Location aware services infrastructure

• US 20020167919A1
• Filed: 04/10/2002
• Published: 11/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ThinkLogix, LLC (Ascend Innovation Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Telcordia Technologies Incorporated (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Inventors: Famolari, David, Marples, David, Brightman, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 6,873,258 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Entity identity information and location identity information are sensed and made available to subscriber applications through a secure location-aware services infrastructure, thereby allowing for the creation of location-based services. Information detected by a sensor is passed to an interface aggregator for conversion to a standardized format and then forwarded to location registers for the domain of the sensors. Subscriber applications query the registers to determine which entities are in a particular location and to determine the location of entities. By unifying diverse sensing technologies, location information can be simultaneously obtained on varying degrees of granularity. In addition, the system is scalable to large scenarios by using a plurality of sensors, interface aggregators, and registers.

Claims

1. A system for tracking and maintaining entity identity information and location identity information and for providing said information to subscribing applications, said system comprising:

a plurality of sensors for generating said entity identity and said location identity information, each of said sensors serving a domain,

an interface aggregator for receiving said information from said plurality of sensors and for recognizing the domain of the sensor generating said information, and

a register assigned to said domain for receiving said information from said interface aggregator and for providing said information to said subscribing applications.

2. The system in accordance with claim 1 wherein said interface aggregator converts said information received from said sensors into a generic format for transmission to said register.

3. The system in accordance with claim 2 wherein said interface aggregator forwards said information to said register in Internet format.

4. A system for tracking and maintaining user location and identity information, and for making said information available to subscribing applications, said system comprising:

a plurality of sensing systems for tracking said user location and identity, wherein said sensing systems may be the same or a plurality of sensing technologies, and wherein said sensing systems are dispersed over one or more domains,

a plurality of aggregators associated with said sensing systems for gathering said user location and identity information and for converting said information to a standardized form, and

a plurality of location registers each responsible for one or more of said domains, wherein each location register gathers said user location and identity information from one or more aggregators and maintains said information for its domains, and wherein each location register makes said information available to subscribing applications.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein said subscribing applications obtain user location and identity information from one or more registers and use said information to provide location sensitive services.

6. The system of claim 4 wherein said subscribing applications query one or more registers for user location and identity information.

7. The system of claim 4 wherein said subscribing applications request one or more registers to notify said applications when user location and identity information change.

8. The system of claim 4 wherein said subscribing applications obtain the locations of tracked users from said registers.

9. The system of claim 4 wherein said subscriber applications obtain the identity of tracked users within particular locations.

10. A system for providing location information to one or more subscribers of the system, said system comprising:

sensing equipment for sensing the presence of an entity in a specific location and for transmitting information specifying an identity of the entity and the location,

an entity and location information register for storing the transmitted information in a standard format, and

subscriber software agents for using said standard format to retrieve the entity information and the location information from said entity and location information register.

11. The system in accordance with claim 10 further including a plurality of said sensing equipments and an interface aggregator between said plurality of sensing equipments and said information register, wherein said interface aggregator aggregates the information from said sensing equipments to said information register.

12. The system in accordance with claim 11 further comprising a plurality of entity and location information registers, wherein said sensing equipments are in individual domains, wherein said registers are assigned to one or more of said domains, and wherein said interface aggregator identifies the domain for the information and forwards the information to information registers for that domain.

13. The system in accordance with claim 12 wherein said aggregator converts said information to said standard format prior to forwarding said information.

14. The system in accordance with claim 13 wherein said standard format is an Internet format.

15. The system in accordance with claim 14 wherein said sensing equipment includes radio beacons for generating radio fields to identify each location and tag monitors responsive to a radio field for transmitting identity information unique to each tag monitor.

16. The system in accordance with claim 15 wherein said sensing equipment includes a base station.

18. The method according to claim 17 wherein said step of transmitting comprises generating radio fields to identify each location and energizing tag monitors for each entity by one of said radio fields.

19. The method in accordance with claim 18 further comprising aggregating pluralities of differently transmitted entity identity and location identity information before said step of storing.

17. A method for providing entity and location information to one or more subscribers, said method comprising the steps of:

transmitting entity identity information and location identity information,

separately storing said transmitted entity identity and location identity information in registers assigned to a domain from which said information was transmitted, and

providing said separately stored information to the subscribers.

20. A method for providing entity and location information with respect to entities and locations in a plurality of domains to a plurality of subscriber, said method comprising the steps of:

transmitting entity identity information and location identity information with respect to an entity and a location in a domain,

identifying the domain from which said entity identity and location identity information was transmitted,

storing said transmitted entity identity and location identity information in a register assigned to the identified domain, and

providing said stored information to one of the subscribers.

21. The method in accordance with claim 20 wherein said entity identity information and location identity information may be transmitted in one of a number of formats, said method further comprising the step of

converting said information to a standard format before said step of storing said information.