Hierarchical Grid Cell Identifier for Mobile Location Tracking
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current location determination systems, such as GPS, provide insufficient information about a mobile device's location in terms of whether it is within specific geographical regions like stores, homes, or commercial districts, and are computationally intensive for determining neighboring locations and distances.
Innovation Solution
A computationally efficient method and system using a hierarchical grid system to determine if a mobile device is within a predetermined geographical boundary by converting location coordinates to cell identifiers, allowing for efficient searching and identification of neighboring regions, reducing the number of cells needed while maintaining precision.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If Ray Casting is used to determine whether a point is within a polygon, then the determination can be made, but the computation is intensive involving floating point number computations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the continuous geographical space into discrete grid cells with integer coordinates. Instead of using floating-point ray casting computations to determine point-in-polygon membership, the system segments space into manageable units (grid cells) that can be efficiently queried using integer arithmetic, thereby resolving the contradiction between measurement precision and computational efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the geometric ray casting mechanism (which requires floating-point computations) with a grid-based coordinate system using integer arithmetic. This substitution eliminates the need for complex floating-point mathematical operations while maintaining the ability to determine spatial relationships, thus improving computational efficiency without sacrificing location determination accuracy.
2Area of stationary object
If traditional grid systems are used to represent geographical regions, then region coverage is achieved, but a large number of cells are needed which increases data storage and processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a hierarchical grid system where grid cells at different resolution levels are nested within each other. Coarse-grained cells contain finer-grained cells, allowing the system to represent large geographical regions with fewer top-level cells while maintaining the option to drill down to finer resolutions only where needed. This nesting principle reduces the total number of cells that must be actively managed and stored.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different grid resolutions to different geographical regions based on their characteristics. High-traffic or important regions use finer grid resolutions, while less important regions use coarser resolutions. This local quality approach ensures adequate coverage and precision where needed while minimizing the total number of cells in low-priority areas, thus reducing overall data storage and processing requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods including mobile devices determining their locations using a location determination system, such as a global positioning system. A set of locations, including locations of one or more mobile devices, are identified by their coordinates on the surface of the Earth. The set of locations are efficiently organized into a graph of locations connecting to neighboring locations with edges representing distances to their neighboring locations. For each respective location, a computing device combines coordinates of the respective location into an identifier of a cell that contains the respective location without floating point computations, and stores cell-location data associating respective cells with respective locations. For each respective location, the computing device identifies neighboring cells of the cell that contains the respective location, looks up locations associated with the identifiers of the cell and its neighboring cells, as neighboring locations or candidates for neighboring locations.