Method and apparatus to utilize location data to enhance safety

• US 9,374,659 B1
• Filed: 09/13/2011
• Issued: 06/21/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DP Technologies, Inc.
• Sponsoring Entity: DP Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Kahn, Philippe, Kinsolving, Arthur
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaheed, Khalid
• Assistant Examiner(s): Donado, Frank
• Time in USPTO: 1743 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/26 : involving a sensor measurement for aiding acquisition or tracking
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 : Services making use of location information

Abstract

A method comprising tracking signal quality received by a mobile device, and flagging a location when a change in signal quality is detected.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

tracking a plurality of signal qualities received by a mobile device;

identifying a drop in the signal quality by comparing a current signal quality to an immediately prior signal quality, where the immediately prior signal quality was above a threshold associated with a good signal quality;

the mobile device placing a flag at a location of a last known good signal in response to the drop in the signal quality, the flag indicating a last known good signal location detected by the mobile device, the last known good signal location being the location where the mobile device received the immediately prior signal quality;

turning on a reverse direction logic and continuously generating reverse directions to the flag indicating the last known good signal location to enable the generation of the reverse directions when signal data for location determination is unavailable, the reverse directions generated based on an available one or more of;

global positioning data obtained from a global positioning system (GPS) and network triangulation data obtained from a cellular network connection;

adding the flag to a global database and making the global database of flag data obtained from a plurality of mobile devices available, the global database useful to determine a coverage of each of the plurality of signals, the flag data not obtainable from the GPS data;

pre-populating an area with predicted flags, based on information in the global database, the prepopulating enabling the user to obtain directions to a predicted flag,

the flag data obtained from a wireless network when the wireless network is available and from the cellular network connection when the wireless network connection is not available;

monitoring the signal quality, and, when the signal quality is above a threshold, removing the flag and turning off the generating of the reverse directions.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

upon request, providing the directions to the location associated with the last known good quality of the signal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal associated with the drop in signal quality is one of:

a wireless signal and a cellular network signal.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein information in the global database associated with a location data of a flag additionally includes one or more of:

receiving device, cellular carrier, chip set, time and day, and proximate

location of the device and the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the continuously generating directions to the flag comprises:

flagging a position of a track; and

maintaining directions to the flagged position when one or more signals used for directions becomes unavailable using one or more of GPS data, motion detector data, and network triangulation data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after a flag is placed, continuously calculating directions from a current location to the flag until the current location is determined to have a signal quality above a threshold.

7. A mobile system comprising:

a signal quality evaluator to periodically evaluate a quality of a signal by comparing a current signal quality to a last in time signal quality and comparing the signal quality to a threshold, where the last in time signal quality was above a threshold associated with a good signal quality;

a flagger to flag a last in time location where the signal quality was evaluated as being above the threshold, in response to the signal quality evaluator indicating that the quality of the signal is below the threshold;

a reverse direction logic to turn on and continuously calculate reverse directions to the flag of

the last in time location where the signal quality was evaluated as being above the threshold, the reverse direction logic to utilize motion sensor data when location signal data is not available, the reverse directions calculated based on an available one or more of;

global positioning data obtained from a global positioning system (GPS) and network triangulation data obtained from a cellular network connection;

the flagger to;

add the flag to a global database and make the global database of flag data obtained from a plurality of mobile devices available, the global database useful to determine a coverage of each of the plurality of signals, the flag data not obtainable from the GPS data;

pre-populate an area with predicted flags, based on information in the global database, the prepopulating enabling the user to obtain directions to a predicted flag, the flag data obtained from a wireless network when the wireless network is available and from the cellular network connection when the wireless network connection is not available;

the flagger to remove the flag, and

after further monitoring of the signal quality, the reverse direction logic to turn off the calculation of

the reverse directions, when the signal quality evaluator determines that a current signal quality

is above the threshold.

8. The mobile system of claim 7, further comprising:

reverse direction logic to utilize a combination of network triangulation data, global positioning data, and step data, to calculate the directions to the flagged location such that the directions are provided even when one or more of the signals becomes unavailable.

9. The mobile system of claim 7, further comprising:

a flag uploader to send flag data to a database on a server, the database useful to determine a coverage of each of the plurality of signals.

10. The mobile system of claim 9, wherein information in the database associated with a location data of a flag additionally includes one or more of:

receiving device, cellular carrier, chip set, time and day, and proximate location of the device and the user.

11. The mobile system of claim 9, further comprising:

a flag downloader to enable a user to obtain flag data from the database, to pre-populate an area with the predicted flags based on information in the global database, the

flag downloader utilizing the wireless network for downloading the flag data when the wireless network is available, and otherwise utilizing the cellular network.

12. The mobile system of claim 8, further comprising:

the reverse direction logic, when the flag has been placed, continuously calculating directions to the flagged position, using one or more of GPS data, motion detector data, and network triangulation data.

13. The mobile system of claim 12, further comprising:

the flagger to remove the flag, and turn off the reverse direction logic when a current location is determined to have a signal quality above a threshold.