System and method for geographically locating a cellular phone
First Claim
1. A method of monitoring vehicle traffic flow by determining successive locations of a plurality of cellular phones located in a plurality of vehicles, the method comprising:
- repeatedly determining the location of at least some of the plurality of cellular phones; and
sampling the locations of the at least some of the cellular phones to determine a present picture of vehicle traffic flow;
wherein determining the location of a cellular phone of the plurality comprises determining the area in which handover from a first cell to a second cell occurs, the determination of the area in which handover occurs being based on;
modeling at least a portion of a cell reception area of said first cell and said second cell; and
defining the area in which handover occurs to comprise overlapping portions of said first and second cell areas.
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Abstract
According to an embodiment of the invention, there is disclosed a method for geographically locating a cellular phone. The method comprises: determining an effective cell-area for each of a first cell and a second cell in a cellular network; and determining a handover area within which the cellular phone is likely to be located when control of the cellular phone is transferred from the first cell to the second cell; wherein the determination of the handover area and the effective cell-area for each of the first cell and the second cell are made based on a topological relationship between the first cell and the second cell. Further related apparatus embodiments are also disclosed.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A method of monitoring vehicle traffic flow by determining successive locations of a plurality of cellular phones located in a plurality of vehicles, the method comprising:
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repeatedly determining the location of at least some of the plurality of cellular phones; and sampling the locations of the at least some of the cellular phones to determine a present picture of vehicle traffic flow; wherein determining the location of a cellular phone of the plurality comprises determining the area in which handover from a first cell to a second cell occurs, the determination of the area in which handover occurs being based on; modeling at least a portion of a cell reception area of said first cell and said second cell; and defining the area in which handover occurs to comprise overlapping portions of said first and second cell areas. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. An apparatus for monitoring vehicle traffic flow by determining successive locations of a plurality of cellular phones located in a plurality of vehicles, the apparatus comprising:
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a handover area module for defining a handover area comprising overlapping portions of a modeled cell reception area of at least a portion of each of a first cell and a second cell of a cellular network; and a sampler module for sampling a set of repeated location determinations of at least some of the plurality of cellular phones, to determine a present picture of vehicle traffic flow, wherein each such location determination is based at least in part on the handover area defined by the handover area module for a given cellular phone moving between a given first cell and second cell of the cellular network. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification