Providing position information to a device

Details Providing position information to a device Providing position information to a device

2002-10-17

2004-03-30

Black, Thomas G. (Department: 3663)

Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location

Navigation

Employing position determining equipment

C455S422100, C455S456500, C455S556200, C370S312000, C370S399000, C709S224000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06714865

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and more particularly to providing position information to a device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Position determination systems offer a method of providing a geographic position relative to other people or objects, whether moving or stationary. The number of these systems is increasing and they fall into two broad categories, namely, stand-alone and remote.
Remote systems require an external source in order to determine location. Services include electronic navigational fixed beacons, such as Long Range Electronic Navigation (LORAN). The beacons repetitively transmit signals and a device determines its own location by determining a beacon ID and determining its distance from the beacon.
Another example of a remote system is network-based triangulation. Examples of triangulation techniques include a radio cell. Typically, a plurality of cell stations communicate via a network and a plurality of devices (personal stations) are free to move amongst radio cells, whereby each cell station has a radio cell. The radio cell defines a territory within which a device can communicate with a cell station via a radio link and each of the cells comprises a unique cell number. A device will typically have knowledge of a cell number but is unlikely to know the longitude and latitude data from this information. Therefore, a network server typically utilises the cell number information and associates the number with a radio cell. The server then associates the cell with a geographic position. This technique is relatively inaccurate and also performs poorly in built up areas. The implementation is typically server based, otherwise all applications running on the devices would need to be able to relate a cell number to a position—this would be a processing overhead.
Another example is a radio cell segment, whereby a cell is broken into several segments, e.g. a 90-degree segment. This technique is more accurate than the radio cell and is again server based to be useful, otherwise all applications running on devices would need to be able to relate a cell/segment number to a position. A further improvement is a radio cell with distance estimation whereby, distance estimation occurs by utilising signal strength or transmission latency. This technique can be combined with the radio cell techniques described above, to increase the accuracy of results. Typically, signal strength can be measured on the device itself or via a network base station. Generally, distance estimates can only realistically be made in the network and therefore, this technique is typically server based.
A triangulation technique, such as satellite triangulation, calculates a device's spatial relationship to the satellites, in order to determine the position. As shown in
FIG. 1A
, the reading (
100
) from one satellite will narrow the area to be searched significantly. In
FIG. 1B
, utilising readings from two satellites, narrows the field of search to the area (
105
) where the readings intersect. Finally in
FIG. 1C
, by utilising a third satellite, a device's position is placed at one point (
110
). Typically, this technique is again server based.
Stand-alone systems can provide location information in the required format (longitude, latitude and error) without having to communicate with an external source. An example is a device-based triangulation system, such as, the Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS comprises a multitude of satellites orbiting approximately 11,000 miles above the earth's surface, which are used to enable the position of a compatible receiver to be located relative to the earth. There are eight orbiting satellites in each of three sets of orbits giving twenty-four satellites in total. The longitude, latitude and altitude of any point close to earth, with respect to the centre of the earth, are calculated by determining the propagation time of signals from at least four of the satellites to the point.
Referring to
FIG. 2
, there is shown a partially schematic pictorial view of a global positioning system (
202
). As illustrated, a computer (
204
) may be located, for example, in Greenock, Scotland. Also depicted within the global system (
202
) is a plurality of terrestrial satellites (
206
). The satellite network comprises a plurality of satellites (
206
) that may be implemented utilising several combinations of satellite systems. For example, the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system may be utilised. Generally, although GPS is essentially a device-based technique (the device being the GPS receiver), to provide more accuracy, a server could also be utilised in order to determine position. The details of a global positioning system are believed to be within the ambit of those having ordinary skill in this art and thus, the details of such a system form no part of this specification.
Another example of a stand-alone system is a technology that pre-configures a fixed location for a device. An example of such a device is an information point kiosk, which is configured on installation with its location.
An additional system for determining position involves asking the user of a device, either for a position or for landmarks (e.g. street names, routes, buildings, etc.). This system is clearly not automatic/immediate but in some situations (where all else fails), by prompting the user for input, a position determination system can begin to try and determine a position. Another technique, “dead reckoning” tracks a user when he/she passes sensing positions on a particular route for a period of time. An estimated position can be established by extrapolation, the real position being updated and subsequent estimates improved when the next sensing position is passed.
NMEA-0183 (National Marine Electronics Association) is an interface standard for transmitting navigation information (including GPS). The characters utilised in the standard are in ASCII text and the data transmitted between devices occurs in a “sentence” format. The standard allows proprietary sentence formats to be set and therefore, users of devices will encounter the problem of having to subscribe to proprietary solutions.
With the increasing use of mobile devices, the number of location based services is on the increase. Location based services are a set of applications that utilise a geographic position associated with a mobile device. Depending on a user's geographic position, different location based services are provided to a user.
Location based services utilise stored user profiles. The user profiles could be stored within a home location register for a cellular telecommunication system. Stored within each user profile is a plurality of service profiles associated with that user, whereby each of the plurality of service profiles is defined for a zone location. Real-life applications of location based services include safety purposes, such as roadside assistance; billing purposes, such as location sensitive billing; information purposes, such as traffic, navigation or news information and tracking purposes, such as fleet management.
Currently, prior art solutions for providing position information offer no method of structuring the various types of position information provided by position determination systems. Furthermore, a problem with current position determination systems is that they are all server based. Therefore, a client application is unable to access position information without accessing an external server of a proprietary solution. Even when using GPS, whereby a position is obtained via a GPS receiver on the device, there is no method of accessing any proprietary system and furthermore, GPS receivers are costly.
Therefore, there is a need for a user to know his/her current position without having to subscribe to or purchase proprietary solutions. There is a need for a technique whereby an application running on a device (such as a route finder application) can determine the device's position by using-a familiar co-or

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