Wireless terminal positioning system, method of positioning wireless terminal, environment measurement system, facility management system, method of measuring environment, and method of deciding destination of wireless mobile terminal

• US 8,717,952 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2009
• Issued: 05/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: Hibara, Naoyuki, Koizumi, Yoshiaki, Nakata, Masanori, Kushiro, Noriyuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Chriss, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Cehic, Kenan
• Application Number:
  US13/058,546
• Publication Number:
  US 20110141909A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,880 Days
• Field of Search: 370310-350, 455/421, 4554561-461, 350310-350
• US Class Current: 370/310
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0036 of measured values, i.e. measurement on mobile and position calculation on base station
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/021 Calibration, monitoring or correction G01S5/0252 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0289 of multiple transceivers, e.g. in ad hoc networks
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/14 Determining absolute distances from a plurality of spaced points of known location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

To obtain a method of positioning a wireless terminal capable of obtaining the position of each communication terminal by measuring distances with installed communication terminals each other without fixedly installing a base station.

A positioning management terminal 100 includes a positioning object decision section 130 that selects a terminal to be positioned, which is a positioning object, and a positioning standard terminal, whose position is known, among the wireless terminals 200; a positioning management section 120 that requires distance information between the terminal to be positioned and the positioning standard terminal; and a position calculation section 140 that calculates the position of the terminal to be positioned. The positioning management section 120 requires distance information from the positioning standard terminal selected by the positioning object decision section 130 to the terminal to be positioned selected by the positioning object decision section 130. The position calculation section 140 calculates the position of the terminal to be positioned using the distance information and position information of the positioning standard terminal.

Claims

1. A wireless terminal positioning system including a plurality of wireless terminals and a positioning management terminal that manages positioning of the plurality of wireless terminals, wherein

the positioning management terminal includes:

a positioning object decision section that selects a terminal to be positioned which is a positioning object and a plurality of positioning standard terminals whose positions are known, from among the plurality of wireless terminals;

a positioning management section that requests distances between the terminal to be positioned and the positioning standard terminals;

a position calculation section that calculates a target position of the terminal to be positioned; and

a storage section that keeps a wireless terminal list that includes terminal addresses of the plurality of wireless terminals and positions thereof and an adjacent terminal list of adjacent terminals to which wireless signals from each of the plurality of wireless terminals reach,

each of the plurality of wireless terminals includes;

a distance measurement section that measures the distances from adjacent terminals that wireless signals of the wireless terminal reach;

a communication section that transmits measurement results of the distance measurement section to the positioning management terminal, and

an adjacent terminal search section that searches the adjacent terminals that wireless signals reach; and

wherein

the positioning management section requests the adjacent terminal list of each of the plurality of wireless terminals,

the adjacent terminal search section searches the adjacent terminals of the relevant wireless terminal based on the request for resultant adjacent terminal list to the positioning management terminal,

the positioning object decision section selects a terminal whose position has not been defined and that has a predetermined number of the adjacent terminals or more whose positions have been defined in the corresponding adjacent terminal list as the terminal to be positioned,

the positioning management section requests distances from the positioning standard terminals selected by the positioning object decision section to the terminal to be positioned selected by the positioning object decision section, and

the position calculation section calculates the target position of the terminal to be positioned using the distances and reference positions of the positioning standard terminals.

2. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the positioning object decision section repeatedly selects the terminal to be positioned and the positioning standard terminals until the position calculation section calculates positions of all the plurality of wireless terminals, and

the positioning management section requests distances between the terminal to be positioned and the positioning standard terminals for each repetition.

3. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

when the position calculation section calculates N-dimension coordinates of the terminal to be positioned,

the positioning object decision section selects a wireless terminal having at least N+1 adjacent terminals whose positions are known, as the terminal to be positioned, and

selects the at least N+1 adjacent terminals as the positioning standard terminals.

4. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the storage section stores the positions of the plurality of wireless terminals and the distances from each wireless terminal to the adjacent terminals thereof, and

the positioning object decision section calculates a precision index value of the positions based on the positions and the distances.

5. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 4, wherein

the positioning object decision section calculates a distance between a stored position of each of wireless terminals and a stored position of a corresponding adjacent terminal of the adjacent terminals, and

obtains a measured distance from the wireless terminal to the corresponding adjacent terminal from the storage section to calculate the precision index value of positions based on a difference of the calculated distance and the measured distance.

6. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 4, wherein

the positioning object decision section selects the terminal to be positioned or the positioning standard terminals thereof so that the precision index value of the positions becomes the highest.

7. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the positioning management section requests distances between each of the plurality of wireless terminals and the corresponding adjacent terminals, and

the position calculation section calculates a relative position of the relevant wireless terminal using the distances.

8. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein,

after the position calculation section calculates positions of all the plurality of wireless terminals, the positioning management section requests distances of any one of the plurality of wireless terminals to other wireless terminals, and

the position calculation section re-calculates the positions of the plurality of wireless terminals using the requested distances.

9. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the positioning management terminal includes a second distance positioning section that measures a distance from an adjacent terminal that wireless signals of the relevant positioning management terminal reaches, and

the position calculation section calculates a position of the relevant positioning management terminal using the distance measured by the second distance measurement section and position information of the positioning standard terminal.

10. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the positioning management terminal includes a second adjacent terminal search section that searches adjacent terminals that wireless signals reach, and

the second adjacent terminal search section stores the adjacent terminal list obtained by searching to the storage section.

11. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the distance measurement section measures the distance between the plurality of wireless terminals using a radio wave propagation time of the wireless signals.

12. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 11, wherein

the communication section uses an ultra wideband signal that transmits an impulse signal for the wireless signals in use when the distance measurement section measures the distance between the plurality of wireless terminals.

13. The wireless terminal positioning system of claim 1, wherein

the communication section performs multi-hop communication.