Location monitoring feature of a mobile device for activating an application subsystem

• US 10,165,399 B2
• Filed: 03/10/2017
• Issued: 12/25/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Huang, Ronald K., Grainger, Morgan, Mayor, Robert W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Brandt, Christopher M
• Application Number:
  US15/456,408
• Publication Number:
  US 20170188307A1
• Time in Patent Office: 655 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/02526 using non-dedicated equipment, e.g. user equipment or crowd-sourcing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• 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 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0229 where the received signal is a wanted signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0251 using monitoring of local events, e.g. events related to user activity
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Methods, program products, and systems for baseband location monitoring and related functions are disclosed. A mobile device can monitor its own current location using its baseband subsystem and decide whether to selectively activate its application subsystem based on whether particular conditions are satisfied by the current location. The mobile device can also correlate location and cellular signal information using its baseband subsystem and provide the correlated location and cellular signal information to a server. The server can receive the correlated location and cellular signal information from the baseband subsystems of a large number of widely distributed mobile devices and generate respective profiles of cellular network base stations that transmitted the cellular signals to the mobile devices. The profiles of the cellular network base stations can be used by the server in fulfilling subsequent positioning requests from mobile devices that do not currently have the baseband location monitoring enabled.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

by a server;

receiving, from Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled mobile devices, correlated location and cellular signal information, the correlated location and cellular signal information including i) values of one or more parameters characterizing signals received from cellular network base stations, and ii) GPS location fixes representing locations of the GPS enabled mobile devices;

generating profiles of the cellular network base stations based at least in part on the correlated location and cellular signal information;

receiving a location request from a particular mobile device; and

providing one or more of the profiles to the particular mobile device in response to the location request, the one or more profiles characterizing cellular network base stations within a predetermined geographic area that encompasses a current location of the mobile device.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more profiles further characterize a predicted location of the particular mobile device different from the current location, the predicted location being within a predetermined radius of the current location of the particular mobile device and within the predetermined geographic area.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular mobile device includes a mobile device having a deactivated GPS location module, or a mobile device that does not include GPS location capabilities.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the values of the one or more parameters characterizing the signals received from a cellular network base station of the cellular network base stations includes one or more of:

an identifier for a provider of the cellular network base station, a cell identifier (ID) for the cellular network base stations, a transmission timestamp of a signal received from the cellular network base station, a receipt timestamp for the signal received from the cellular network base station, a signal strength, a signal phase, or an angle of arrival for the signal received from the cellular network base station.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating profiles of the cellular network base stations comprises maintaining a base station almanac that includes the profiles of cellular network base stations, where each profile is generated and updated based at least in part on the correlated location and cellular signal information received from a mobile device of the GPS enabled mobile devices.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular mobile device is a mobile device other than the GPS enabled mobile devices.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular mobile device is one of the GPS enabled mobile devices.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the profiles comprise information usable by the particular mobile device to perform a cellular-based positioning function without contacting the server.