System and method for hybriding wireless location techniques

• US 9,060,341 B2
• Filed: 05/24/2010
• Issued: 06/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: TracBeam LLC (Dennis J. Dupray)
• Original Assignee: TracBeam LLC (Dennis J. Dupray)
• Inventors: Karr, Charles L., Dupray, Dennis J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Phan, Dao
• Application Number:
  US12/786,429
• Publication Number:
  US 20100234045A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,849 Days
• Field of Search: 342/357.2, 342/357.25, 342/357.31, 342/450, 342/457, 342/463, 342/357.21, 455/456.1, 455/456.6, 701/207, 701/213, 701/468, 701/469
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 1/026 of associated receivers
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 1/028 Simulation means, e.g. of beacon signals therefor for teaching or training purposes G09B9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2205/006 for emergency situations
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 2205/008 using a mobile telephone network
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0009 Transmission of position information to remote stations involving assistance data G01S5/0236
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0018 Transmission from mobile station to base station
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0054 of actual mobile position, i.e. position calculation on base station
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/021 Calibration, monitoring or correction G01S5/0252 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0244 Accuracy or reliability of position solution or of measurements contributing thereto
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0257 Hybrid positioning by coordinating position lines of different shape G01S5/12
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/0278 involving statistical or probabilistic considerations G01S5/0252, G01S5/0294 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/06 Position of source determined by co-ordinating a plurality of position lines defined by path-difference measurements G01S5/12 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A hybrid wireless location system and method is disclosed for locating mobile stations (MSs). Multiple wireless location techniques (FOMs) are provided for MS location. One or more FOMs can be activated in various combinations (serially or parallelly) for outputting one or more MS location estimates with signal protocols being, e.g., CDMA, TDMA, or GSM. Resulting location estimates may be for, e.g.: 911 emergency calls, tracking, navigation, people and animal location, and/or applications for confinement to and/or exclusion from geographical areas. System components may be distributed on a network (e.g., the Internet). FOMs may be based on one or more of: TOA, TDOA, AOA, signal pattern recognition/fingerprinting, statistical analysis, base station coverage, GPS signals received at the MS, and/or input from mobile stations. Location estimates are enhanced by adjusting MS estimates (and/or confidences therefor) according to: a past performance of the FOM providing such estimates, and/or MS geolocation or velocity constraints.

Claims

1. A system for wirelessly locating a terrestrial mobile unit M for communicating with a network of a plurality of fixed location terrestrial communication stations, each terrestrial communication station capable of wirelessly detecting said terrestrial mobile unit M, and wirelessly being detected by said terrestrial mobile unit M, comprising at least a satellite signal receiver, one or more transceiver components, and one or more computational machine components as follows:

the satellite signal receiver for receiving a wireless signal transmitted from a satellite;

the one or more transceiver components configured for two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M and one or more of the terrestrial communication stations;

the one or more computational machine components configured to determine first location related information of the mobile unit M, the first location related information dependent upon a wireless transmission time delay of the wireless signal;

wherein the one or more computational machine components are further configured for providing the first location related information and second location related information of the mobile unit M to one or more computational machine location determining components for determining a resulting location of the mobile unit M;

wherein the resulting location is determined by preferring the first location related information over the second location related information unless data indicative of a first wireless location signaling context for locating the mobile unit M is identified resulting in the computational machine location determining components increasing a preference for at least a portion of the second location related information over the first location related information in determining the resulting location;

wherein the second location related information is used for determining a geographical range or extent indicative of the mobile unit M being offset from at least one of the terrestrial communication stations; and

wherein the second location related information is dependent upon or indicative of a signal time delay measurement of, or a signal strength measurement of, at least a portion of the two way wireless communication between the transceiver components, and the one or more of the terrestrial communication stations, and for a portion of the second location related information that is dependent upon or indicative of the signal time delay measurement or the signal strength measurement, the portion of the second location related information is used in measuring the offset; and

wherein the mobile unit M includes each of the satellite signal receiver, the one or more transceiver components, and the one or more computational machine components.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the data indicative of the first wireless location signaling context includes an indication that an effectiveness of the first location related information is of reduced acceptability for locating the mobile unit M.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the second location related information is determined by the computational machine location determining components to be at least as effective as the first location related information for locating the mobile unit M.

4. The system of claim 1, including a combiner of the one or more computational machine location determining components for performing machine instructions that combines at least a portion of the first location related information, and at least a portion of the second location related information for obtaining the resulting location of the mobile unit M.

5. The system of claim 1, further including an output gateway that is in operative communication with the one or more computational machine components, the output gateway performing machine instructions for transmitting the resulting location on a communications network;

wherein the output gateway provides for transmitting said resulting location according to one or more of the following geographic transmission characteristics;

(i) a granularity of transmission, and (ii) a frequency of transmitting an instance of the resulting location.

22. The system of claim 1, including a combiner of the computational machine location determining components, wherein the combiner combines mobile unit M location indicative data from of the second location related information and the first location related information dependent upon corresponding reliability data of each of the second location related information and the first location related information.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the one or more computational machine location determining components use the second location related information to perform one of:

(a) a trilateration,

(b) a triangulation,

(c) a multilateration, and

(d) a wireless signal pattern recognition, for determining a location estimate of the mobile unit M, the location estimate for determining the resulting location.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more computational machine location determining components are cooperative on the network for receiving at least one of the first location related information and the second location related information via the one or more transceiver components.

6. A method for wirelessly locating a terrestrial mobile unit M in communication with a network of a plurality of terrestrial communication stations, each terrestrial communication station capable of wirelessly detecting said terrestrial mobile unit M, and wirelessly being detected by said terrestrial mobile units M, comprising performing the following steps by computational equipment:

(a) a step of receiving, by a satellite signal receiver, a wireless signal from a satellite to the mobile unit M;

(b) a step of performing two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M and one or more of the terrestrial communication stations via a transceiver;

(c) a step of obtaining first location related information of the mobile unit M, the first location related information dependent upon a time delay of the wireless signal;

wherein the first location related information and second location related information of the mobile unit M is provided to one or more computational machine location determining components that determine a resulting location of the mobile unit M by a step of preferring the first location related information over the second location related information unless data indicative of a first wireless signal context is identified, wherein the data is indicative of a location effectiveness for preferring the second location related information over the first location related information; and

wherein the second location related information is dependent upon, or indicative of, a signal time delay measurement or a signal strength measurement of the two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M, and the one or more of the terrestrial communication stations.

32. The method of claim 6, wherein a non-transient data storage, and a similarity determining computational machine are included in the one or more computational machine location determining components, wherein the non-transient data storage includes data for a plurality of data associations, wherein, for each geographical location, G, of a plurality geographical locations, there is one of the data associations having (i) and (ii) following:

(i) a representation of the geographical location G, and

(ii) wireless signal transmission information for one or more wireless signals transmitted from one of a first location and a second location and received at the other of the first and second locations,

wherein the wireless signal transmission information includes data indicative of one or more wireless signal effects of one or more physical objects along a wireless transmission path of the wireless signals, and wherein the geographical location G designates one of the first and second locations;

comprising;

a step of determining first location related data for locating the mobile unit M, at at least one geographic location L, wherein the first location related data is dependent on an output from the similarity determining computational machine when data, D, obtained using the second location related information, is input to the similarity determining computational machine;

wherein the similarity determining computational machine determines the output according to a similarity, or extent of similarity, between (a-1) and (a-2) following;

(a-1) the data D, and

(a-2) instances of the wireless signal transmission information;

wherein the output is also dependent upon the corresponding geographical locations G for the instances used in determining the similarity, or extent of similarity;

wherein the first location related data has a value dependent upon a measurement of a discrepancy or consistency between (a-1) and (a-2) above; and

a step of determining a corresponding resulting location, for the at least one geographic location L, using the first location related data.

7. A system for wirelessly locating a terrestrial mobile unit M in communication with a network of a plurality of terrestrial communication stations, each terrestrial communication station capable of wirelessly detecting said terrestrial mobile unit M, and wirelessly being detected by said terrestrial mobile unit M, comprising:

a satellite signal receiver for receiving a wireless signal from a satellite, the receiver at the mobile unit M;

one or more transceiver components configured for two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M and one or more of the terrestrial communication stations;

one or more computational machine components configured to obtain first location related information of the mobile unit M, the first location related information dependent upon a time delay of the wireless signal;

wherein the first location related information and second location related information of the mobile unit M are provided to one or more computational machine location determining components, of the system, that determine a resulting location of the mobile unit M by one of;

(a) preferring the first location related information over the second location related information when data indicative of a first location wireless signaling context for locating the mobile unit M is identified, and (b) preferring the second location related information over the first location related information when data indicative of a second wireless signaling context is identified, wherein the second location related information is used for determining a geographical range or extent indicative of the mobile unit M being offset from at least one of the terrestrial communication stations;

wherein the second location related information is dependent upon, or indicative of, location dependent wireless signal measurements of the two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M, and the one or more of the terrestrial communication stations; and

a combiner for performing machine instructions that combines at least a portion of the first location related information, and at least a portion of the second location related information for obtaining the resulting location of the mobile station M.

8. A system for wirelessly locating a terrestrial mobile unit M for communicating with a network of a plurality of fixed location terrestrial communication stations, each terrestrial communication station capable of wirelessly detecting said terrestrial mobile unit M, and wirelessly being detected by said terrestrial mobile unit M, comprising at least a satellite signal receiver, one or more transceiver components, and one or more computational machine components as follows:

the satellite signal receiver for receiving one or more wireless signals transmitted from one or more satellites;

the one or more transceiver components configured for two way wireless communication between the mobile unit M and one or more of the terrestrial communication stations;

the one or more computational machine components configured to determine first location related information of the mobile unit M, the first location related information dependent upon data indicative of a time delay of the one or more wireless signals;

wherein the one or more computational machine components include machine instructions for cooperating with the one or more transceiver components;

(i) to wirelessly communicate with the one or more of the terrestrial communication stations for providing the first location related information to one or more computational machine location determining components, and (ii) so that second location related information of the mobile unit M is obtained by the computational machine location determining components, wherein the second location related information is at least dependent upon a geographical range or extent of the mobile unit M being offset from at least one of the terrestrial communication stations in wireless communication with the transceiver components;

wherein a resulting location of the mobile unit M is determined by the computational machine location determining components using a combination of the second location related information and the first location related information; and

wherein the mobile unit M includes each of the satellite signal receiver, the transceiver components, and the computational machine components.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more computational machine components determine an effectiveness of the one or more wireless signals for locating the mobile unit M.

10. The system of claim 8, further including a persistent data storage for storing a location estimate of a previously determined location of the mobile unit M, wherein the location estimate is used in obtaining the resulting location of the mobile unit M at a subsequent different location from the previously determined location.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more computational machine components update a previous location of the mobile unit M using measurements for wireless signals between the mobile unit M and one or more of the terrestrial communication stations, and not using and instance of the first location related information.

12. The system of claim 8, further including at least one of the computational machine location determining components for determining a location of the mobile unit M after the at least one computational machine location determining component has undergone a calibration, or adaptation, process dependent upon an accuracy of previous wireless location estimates of a plurality of mobile units.

13. The system of claim 8, further including the one or more computational machine location determining components.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more computational machine location determining components, using the second location related information, perform one of:

(a) a trilateration,

(b) a triangulation,

(c) a multilateration, and

(d) a wireless signal pattern recognition for determining a location estimate of the mobile unit M, the location estimate for determining the resulting location.

15. The system of claim 13, further including an output component provided by the computational machine location determining components, the output component performing machine instructions that determine a network destination for transmitting the resulting location on a communications network, the network destination determined using information from a request for the resulting location, the transmitting of the resulting location based on TCP/IP, and the network destination being an Internet site.

16. The system of claim 8, further including at least one of the computational machine location determining components, the at least one computational machine location determining component being cooperative, via the network, with the transceiver components for receiving, at least one of the first location related information and the second location related information.

17. The system of claim 8, wherein the first location related information includes a measurement indicative of an effectiveness in locating the mobile unit M.

18. The system of claim 8, wherein the first location related information includes a location estimate for locating the mobile unit M.

19. The system of claim 8, wherein the second location related information includes a request for locating the mobile unit M.

20. The system of claim 8, wherein the computational machine components or one of the computational machine location determining components discards, or reduces a measurement of a location effectiveness of, location related information obtained from the one or more wireless signals.

21. The system of claim 8, wherein the computational machine components determine a location of the mobile unit M using a measurement of a difference between a first spatial positioning of the mobile unit M and a previous spatial positioning of the mobile unit M.

25. The system of claim 8, including a non-transient data storage, and a similarity determining computational machine, wherein both the non-transient data storage, and the similarity determining computational machine are (1) included in the one or more computational machine location determining components and (2) described as follows;

(A) the non-transient data storage having data for a plurality of data associations, wherein, for each geographical location, G, of a plurality geographical locations, there is one of the data associations having (i) and (ii) following;

(i) a representation of the geographical location G, and

(ii) wireless signal transmission information for one or more wireless signals transmitted from one of a first location and a second location and received at the other of the first and second locations,

wherein the wireless signal transmission information includes data indicative of one or more wireless signal effects of one or more physical objects along a wireless transmission path of the wireless signals, and wherein the geographical location G designates one of the first and second locations;

(B) the similarity determining computational machine determines first location related data for locating the mobile unit M, wherein the first location related data is dependent on an output from the similarity determining computational machine when data, D, obtained using the second location related information, is input to the similarity determining computational machine;

wherein the similarity determining computational machine determines the output according to a similarity, or extent of similarity, between (a-1) and (a-2) following;

(a-1) the data D, and

(a-2) instances of the wireless signal transmission information;

wherein the output is also dependent upon the corresponding geographical locations G for the instances used in determining the similarity, or extent of similarity;

wherein the first location related data has a value dependent upon a measurement of a discrepancy or consistency between (a-1) and (a-2) above;

wherein the one or more computation machine location determining components determine the resulting location using the first location related data.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the second location related information includes data indicative of a wireless signal strength.

27. The system of claim 8, wherein the computational machine components determine third location related data for the mobile unit M, the third location related data including a measurement of a change between a first spatial positioning of the mobile unit M and a previous spatial positioning of the mobile unit M;

wherein for at least one location of the mobile unit M, a corresponding resulting location, determined by the computation machine location determining components or the computational machine components, is dependent upon the third location related data.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the third location related data is dependent upon an output from a mobile unit M resident component that measures a change between (i) a spatial position, or direction of movement, of the mobile unit M, and (ii) a previous spatial position, or direction of movement, of the mobile unit M.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the mobile unit M resident component includes a gyroscope for providing at least a portion of the measurement of a change.

30. The system of claim 28, wherein the mobile unit M resident component includes an accelerometer for providing at least a portion of the measurement of a change.

31. The system of claim 8, wherein for at least one location of the mobile unit M, a corresponding resulting location, determined by the computation machine location determining components or the computational machine components, is determined by preferring the first location related information over the second location related information unless data indicative of a first wireless location signaling context for locating the mobile unit M is identified resulting in increasing a preference for at least a portion of the second location related information over the first location related information in determining the corresponding resulting location.