Techniques for establishing and using associations between location profiles and beacon profiles

• US 9,936,348 B2
• Filed: 07/26/2016
• Issued: 04/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Skyhook Wireless Incorporated (Liberty Broadband Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Skyhook Wireless Incorporated (Liberty Broadband Corp.)
• Inventors: Alizadeh-Shabdiz, Farshid, Jones, Russel K., Sutton, Richard J., Velez, Javier, Mudannayake, Pathum, Ramamurthy, Arun
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Cong
• Application Number:
  US15/220,156
• Publication Number:
  US 20170318418A1
• Time in Patent Office: 616 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561, 4554565, 4554566, 455 412
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

In one embodiment, techniques are provided to establish and use semantic associations between location profiles and ambient profiles. One or more location profiles are selected from a location database. A first plurality of ambient profiles is selected for a first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles. One or more patterns are extracted from the first plurality of ambient profiles and are used to generate associations between location profiles and ambient profiles in an association database which semantically associates location profiles with ambient profiles independent of geographic location. The associations may be used, among other things, to service requests from mobile devices and/or update ambient profiles or location profiles.

Claims

1. A method of establishing and using semantic associations between location profiles and ambient profiles by a location information management application executing on one or more computers, comprising,

selecting, by the location information management application from a location database, one or more location profiles;

selecting, by the location information management application from a reference database, a first plurality of ambient profiles, the ambient profiles including beacon profiles for beacons that are located within a first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles or sensor profiles for sensor readings captured by sensors of mobile devices within the first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles;

selecting, by the location information management application from the reference database, a second plurality of the ambient profiles that operate as a control group;

extracting one or more potential patterns from the first plurality of ambient profiles;

extracting one or more generic patterns from the second plurality of ambient profiles;

removing from the potential patterns any of the one or more generic patterns to produce one or more remaining patterns;

generating associations between location profiles and ambient profiles in an association database based on the one or more remaining patterns, the association database semantically associating location profiles with ambient profiles independent of geographic location;

receiving a request from a mobile device; and

in response to the request, returning information from the association database to the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second plurality of ambient profiles are for a second area that excludes the first area.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the ambient profiles are beacon profiles.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the beacons include at least Wi-Fi access points (APs), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices, or cellular base stations.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more potential patterns indicate a relation between an identifier included in the beacon profiles and information in the one or more location profiles.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the ambient profiles are sensor profiles.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the sensor profiles include information describing light, magnetic field, pressure, sound, or received signal strength captured by one or more sensors of the mobile devices.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes identity information for one or more beacons whose wireless signals were observed by the mobile device or sensor readings of sensors of the mobile device, and the returned information includes a location produced using the association database.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a determined geographic location of the mobile device, and the returned information includes a tile related to the geographic location produced using the association database.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more location profiles include a venue profile and the returned information includes an indication, or is usable to produce an indication, of at least an identity of a venue.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more geographic locations of the one or more location profiles are a geographic location of a venue associated with the one or more location profiles, and the first area is defined by a radius about the geographic location of the venue.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more geographic locations of the one or more location profiles are geographic locations of venues of a venue chain, and the first area is defined by radii about the geographic locations of the venues of the venue chain.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more location profiles are a single location profile, and the returned information includes an indication, or is usable to produce an indication, that the mobile device is at a particular geographic location indicated by the single location profile.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more location profiles are a plurality of location profiles, and the returned information includes a history, or is usable to produce a history, of visited locations.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the returned information includes an indication, or is usable to produce an indication, that the mobile device is inside of a geofence associated with the one or more location profiles.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the returned information includes a street address retrieved from one or more locations profiles.

17. A method of establishing and using semantic associations between location profiles and ambient profiles by a location information management application executing on one or more computers, comprising,

selecting, by the location information management application from a location database, one or more location profiles;

selecting, by the location information management application from a reference database, a first plurality of ambient profiles, the ambient profiles including beacon profiles for beacons that are located within a first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles or sensor profiles for sensor readings captured by sensors of mobile devices within the first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles;

extracting n-grams of an initial size from the identifier included in the beacon profiles of a first plurality of the beacons;

calculating a probability of association of each n-gram with the one or more location profiles;

comparing the probability of association to a predetermined threshold, and for each n-gram whose probability exceeds the predetermined threshold, incrementing the initial size and determining if the n-gram is part of a larger n-gram that has a probability of association that exceeds the predetermined threshold;

retaining as patterns each n-gram whose probability of association exceeds the predetermined threshold that is not part of a larger n-gram that has a probability of association that exceeds the predetermined threshold;

using the patterns to generate associations between location profiles and ambient profiles in an association database which semantically associates location profiles with ambient profiles independent of geographic location;

receiving a request from a mobile device; and

in response to the request, returning information from the association database to the mobile device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the extracting one or more patterns further comprises:

comparing each n-gram with n-grams of a generic pattern database; and

dropping from the patterns any n-gram that corresponds to an n-gram of a generic pattern.

19. A method of establishing and using semantic associations between location profiles and ambient profiles by a location information management application executing on one or more computers, comprising:

selecting, by the location information management application from a location database, one or more location profiles;

selecting, by the location information management application from a reference database, a first plurality of ambient profiles, the ambient profiles including beacon profiles for beacons that are located within a first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles or sensor profiles for sensor readings captured by sensors of mobile devices within the first area surrounding one or more geographic locations of the location profiles;

selecting, by the location information management application from the reference database, a second plurality of the ambient profiles that operate as a control group;

extracting one or more potential patterns from the first plurality of ambient profiles;

extracting one or more generic patterns from the second plurality of ambient profiles;

removing from the potential patterns any of the one or more generic patterns to produce one or more remaining patterns;

generating associations between location profiles and ambient profiles in an association database based on the one or more remaining patterns, the association database semantically associating location profiles with ambient profiles independent of geographic location; and

based on the semantic associations between the location profiles and the associated ambient profiles, updating one or more ambient profiles or location profiles.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the second plurality of ambient profiles are for a second area that excludes the first area.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the ambient profiles include beacon profiles, and the beacons include at least Wi-Fi access points (APs), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices, or cellular base stations.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the ambient profiles include sensor profiles, and the sensor profiles include information describing light, magnetic field, pressure, sound, or received signal strength captured by one or more sensors of the one or more mobile devices.

23. The method of claim 19, wherein the updating comprises:

updating a geographic location maintained in one or more location profiles based upon changes to geographic location maintained in one or more associated ambient profiles.

24. The method of claim 19, wherein the updating comprises:

updating a geographic location maintained in one or more ambient profiles based on changes to geographic location maintained in one or more associated location profiles.

25. The method of claim 19, wherein the updating comprises:

correcting one or more attributes other than geographic location maintained in one or more location profiles based upon changes to one or more attributes in one or more associated ambient profiles, or correcting one or more attributes other than geographic location maintained in one or more ambient profiles based upon changes to one or more attributes in one or more associated location profiles.