System and method for wireless positioning in wireless network-enabled environments

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10349286-B2
Application number	US-201214130274-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 5, 2012
Priority date	Jun 30, 2011
Publication date	Jul 9, 2019
Grant date	Jul 9, 2019

Abstract

A system and method for providing wireless positioning and an accuracy measure thereof, using a probabilistic approach alone or in combination with other models, is provided, for wireless-network-enabled areas. Further means of ranking “base-stations” in a wireless network area according to position discrimination significance and using this ranking to provide an accuracy measure of positioning is provided. Further means of determining the locations of “base-stations” of a wireless network in unknown area without the need for any absolute reference based positioning system is provided.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system that builds a model for predicting the received signal strength at any location within a wireless network area of a signal transmitted by at least one transceiver means, the system comprising:
a. at least one transceiver means that constitutes the infrastructure of the wireless network configured to transmit a power pattern comprising:
i. information that identifies the at least one transmitting transceiver means, and information that identifies any other transceiver means in the area and visible by the at least one transmitting transceiver means,
ii. power information for a signal transmitted by the at least one transmitting transceiver means, and
iii. received signal strength information of signals transmitted by the any other transceiver means in the area and visible by the at least one transmitting transceiver means, and

b. at least one processor configured to receive the power pattern transmitted from each of the at least one transceiver means and
i. processing the information that identifies the at least one transceiver means to locate the at least one transceiver means, and
ii. automatically and dynamically building the model online for predicting received signal strength of a signal transmitted by the at least one transceiver means at any location within the area,

wherein the power patterns transmitted by the at least one transceiver means are broadcasted wirelessly or transmitted through a wired network to the at least one processor.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is programmed to build one of the following models to predict the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means at any location within the wireless network area:
a. an online propagation model of the at least one transceiver means, wherein the propagation model relates the received signal strength from the at least one transceiver means to a distance from the at least one transceiver means,
b. an online power profile of the at least one transceiver means, wherein the power profile relates the received signal strength from the at least one transceiver means to a location in the wireless network area, or
c. a combination of the propagation model and the online power profile of the at least one transceiver means.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the online models for predicting the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means are built using an adaptive, calibrated best-fit mathematical formula calibrated dynamically online based on the information in the power patterns.

4. The system of claim 2 , wherein the online models for predicting the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means are built using an adaptive, calibrated conditional probabilistic approach where the prediction of the signal strength at any distance from the at least one transceiver means or at any location in the wireless network area is modeled as the probability of the signal strength conditioned on, or given, the signal strength information in the power patterns.

5. The system of claim 2 , wherein the online models for predicting the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means are built using the combination of an adaptive, calibrated hybrid approach that combines a best fit mathematical model to dynamically estimate a general pattern of the received signal strength and a conditional probabilistic approach to estimate residual signal strength errors that cannot be modeled using the best fit mathematical model.

6. The system of any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the online models for predicting the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means undergo online, automatic, dynamic, and adaptive verification and correction to adapt to any change in the wireless network area.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the verification and the correction of the models occurs periodically.

8. The system of any one of claims 1 to 5 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to calculate an accuracy measure of the predicted signal strength.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to calculate the accuracy measure of the predicted signal strength by:
a. calculating a conditional probability of the signal strength conditioned on, or given, the information in the power patterns,
b. calculating a variance of the conditional probability, and
c. converting the variance into an accuracy measure of the predicted received signal strength.

10. The system of any one of the claims 1 to 5 wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to determine a location for each of the at least one transceiver means using:
a. a table containing the location of each of the at least one transceiver means indexed by the information that identifies the at least one transceiver means, or
b. by encoding the location of each of the at least one transceiver means in the power patterns transmitted by the at least one transceiver means.

11. The system of any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the at least one processor is further configured to position at least one wireless-enabled device differently from the at least one transceiver means that constitutes the infrastructure of the wireless network, the system comprising:
a. at least one wireless-enabled device configured to receive the signal from some of the at least one transceiver means and producing a power fingerprint output indicative thereof comprising:
i. information that identifies the at least one transceiver means visible by the at least one wireless-enabled device, and
ii. received signal strength information about the at least one transceiver means visible by the at least one wireless-enabled device,

wherein the at least one processor compares the signal strength predicted by the online models with the power fingerprint received from the wireless-enabled device to calculate a position of the wireless-enabled device.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the online models for predicting the signal strength of the at least one transceiver means at any location within the wireless network comprise:
a. an online propagation model of the at least one transceiver means, wherein the propagation model relates the received signal strength from the at least one transceiver means to a distance from the at least one transceiver means,
b. an online power profile of the at least one transceiver means wherein the power profile relates the received signal strength from the at least one transceiver means to a location in the wireless network area, or
c. a combination of an online propagation model and an online power profile of the at least one transceiver means.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the at least one wireless-enabled device receives the position calculated by the at least one processor through one of the following options:
a. through a wireless communication between the at least one processor and the at least one wireless-enabled device,
b. through a wired communication between the at least one processor and the at least one wireless-enabled device, or
c. by embedding the at least one processor inside the at least one wireless-enabled device in a single device.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the at least one processor is programmed to dynamically calculate a position of the at least one wireless-enabled device by:
a. using the online models for predicting signal strength of the at least one transceiver means at any location within the wireless network area and the power fingerprint of the at least one wireless-enabled device to estimate a distance between the wireless e

Assignees

• Atia Mohamed
• Noureldin Aboelmagd
• Invensense Inc

Inventors

• Atia Mohamed
• Noureldin Aboelmagd

Classifications

• H04W16/20

  for indoor coverage or short range network deployment · CPC title

• H04W84/12

  WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks] · CPC title

• H04W16/18 Primary

  Network planning tools · CPC title

• H04W24/02

  Arrangements for optimising operational condition · CPC title

• H04W64/003

  locating network equipment · CPC title