial position estimate using the satellite measurements; and

if the DOP is large, providing the initial estimate as a final position estimate for the device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-satellite positioning system is a WLAN positioning system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the DOP is related to the angle between two of the three satellites with respect to the initial position estimate.

4. The method of claim 1 comprising:

grouping the three satellites into three groups of two satellites;

determining an angle between each of the two satellites with respect to the initial position determination for each group; and

selecting two or more satellites from the group of three satellites based on the angles measured, wherein satellites having large angles between them are selected and satellites having small angles in between them are not selected.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the DOP is related to an aggregate of the angles between each pair of three satellites with respect to the initial position estimate.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a large DOP corresponds to satellites that display poor geometry in reference to the location of the device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein a large value of DOP comprises 3.0.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a small DOP corresponds to satellites that display good geometry in reference to the location of the device.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein a small value of DOP comprises a value between about 1.4 to about 2.5.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial position estimate is refined when the DOP is smaller than 1.65.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the hybrid positioning system constructs a satellite vector corresponding to a vector from the initial position to each satellite.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the DOP of a set of two satellites is determined using the dot product of the satellite position vectors for each satellite.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein a small value of DOP comprises a value between 0 and 0.85.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein a large value of DOP comprises a value greater than or equal to 0.86.

15. A method for determining position of a device in a hybrid positioning system, the method comprising:

determining an initial position estimate of a device using a non-satellite positioning system;

obtaining satellite measurements from three satellites, wherein the measurements include each satellite'"'"'s position with respect to the initial position estimate;

grouping the three satellites into three groups of two satellites;

determining an angle between each of the two satellites with respect to the initial position determination for each group; and

selecting two or more satellites from the group of three satellites based on the angles measured, wherein satellites having large angles between them are selected and satellites having small angles in between them are not selected.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the DOP is related to an aggregate of the angles between each pair of three satellites with respect to the initial position estimate.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the hybrid positioning system constructs a satellite vector corresponding to the vector from the initial position to each satellite.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the angle between each of the two satellites with respect to the initial position determination is the DOP for each group.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the non-satellite positioning system is a WLAN positioning system.

20. A method for determining position of a device in a hybrid positioning system, the method comprising:

determining an initial position estimate of a device using a non-satellite positioning system;

obtaining satellite measurements from three satellites, wherein the measurements include each satellite'"'"'s position with respect to the initial position estimate;

grouping the three satellites into three groups of two satellites;

determining an angle between each of the two satellites with respect to the initial position determination for each group, wherein the angle is the DOP for each group;

determining three intermediate positions for the device using each group of two satellites;

weighting the three intermediate positions for the device using the DOP for each group of two satellites; and

determining a final position of the device by averaging the weighted intermediated positions.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the non-satellite positioning system is a WLAN positioning system.