Position estimating apparatus, position estimating method, and computer program product

• US 9,210,539 B2
• Filed: 08/24/2011
• Issued: 12/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Mitsuya, Koshiro, Shionozaki, Atsushi
• Primary Examiner(s): Khan, Suhail
• Application Number:
  US13/817,625
• Publication Number:
  US 20130143597A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,567 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/28 with correlation of data from several navigational instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/14 Determining absolute distances from a plurality of spaced points of known location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

An apparatus, method and computer program storage device cooperate to provide a quality position estimation of a mobile communication device by determining a reference area. The reference area includes the position of the mobile communication device as well as a plurality of transmitters. Transmitters that are detected as being outside of the reference area are excluded from contributing to the position estimate. The reference area is centered at a standard position, which may be a previous position or a GPS based position, for example. The range of the reference area includes a component that considers the range of a transmitter, as well as a GPS error or an estimated move distance of the mobile communication device.

Claims

1. A position estimation apparatus, comprising:

a reference area determining unit configured to determine a reference area that includes a position of a mobile communication station, and

a position estimation unit configured to estimate the position of said mobile communication station based on position information of a plurality of transmitters within said reference area,

wherein the reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

said reference area determining unit is configured to determine said reference area by adding an estimated move distance of said mobile communication station as the specified amount with the predetermined communication range of the at least one of said plurality of transmitters.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, further comprising:

a movement detector configured to estimate the estimated move distance of said mobile communication station.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein

said movement detector is an accelerometer.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a GPS-based location device configured to detect location information based on wireless satellite transmissions, wherein

said reference area determining unit is configured to determine the reference area by adding a GPS uncertainty amount as the specified amount with the predetermined communication range of the at least one of said plurality of transmitters.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a computer readable storage device configured to store a previous position estimation result for said mobile communication station in association with time, wherein

and said reference area determining unit is configured to determine said reference area by using the previous position estimation result as a standard.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein:

said reference area determining unit is configured to determine the reference area by calculating an estimated move distance of said mobile communication station.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein

said position estimation unit is configured to estimate the estimated move distance of said mobile communication station by measuring a propagation distance from the plurality of transmitters.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

said position estimation unit is configured to exclude transmitters outside of the reference area from consideration when estimating the position of said mobile communication station.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the position estimation unit is configured to estimate the position of the mobile communication station by calculation of

11. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:

a computer readable storage unit that stores transmitter reliability information regarding whether a particular transmitter has been detected as having a low reliability with at least a predetermined frequency of occurrence, wherein

said position estimation unit is configured to exclude transmitters having a stored reliability below a predetermined threshold when estimating the position of the mobile communication station.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein

said position estimation unit is configured to exclude transmitters having a received signal characteristic indicating the transmitter is outside of the reference area.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a communications interface is configured to;

receive transmitter signal information and reference area information from said mobile communication station, and

send an estimate of said position of said mobile communication station to said mobile communication station.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the position estimation apparatus includes the mobile communication station.

15. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the center point is the previous position estimation result.

16. A position estimation method comprising:

determining with a processing device a reference area including a position of a mobile communication station; and

estimating the position of the mobile communication station based on position information of a plurality of transmitters within said reference area,

wherein the reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.

17. A computer readable storage device having computer readable instructions that when executed by a processing device perform a position estimation method comprising:

determining with the processing device a reference area including a position of a mobile communication station; and

estimating the position of the mobile communication station based on position information of a plurality of transmitters within said reference area,

wherein the reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.

18. A mobile communication station comprising:

a receiver that receives transmissions from a plurality of transmitters;

a reference area determining unit that determines a reference area that includes therein a position of the mobile communication station; and

a communication interface that

sends

signal information from said transmissions of said plurality of transmitters, and

said reference area to a remote device, and

receives from said remote device an estimated position of said mobile communication station after said remote device used said signal information and said reference area to estimate said position of said mobile communication station by using transmissions from a subset including at least two of said plurality of transmitters, which are located within said reference area and excluding transmissions from a subset of said plurality of transmitters, which are located outside of said reference area,

wherein said reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.

19. A position estimation method comprising:

receiving transmissions from a plurality of transmitters;

determining with a processing device a reference area that includes therein a position of a mobile communication station;

sending signal information from said transmissions of said plurality of transmitters to a remote device;

sending said reference area to the remote device; and

receiving from said remote device an estimated position of said mobile communication station after said remote device used said signal information and said reference area to estimate said position of said mobile communication station by using transmissions from a subset including at least two of said plurality of transmitters, which are located within said reference area and excluding transmissions from a subset of said plurality of transmitters, which are located outside of said reference area,

wherein said reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.

20. A computer readable storage device having computer readable instructions that when executed by a processing device perform a position estimation method comprising:

receiving transmissions from a plurality of transmitters;

determining with a processing device a reference area that includes therein a position of a mobile communication station;

sending signal information from said transmissions of said plurality of transmitters to a remote device;

sending said reference area to the remote device; and

receiving from said remote device an estimated position of said mobile communication station after said remote device used said signal information and said reference area to estimate said position of said mobile communication station by using transmissions from a subset including at least two of said plurality of transmitters, which are located within said reference area and excluding transmission from a subset of said plurality of transmitters, which are located outside of said reference area,

wherein said reference area is defined by a radius and a center point, the radius including a predetermined communication range of at least one of said plurality of transmitters added to a specified amount.