2419results about "Beacon systems using radio waves" patented technology

A location system is disclosed for commercial wireless telecommunication infrastructures. The system is an end-to-end solution having one or more location centers for outputting requested locations of commercially available handsets or mobile stations (MS) based on, e.g., CDMA, AMPS, NAMPS or TDMA communication standards, for processing both local MS location requests and more global MS location requests via, e.g., Internet communication between a distributed network of location centers. The system uses a plurality of MS locating technologies including those based on: (1) two-way TOA and TDOA; (2) pattern recognition; (3) distributed antenna provisioning; (5) GPS signals, (6) angle of arrival, (7) super resolution enhancements, and (8) supplemental information from various types of very low cost non-infrastructure base stations for communicating via a typical commercial wireless base station infrastructure or a public telephone switching network. Accordingly, the traditional MS location difficulties, such as multipath, poor location accuracy and poor coverage are alleviated via such technologies in combination with strategies for: (a) automatically adapting and calibrating system performance according to environmental and geographical changes; (b) automatically capturing location signal data for continual enhancement of a self-maintaining historical data base retaining predictive location signal data; (c) evaluating MS locations according to both heuristics and constraints related to, e.g., terrain, MS velocity and MS path extrapolation from tracking and (d) adjusting likely MS locations adaptively and statistically so that the system becomes progressively more comprehensive and accurate. Further, the system can be modularly configured for use in location signing environments ranging from urban, dense urban, suburban, rural, mountain to low traffic or isolated roadways. Accordingly, the system is useful for 911 emergency calls, tracking, routing, people and animal location including applications for confinement to and exclusion from certain areas.

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 location system is disclosed for commercial wireless telecommunication infrastructures. The system is an end-to-end solution having one or more location centers for outputting requested locations of commercially available handsets or mobile stations (MS) based on, e.g., CDMA, AMPS, NAMPS or TDMA communication standards, for processing both local MS location requests and more global MS location requests via, e.g., Internet communication between a distributed network of location centers. The system uses a plurality of MS locating technologies including those based on: (1) two-way TOA and TDOA; (2) pattern recognition; (3) distributed antenna provisioning; and (4) supplemental information from various types of very low cost non-infrastructure base stations for communicating via a typical commercial wireless base station infrastructure or a public telephone switching network. Accordingly, the traditional MS location difficulties, such as multipath, poor location accuracy and poor coverage are alleviated via such technologies in combination with strategies for: (a) automatically adapting and calibrating system performance according to environmental and geographical changes; (b) automatically capturing location signal data for continual enhancement of a self-maintaining historical data base retaining predictive location signal data; (c) evaluating MS locations according to both heuristics and constraints related to, e.g., terrain, MS velocity and MS path extrapolation from tracking and (d) adjusting likely MS locations adaptively and statistically so that the system becomes progressively more comprehensive and accurate. Further, the system can be modularly configured for use in location signaling environments ranging from urban, dense urban, suburban, rural, mountain to low traffic or isolated roadways. Accordingly, the system is useful for 911 emergency calls, tracking, routing, people and animal location including applications for confinement to and exclusion from certain areas.

A location system is disclosed for wireless telecommunication infrastructures. The system is an end-to-end solution having one or more location systems for outputting requested locations of hand sets or mobile stations (MS) based on, e.g., AMPS, NAMPS, CDMA or TDMA communication standards, for processing both local mobile station location requests and more global mobile station location requests via, e.g., Internet communication between a distributed network of location systems. The system uses a plurality of mobile station locating technologies including those based on: (1) two-way TOA and TDOA; (2) home base stations and (3) distributed antenna provisioning. Further, the system can be modularly configured for use in location signaling environments ranging from urban, dense urban, suburban, rural, mountain to low traffic or isolated roadways. The system is useful for 911 emergency calls, tracking, routing, people and animal location including applications for confinement to and exclusion from certain areas.

An Applications Processor (14) including a centralized database system is used in a wireless location system (WLS). The APs 14 may be used to manage resources in the WLS, including signal collection systems (SCSs 10) and TDOA location processors (TLPs 12). Each AP 14 contains a database containing triggers for the WLS. The WLS can be programmed to locate only certain pre-determined types of transmissions. When a transmission of a pre-determined type occurs, then the WLS is triggered to begin location processing. Each AP 14 also contains applications interfaces that permit a variety of applications to securely access the WLS. These applications may access location records in real time or non-real time, create or delete certain types of triggers, or cause the WLS to take other actions. Each AP 14 is also capable of certain post-processing functions.

A location system is disclosed for commercial wireless telecommunication infrastructures. The system is an end-to-end solution having one or more location centers for outputting requested locations of commercially available handsets or mobile stations (MS) based on, e.g., CDMA, AMPS, NAMPS or TDMA communication standards, for processing both local MS location requests and more global MS location requests via, e.g., Internet communication between a distributed network of location centers. The system uses a plurality of MS locating technologies including those based on: (1) two-way TOA and TDOA; (2) pattern recognition; (3) distributed antenna provisioning; and (4) supplemental information from various types of very low cost non-infrastructure base stations for communicating via a typical commercial wireless base station infrastructure or a public telephone switching network. Accordingly, the traditional MS location difficulties, such as multipath, poor location accuracy and poor coverage are alleviated via such technologies in combination with strategies for: (a) automatically adapting and calibrating system performance according to environmental and geographical changes; (b) automatically capturing location signal data for continual enhancement of a self-maintaining historical data base retaining predictive location signal data; (c) evaluating MS locations according to both heuristics and constraints related to, e.g., terrain, MS velocity and MS path extrapolation from tracking and (d) adjusting likely MS locations adaptively and statistically so that the system becomes progressively more comprehensive and accurate. Further, the system can be modularly configured for use in location signaling environments ranging from urban, dense urban, suburban, rural, mountain to low traffic or isolated roadways. Accordingly, the system is useful for 911 emergency calls, tracking, routing, people and animal location including applications for confinement to and exclusion from certain areas.

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.

In an overlay Wireless Location System, an Abis interface is monitored to obtain information used to locate GSM phones. Signaling links of the Abis interface are passively monitored to obtain certain information, such as control and traffic channel assignment, called number, and mobile identification, which is not available from the GSM air interface of the reverse channel. This approach also applies to IDEN and can include CDMA systems where the GSM architecture has been used and the system includes a separated BTS to BSC interface.

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.

The invention relates to a voice-controlled vehicle GPS navigating system and the method for realizing the same, comprising the following steps of: 1, an electric map module make the place names in a map into a place name list, and the place name list is used as a distinguishing set for a voice distinguishing module and then is sent to the voice distinguishing module; 2, the start-up key of the voice distinguishing module is turned on; 3, the voice distinguishing module receives input voice and extracts characters of the input voice; 4, voice recognition is performed after abstracting the characters; 5, after the voice recognition is finished, a plurality of candidates are output for the final affirmation of users; 6, the final results affirmed by users are transmitted to the electric map module and then is mapped into corresponding map coordinate to be displayed on a screen. The invention not only simplified the operation procedures of GPS device, but also provides safeguards for drivers, and the invention, at the same time, facilitates the popularization of GPS.

A short range radiolocation system and associated methods that allow the location of an item, such as equipment, containers, pallets, vehicles, or personnel, within a defined area. A small, battery powered, self-contained tag is provided to an item to be located. The tag includes a spread-spectrum transmitter that transmits a spread-spectrum code and identification information. A plurality of receivers positioned about the area receive signals from a transmitting tag. The position of the tag, and hence the item, is located by triangulation. The system employs three different ranging techniques for providing coarse, intermediate, and fine spatial position resolution. Coarse positioning information is provided by use of direct-sequence code phase transmitted as a spread-spectrum signal. Intermediate positioning information is provided by the use of a difference signal transmitted with the direct-sequence spread-spectrum code. Fine positioning information is provided by use of carrier phase measurements. An algorithm is employed to combine the three data sets to provide accurate location measurements.

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 signal collection system (SCS) is used in a wireless location system that determines the geographical locations of mobile wireless transmitters. The SCS includes a first receiver module, a first digital signal processing (DSP) module, a control and communications module, a timing signal generator including an enhanced GPS receiver, and a bus coupling the DSP module to the communications and control module. The receiver module receives RF signals from the mobile transmitters via a plurality of antennas and digitizes said RF signals, and provides digitized RF data to the first DSP module.

A multiple pass location processing method, for use in a wireless location system (WLS), comprises identifying a received transmission as requiring multiple pass location processing whereby the WLS produces a first, lower quality location estimate and then subsequently produces a second, higher quality location estimate. The WLS then produces the first location estimate and provides it to a first location application, and then produces the second location estimate. The second location estimate may be a more accurate estimate than the first location estimate and / or of a higher confidence than the first location estimate. This method is suitable, but not limited, for use in connection with locating a wireless transmitter involved in an emergency services call and routing the call to a call center.

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 position determining device is disclosed comprising a satellite navigation receiver for automatically providing computed position information, when the device has changed its position relative to a predetermined location, to a paging transmitter for transmission to a paging receiver for readout of the computed position information. The readout may be in the form of coordinates and may be accompanied by a message or alarm. The device may be configured as a portable unit of small size and economical manufacture.

The present invention is directed to utilizing monitoring devices (200) for determining the effectiveness of various locations, such as media display locations (150) for an intended purpose (media display exposure). The monitoring devices (200) are distributed to a number of study respondents. The monitoring devices (200) track the movements of the respondents. While various technologies may be used to track the movements of the respondents, at least some of the location tracking of the monitoring device (200) utilize a satellite (105) location system such as the global positioning system (“GPS”). These movements of the respondent and monitoring device (200) at some point coincide with exposure to a number of media displays (150). Geo data (movement data) collected by the monitoring devices, is downloaded to a download server (300), for determining which media displays (150) the respondent was exposed to. The exposure determinations are made by a post-processing server (400).

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).

In an overlay Wireless Location System, an Abis interface is monitored to obtain information used to locate GSM phones. Signaling links of the Abis interface are passively monitored to obtain certain information, such as control and traffic channel assignment, called number, and mobile identification, which is not available from the GSM air interface of the reverse channel. This approach also applies to IDEN and can include CDMA systems where the GSM architecture has been used and the system includes a separated BTS to BSC interface.

Position determination accuracy of a wireless communication device may be negatively affected by a large unaccounted GPS doppler bias, which in turn may affect GPS doppler estimations and GPS doppler measurements conducted by the wireless communication device. The quality of GPS doppler measurements is very important for position location, because poor quality GPS doppler measurements may prevent the wireless communication device from acquiring satellites in the most sensitive modes with narrow frequency ranges, which results in reduced GPS pseudorange measurement yield. Large unaccounted GPS doppler bias also adversely affects position accuracy because of the adverse effect on the GPS code phase measurements time propagation to common time prior to their use in position location calculation. The same is true in the case of unaccounted CDMA code doppler, through the adverse effect on the AFLT code phase measurements time propagation to common time prior to their use in a position location engine. This effect is the biggest concern in the case of large search windows. Therefore, the present disclosure provides a method of optimizing GPS based position location in the presence of time-varying frequency error, including the steps of continuously measuring and / or calculating resulting GPS doppler bias and CDMA code doppler bias and then minimizing their adverse effects with regard to position location determination by re-centering GPS doppler search windows based on the GPS doppler bias value, as well as using GPS doppler bias and CDMA code doppler bias value to properly propagate GPS pseudorange and AFLT pilot phase measurements, respectively, to common time prior to their use in a position location engine.

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 system and method uses wireless communication devices as beacons to determine the relative location of another target wireless communication device. The beacons transmit identifying information that the target device can use to determine the identity of the beacon. The target device can measure the received intensity of the beacon transmissions and determine an associated beacon that best satisfies a specified criteria (e.g., largest signal strength) using a procedure of the present invention that discriminates between multiple beacons.

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.