Context determination to assist location determination accuracy

• US 9,116,002 B2
• Filed: 08/27/2009
• Issued: 08/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Mayor, Robert, Huang, Ronald Keryuan, Piemonte, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALSOMIRI, MAJDI A
• Application Number:
  US12/549,250
• Publication Number:
  US 20110054787A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,189 Days
• Field of Search: 701/412, 701/413, 33268-271, 340988-996
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/1654 with electromagnetic compass
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/28 with correlation of data from several navigational instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/30 Map- or contour-matching
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3415 Dynamic re-routing, e.g. recalculating the route when the user deviates from calculated route or after detecting real-time traffic data or accidents
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 19/49 whereby the further system is an inertial position system, e.g. loosely-coupled

Abstract

A location aware device includes a navigation system and one or more environment sensors. Sensor output(s) are aggregated and used to determine a context for the location aware device. Based on the determined context, context data is generated and provided to a navigation engine where it can be used to determine a navigation solution.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method performed by a location aware device, the method comprising:

generating context data based on outputs from one or more sensors of the location aware device, the context data indicating at least one of whether the device is moving or whether the device is turning;

determining, by a context-based weight selector of the device, one or more weights corresponding to the context data, each weight representing contribution of measurements of position or heading to previous measurements of position or heading, respectively;

determining a navigation solution for the location aware device by a navigation subsystem of the device;

determining an error estimate of the navigation solution using the one or more weights, including weighting or de-weighting measurements of the navigation subsystem using the one or more weights by a statistical filter of the device;

determining whether to move or hold a position of an icon or marker in a map view based on whether the error estimate indicates that the navigation solution needs to be changed, where the icon or marker represents an estimated current location of the location aware device,

where the method is performed by one or more hardware processors.

2. The method of claim 1, where the sensors include an accelerometer, a magnetometer or a gyroscope.

3. The method of claim 1, where each weight includes a Kalman gain matrix, and the statistical filter is a Kalman filter.

4. The method of claim 3, where the context data is sent to a navigation engine incorporated in an integrated circuit chip.

5. The method of claim 4, where the navigation engine uses output of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising:

determining, from data provided from an inertial navigation system of the device, a predicted navigation state; and

providing a difference between the navigation solution and the predicted navigation state as input to the statistic filter.

7. The method of claim 1, where the measurements of position or heading are taken at time k, and the previous measurements of position or heading are taken at time k−

1.

8. A location aware device, comprising:

one or more sensors; and

one or more processors coupled to the one or more sensors, the one or more processor configured to perform operations comprising;

generating context data based on outputs from the one or more sensors of the location aware device, the context data indicating at least one of whether the device is moving or whether the device is turning;

determining, by a context-based weight selector of the device, one or more weights corresponding to the context data, each weight representing contribution of measurements of position or heading to previous measurements of position or heading, respectively;

determining a navigation solution for the location aware device;

by a navigation subsystem of the device;

determining an error estimate of the navigation solution using the one or more weights, including weighting or de-weighting measurements of the navigation subsystem using the one or more weights by a statistical filter of the device; and

determining whether to move or hold a position of an icon or marker in a map view based on whether the error estimate indicates that the navigation solution needs to be changed, where the icon or marker represents an estimated current location of the location aware device.

9. The device of claim 8, where the one or more sensors include an accelerometer, a magnetometer or a gyroscope.

10. The device of claim 8, where each weight includes a Kalman gain matrix, and the statistical filter is a Kalman filter.

11. The device of claim 8, where the navigation solution is determined by a navigation engine incorporated in an integrated circuit chip.

12. The device of claim 11, where the navigation engine uses output of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver.

13. The device of claim 8, comprising:

determining, from data provided from an inertial navigation system of the device, a predicted navigation state; and

providing a difference between the navigation solution and the predicted navigation state as input to the statistic filter.

14. The device of claim 8, where the measurements of position or heading are taken at time k, and the previous measurements of position or heading are taken at time k−

1.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more process to perform operations comprising:

generating context data based on outputs from one or more sensors of a location aware device, the context data indicating at least one of whether the device is moving or whether the device is turning;

determining, by a context-based weight selector of the device, one or more weights corresponding to the context data, each weight representing contribution of measurements of position or heading to previous measurements of position or heading, respectively;

determining a navigation solution for the location aware device by a navigation subsystem of the device;

determining an error estimate of the navigation solution using the one or more weights, including weighting or de-weighting measurements of the navigation subsystem using the one or more weights by a statistical filter of the device; and

determining whether to move or hold a position of an icon or marker in a map view based on whether the error estimate indicates that the navigation solution needs to be changed, where the icon or marker represents an estimated current location of the location aware device.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, where each weight includes a Kalman gain matrix, and the statistical filter is a Kalman filter.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, where the sensors include an accelerometer, a magnetometer or a gyroscope.