Calibration of WLAN access points for location services

• US 9,781,564 B2
• Filed: 12/31/2015
• Issued: 10/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ilyadis, Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Ajayi, Joel
• Application Number:
  US14/985,982
• Publication Number:
  US 20170150313A1
• Time in Patent Office: 642 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561, 4554565
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds

Abstract

Wireless access points within a GPS-Unavailable environment can provide location services to user equipment devices within the environment provided that the access points are aware of their precise locations. In order to calibrate the locations of the wireless access points, a user equipment is moved to specific locations within the environment. At each of those locations, the user equipment transmits calibration signals that include the transmission location as well as a timestamp of the transmission time. Upon receipt by the access points, these signals are timestamped with a reception timestamp by a clock that is synchronized with the clock of the user equipment. After accumulating sufficient calibration information from a sufficient number of calibration locations, the access points can accurately determine their locations using trigonometric and other functions.

Claims

1. A wireless communication device, comprising:

a clock configured to track a current time;

a memory that stores a calibration location;

a processor configured to, in response to an input, generate a calibration signal that includes the calibration location and the current time;

an input-output (I/O) module configured to generate a message to cause the wireless communication device to be moved to the calibration location, and to receive the input to generate the calibration signal; and

a radio configured to transmit the calibration signal to a wireless communication environment,

wherein the calibration location is a location of the wireless communication device at a time of transmitting the calibration signal,

wherein the memory stores a plurality of calibration locations, and

wherein the processor is further configured to, after transmitting the calibration signal, cause the I/O module to generate a message to cause the wireless communication device to be moved to a second calibration location of the plurality of calibration locations.

2. The wireless communication device of claim 1, wherein the clock is synchronized with a plurality of access points located in the wireless communication environment.

3. The wireless communication device of claim 2, wherein the calibration signal is generated by selecting one of the calibration locations from the memory.

4. The wireless communication device of claim 1, further comprising a global positioning system (GPS) module configured to determine a current location of the wireless communication device in response to determining that GPS signals are available.

5. The wireless communication device of claim 4, wherein the processor is further configured to, in response to receiving the input, compare the current location with the calibration location, determine whether the current location is within a predetet mined distance of the calibration location, and transmit the calibration signal based on the determination.

15. The wireless communication device of claim 1, further comprising a global positioning system (GPS) receiver configured to receive a GPS location,

wherein the memory is preloaded with the plurality of calibration locations, and

wherein the processor is further configured to track the GPS location received from the GPS receiver, determine that the GPS location matches one of the plurality of calibration locations, and generate the calibration signal in response to the determination.

6. A wireless communication device, comprising:

a memory;

a radio configured to receive a calibration signal from an external wireless communication device, the calibration signal including calibration information that includes at least a transmission location and a transmission time associated with transmission of the calibration signal;

a clock configured to track a current time; and

a processor configured to acquire a timestamp from the clock upon receipt of the calibration signal corresponding to a time of receipt of the calibration signal, extract the calibration information from the calibration signal, and store the extracted calibration information and the timestamp together in the memory,

wherein the processor is further configured to calculate a location of the wireless communication device based on the extracted calibration information and the corresponding timestamp,

wherein the extracted calibration information and the corresponding timestamp constitute a calibration dataset,

wherein the processor is further configured to determine whether a predetermined number of calibration datasets have been accumulated in the memory, and

wherein the processor is further configured to calculate the location only in response to determining that the predetermined number of calibration datasets have been accumulated in the memory.

7. The wireless communication device of claim 6, further comprising a backhaul interface,

wherein the processor is configured to transmit the extracted calibration information and the corresponding timestamp to a server via the backhaul interface.

8. The wireless communication device of claim 7, wherein the wireless communication device is configured to receive its location from the server via the backhaul interface in response to transmitting the extracted calibration information and the corresponding timestamp.

9. A method of calibrating a location of an access point, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of calibration signals from a plurality of corresponding calibration locations, each calibration signal including a transmission timestamp and a location identifier corresponding to the calibration location of the calibration signal, the calibration location being a location from which the calibration signal is transmitted;

timestamping each of the received plurality of calibration signals upon receipt with a reception timestamp;

determining that a number of the received plurality of calibration signals exceeds a predetermined threshold; and

calculating the location of the access point based on the received plurality of calibration signals and the corresponding timestamps.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the calculating includes:

calculating a time difference of arrival for each of the received plurality of calibration signals; and

determining a distance circle associated with each of the calibration locations based on the time difference of arrivals.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the calculating the time difference of arrival includes calculating a difference between the reception timestamp and the transmission timestamp.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the calculating of the location further includes determining an area of overlap of the distance circles;

and

calculating a central location of the area of overlap as the location of the access point.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the calculating of the location further includes determining an area of non-overlap of the distance circles, the area of non-overlap being an area between the distance circles bound by points on the distance circles of closest proximity to nearby distance circles;

and

calculating a central location of the area of non-overlap as the location of the access point.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the received plurality of calibration signals includes three calibration signals corresponding to three different calibration locations.