948results about "Beacon systems using radio waves" patented technology

A geographic based communications service system that includes a network and a plurality of access points connected to the network and arranged at known locations in a geographic region. One or more service providers or information providers may be connected to the network to provide services or information on the network. A mobile user (MU) may use a portable computing device (PCD) to connect to the network and access information or services from the network. The PCD may be configured to transmit a signal indicating a presence of the PCD as well as identification information indicating the mobile user. Upon detection of the wireless signal by a first access point in proximity to the PCD, and upon receipt of the identification information indicating the user of the PCD, the first access point may transmit the identification information, as well as the known geographic location of the first access point, to one or more providers on the network. The known geographic location of the first access point indicates the approximate location of the PCD of the mobile user. A first information provider may receive this information and provide content information or services to the mobile user. For example, the first information provider may select content information dependent upon the known geographic location of the first access point and demographic information or past activities of the mobile user of the PCD. The first information provider may then provide the selected content information through the network and through the first access point to the PCD of the mobile user.

A system for determining location of an object, the system including a Master Unit having an RF transceiver and adapted to measure distance to the Tag. The Master Unit has a first input from which it can derive its current position. The Master Unit transmits instructions to the Tag for movement in a predetermined direction. The Master Unit measures distance to the Tag after the movement in the predetermined direction. The Master Unit determines position of the Tag after the movement in the predetermined direction. The Tag can include a compass, a pedometer, and optionally an accelerometer, a solid-state gyroscope, an altimeter inputs for determining its current position by the Master Unit. The Master can optionally include a compass as well as a pedometer, an altimeter, an accelerometer, a solid-state gyroscope, an altimeter and a GPS receiver. Also, the Tag movement does not have to follow the Master's direction. However, the Master Unit still will be able to determine the Tag location(s). Also, the roles of the Master Unit and Tag can be reversed.

An interruption-free hand-held positioning method and system, carried by a person, includes an inertial measurement unit, a north finder, a velocity producer, a positioning assistant, a navigation processor, a wireless communication device, and a display device and map database. Output signals of the inertial measurement unit, the velocity producer, the positioning assistant, and the north finder are processed to obtain highly accurate position measurements of the person. The user's position information can be exchanged with other users through the wireless communication device, and the location and surrounding information can be displayed on the display device by accessing a map database with the person position information.

Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for recognizing a location of an object using radio frequency Identification (RFID). The method for recognizing a location of an object includes: activating tags located around radio frequency identification (RFID) tags by transmitting power to the RFID tags in a magnetic resonance type; transmitting a call signal for identifying a mobile tag attached to an object; receiving a tag identifier of the mobile tag corresponding to the call signal; receiving location information from fixed tags around the mobile tag; and recognizing the location of the mobile tag using the location information.

A geographic-based communications service system has a mobile unit for transmitting/receiving information, and access points connected to a network. The access points are arranged in a known geographic locations and transmit and receive information from the mobile unit. When one of the access points detects the presence of the mobile unit, it sends a signal to the network indicating the location of the mobile unit and the information requested by the mobile unit. Based on the signal received from the access point, the network communicates with information providers connected to the network and provides data to the mobile unit through the access point corresponding to the location of the mobile unit.

Methods and systems for tracking movements of participants in a market research study, for example, outside retail establishments, are provided. The methods and systems employ portable monitors carried on the persons of the participants to gather location data.

A portable GPS unit (10) communicates over a wireless radio network (12) with at least one other such unit (10A-10E). The unit (10) may transmit radio signals over the network (12) indicative of the unit's location and receive similar radio signals from the other units (10A-10E). The unit (10) is operable to calculate and display a route that may be followed to go to a moving waypoint such as one of the other units (10A-10E).

An autonomous formation flying sensor for precise autonomous determination and control of the relative position and attitude for a formation of moving objects.

A technique for the determination of the current position of a mobile device based on a plurality of geolocation positioning services is proposed. Different position information sources are accessed wirelessly to acquire position information. The position information thereby comprises respectively at least information about the position of the corresponding position information source. At least one of the plurality of accessed position information sources is selected depending on the values of operation parameters, such as for example availability, cost, speed, power consumption and quality of the position information, wherein the operation parameters are associated with the different position information sources. The position of the mobile device is then determined based on the position information of the at least one selected position information source.

A high accuracy search and tracking system that uses a round-trip messaging scheme in which the time of arrive (TOA) of ranging signals is accurately determined to yield the range estimates between a target communications device and one or more search communications devices. Successive ranging estimates are used by a search device to home in upon the target device. The physical location pinpoint communications system can be used alone, or in combination with other location estimation systems that can be used initially, or throughout the search and tracking process to pinpoint the physical location of the target device. The search radio(s) transmits ranging signals to the target radio which responds by transmitting reply ranging signals. Upon reception of the reply ranging signal, the search radio determines the range to the reference radio from the signal propagation time. Errors in TOA estimates can be minimized using advanced processing techniques, if required.

A method for estimating the location of a beacon from an ensemble of measurements associated with said beacon, where, contained in each measurement, are GPS data from which surfaces of location may be extracted, together with the ID's of beacons detectable at the point of measurement, is disclosed. The method comprises extracting the canonical set of surfaces of location implicit in each of the associated measurements, and determining the estimate of the location of the beacon as the point for which the sum of the squares of the distances to each of the surfaces so extracted is minimized. A system for the compilation of a database of beacon locations from measurements containing a time-stamped recording of the composite GPS signal (which recording is referred to as a datagram), together with the ID's and associated signal strengths of beacons detectable at the point of measurement, is also disclosed. The system comprises GPS signal processing means for extracting, from each time-stamped datagram, the canonic set of surfaces of location, and beacon location estimation means for estimating the location of a beacon from an ensemble of surfaces of location associated with said beacon.

The invention relates to a bus arrival time prediction technique based on bus GPS data, which comprises sending out from the existing bus GPS data, making full use of auxiliary information such as pulling in, door opening and the like of a bus GPS apparatus, adopting a space dividing method to divide zones for bus lines, accounting the history arrival time of partitioned areas to each station in front according to the actual arrival time of a bus, and leading the bus arrival time to continuously do self-adapting update as the accumulation of history data, and meanwhile, predicating the bus arrival time by means of road traffic status which is calculated by GPS information of a taxi or road traffic status calculated by other systems, and improving the predicating accuracy.

A system for tracking balls in sports in which players kick, pass, bounce, strike or carry a ball. The ball is equipped with two beacons pulsing in the 5-10 Hz range at a frequency which is not attenuated by the body of the players. one beacon has a very short range of 40-120 cm and the other has a range of 1-5 metres. A data logger worn by the players includes a clock, location and speed sensors, a receiver for the beacon signals and a micro controller to record the data from all the sensors. The micro controller is able to record whether the player is in possession of the ball or is contesting the ball. The path of the ball from player to player is tracked relative to the playing field. An impact or pressure sensor may be fitted to the players footwear, glove or a bat stick, club or racquet to register a kick or ball strike

In a cellular mobile telecommunications system the position of a mobile station can be estimated in terms of its bearing and range from a cell site. A multi-element direction finding antenna at the cell site receives signals from the mobile station and a receiver circuit estimates the bearing using the relative phase of signals received at different antenna elements and estimates the range by measuring round trip delay of signals to and from the mobile station. Motion of the mobile station can introduce errors into the bearing estimate due to frequency offset and frequency spread when element sampling is non-simultaneous. Compensation for these errors is introduced by using signal samples successively received at the same antenna element to estimate Doppler frequency offset and spread. It is necessary to ensure accurate calibration of the direction finding antenna and the receiver circuit. This is done by injecting calibration signals into the circuit near the antenna or into the antenna itself from a near field probe. Other aspects of calibration, such as antenna position, are calibrated using a remote beacon. A beacon emulating a mobile station but at a fixed, known location, or a beacon at an adjacent cell site may be used.

A system, method, and device for locating one or more objects, in which the system includes one or more objects having an unknown location, each object comprising at least one mobility sensor for providing sensory data about the object, a wireless communications package for providing received signal strength indication and a processing unit for transmitting data about the object. The data includes the sensory data and the received signal strength indication. The system also includes at least one receiver for receiving the data about each object and at least one algorithm for processing the data about each object and identifying a location estimate about each object, thereby locating one or more objects having an unknown location.

Applications and uses for geographic coded of network access points includes a method for generating a geographic code and an associated graphical user-interface; a method for rejecting or filtering out geographic codes of inaccurately labeled access points; a method for using geographic codes as part of network service discovery; a method for using geographic codes as part of resource discovery and display; a method for using geographic codes for asset tracking; a method for using geographic codes for file transfer and an associated user interface; a method for using geographic codes for location tracking; a method for using geographic codes as part of a domain name registry; and a method for sending geographic codes automatically.

An object locator device is disclosed for use in conjunction with both a GPS satellite system and a two-way communication satellite. The object locating system includes a mobile unit physically connected to the object to be located. The mobile unit includes a satellite communication transceiver capable of receiving and transmitting encoded signals. A decoder is associated with the satellite communication transceiver for decoding a unique signal associated with that mobile unit and for generating an activation signal upon receipt of the unique signal. The mobile unit further includes a GPS receiver which is activated in response to the receipt of the unique signal so that the GPS receiver generates a position signal representative of the position of the mobile unit. The output signal from the GPS receiver is connected as an input signal to the satellite communication transceiver such that the satellite communication transceiver transmits the.position signal to a base station on the communication satellite. The base station physically separated from the remote unit is operable to both transmit the unique signal to the communication satellite in order to activate the mobile unit as well as for receiving the position signal from the communication satellite following activation. The base station creates a display representative of the location of the mobile unit. Preferably, this display signal is transmitted via a telephone line and modem to a computer which generates the display on a computer monitor. Energy conservation algorithms including periodic activation of the satellite communication transceiver as well as activation of the satellite communication transceiver only when the position of the mobile unit has changed more than a threshold amount between periodic signals is disclosed.

The invention discloses a configurable multi-mode multi-band satellite navigation receiving method and a radio frequency front end module constructed by the method. The front end module can receive signals of satellite navigation and positioning systems such as a global positioning system (GPS), the Big Dipper, a Galileo positioning system and a global navigation satellite system (Glonass), and comprises a configurable low-noise amplifier (LNA) with a buffer and an active balun, a folding passive mixer with a configurable frequency synthesizer, a configurable multi-mode filter, an automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier, a direct-current bias circuit, and a multi-mode multi-band program controlled and coded on-off control word from a receiving system. The radio frequency front end module can meet the requirement of multi-band multi-mode work through the control word programmed by the receiving system, has a simple and reliable structure, does not need complicated time division multiplexing control system and off-chip module, has low cost and high flexibility, and improves the noise performance of the radio frequency front end of the whole receiver and multi-mode multi-band signal processing capacity; and a one-channel signal is input into the module, and the module outputs a two-channel differential signal. The receiver can be used for receiving and processing multi-mode satellite navigation signals asynchronously, and receiving and processing satellite navigation signals with the required mode in different time intervals according to the requirement.

A system and method for routing an emergency services call from a mobile station to a selected Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in a radio telecommunications network. The system intelligently selects the PSAP from a plurality of PSAPs, warns the selected PSAP that the emergency services call is coming prior to routing the call to the selected PSAP, and provides the selected PSAP with advanced information regarding the context of the call. The emergency services call is received by a serving mobile switching center (MSC) which determines that the call is an emergency services call and sends cell or sector information to a service control point (SCP). The SCP includes a PSAP selector which selects the PSAP based on such information as, for example, the location of the mobile station, the Local Access and Traffic Area (LATA) in which the mobile station is located, the time-of-day, and the day-of-week. The SCP then sends an alerting signal to the selected PSAP and includes a tag and information relating to the context of the call. The SCP then returns the tag and the identity of the selected PSAP to the serving MSC which determines the PSAP routing number and delivers the call to the selected PSAP.

A system for efficiently filtering interfering signals in a front end of a GPS receiver is disclosed. Such interfering signals can emanate from friendly, as well as unfriendly, sources. One embodiment includes a GPS receiver with a space-time adaptive processing (STAP) filter. At least a portion of the interfering signals are removed by applying weights to the inputs. One embodiment adaptively calculates and applies the weights by Fourier Transform convolution and Fourier Transform correlation. The Fourier Transform can be computed via a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This approach advantageously reduces computational complexity to practical levels. Another embodiment utilizes redundancy in the covariance matrix to further reduce computational complexity. In another embodiment, an improved FFT and an improved Inverse FFT further reduce computational complexity and improve speed. Advantageously, embodiments can efficiently null a relatively large number of jammers at a relatively low cost and with relatively low operating power.

Systems and methods that may be implemented to determine the location of an emitter of electromagnetic radiation having an unknown location, using a cooperative TDOA-based location methodology. The cooperative TDOA-based location methodology (e.g., such as TDOA/TDOA, TDOA/FDOA, etc.) may be implemented using at least one cooperative transmitter that transmits a cooperative electromagnetic (EM) signal from a known location that is received at multiple different EM sensing platforms that are also each of known location. The known geolocation of the cooperative transmitter may be used to resolve the signal arrival timing relationships between the different sensing platforms that is utilized to determine the location of another EM transmitter of unknown location.

A portable communication device and method provide for determining indoor or outdoor location of the device. The method includes measuring a signal strength of at least one of a location service signal, a RAN signal, and a small coverage area signal that is detectable within a current location of the portable communication device, comparing signal strength to corresponding pre-established signal strength threshold, and obtaining contextual information by accessing sensor data from at least one sensor selected based on a result of the comparing. The method also includes configuring the portable communication device for operation within an outdoor space in response to determining that the portable communication device is transitioning from the indoor space to the outdoor space and configuring the portable device for operation within an indoor space in response to determining the portable device is transitioning from the outdoor space to the indoor space.

A system for geolocating a radio frequency (RF) transmitter in the presence of multipath interference may include a plurality of RF receivers arranged in spaced relation. The system may also include a controller coupled to the plurality of receivers and configured to generate a plurality of measurements associated with the RF transmitter. The controller may also compute a plurality of ambiguity functions based upon the plurality of measurements and due to the multipath interference, and project the plurality of ambiguity functions onto a common geo-referenced grid. The controller may also detect a peak on the common geo-referenced grid indicative of a geolocation of the RF transmitter.

A method and apparatus for determining a reference time associated with a satellite positioning system. In turn, the reference time, in one embodiment, may be used to determine other navigational information. Such navigational information may include, for example, the location/position of a satellite positioning system (SPS) receiver. In one embodiment, a relative velocity between an SPS receiver and a set of one or more satellites is used to determine an offset between time as indicated by the SPS receiver and the reference time. According to another embodiment of the invention, an error statistic is used to determine the reference time. According to yet another embodiment of the invention, two records, each representing at least a portion of a satellite message, are compared to determine time. In one implementation, the SPS receiver is mobile and operates in conjunction with a basestation to determine time and/or other navigational information according to one or a combination of the methods described.

A method and system determines mobile station position information based upon base station identification and a repeater discriminant. A position location database includes base station identifications and repeater discriminant combinations, and unique position information associated with each combination. A repeater implements a discriminant to a transmitted signal in either the forward link, reverse link, or both. The position location database is accessed to determine mobile station position information based upon a base station identification and repeater discriminant.

Methods and apparatus are described for a navigation system. A process includes providing a plurality of transmitters distributed throughout a desired coverage area; locking the plurality of transmitters to a common timing reference; transmitting a signal from each of the plurality of transmitters. An apparatus includes a plurality of transmitters distributed throughout a desired coverage area; wherein each of the plurality of transmitters comprises a packet generator; and wherein the plurality of transmitters are locked to a common timing reference.

A marine electronic device such as a chartplotter which includes a display; a location determining component; and a processing system for receiving location data from the location determining component and for causing information to be displayed by display. The processing system causes the display to display information which assists an operator in navigating and ascertaining characteristics of bodies of water, objects on nearby shores, and other vessels.

To provide a method of measuring a position of a node by using a radio communication system which comprises the node to send a position measuring signal, and a plurality of base stations to receive radio signals from the node, the method including: the base stations watching signals from the node through a predetermined channel; at least one of the base stations sending a reference signal after receiving of the position measuring signal; at least two of the base stations measuring the reception timing of the position measuring signal and the reception timing of the reference signal; and calculating the position of the node by using the reception timing of the position measuring signal and the reference signal measured by the base stations which have received the reference signal, and position information of the base station which has received the position measuring signal.

A method of determining the location of an unknown source 10 transmitting a signal to satellite relays 14 and 16 comprises receiving replicas of the signal from the relays at receivers 18. The receivers 18 also transmit and receive reference signals via respective relays 14 and 16. All signals are downconverted, digitized and correlated with one another in pairs using a correlation function including a term which compensates for time varying differential frequency offset (DFO). Compensation for time varying differential time offset or time dilation is achieved by replicating or adding to signal samples and applying phase corrections. This procedure enables a correlation maximum and associated measurement results to be obtained despite the effects of relay satellite motion which mitigate against this. Results are used in a prior art geometrical technique to locate the unknown transmitter.

A positioning method, which is related to a technique to measure a correct position of a terminal by preventing time required for the position measurement, of calculating a position of a receiver according to signals from a plurality of wireless transmitters includes a first step of measuring propagation delay time of the signal from each of the wireless transmitters and calculating a position of the receiver and a standard deviation about measuring distance error, a second step of calculating a positioning error of the receiver a third step of determining, according to the positioning error calculated by the second step, wireless transmitters in directions nearer to a direction in which the positioning error is large, and a fourth step of re-detecting signals from the wireless transmitters determined by the third step and thereby re-calculating the position of the receiver.