Transmitting location data in wireless networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9109903-B2
Application number	US-97359007-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 9, 2007
Priority date	Oct 9, 2007
Publication date	Aug 18, 2015
Grant date	Aug 18, 2015

Abstract

A wireless access point in a wireless network that may be adapted to transmit location data indicating its location to other devices within range, including other wireless access points and client devices. In some embodiments of the invention, the location data may be embedded in a control message or announcement transmission transmitted by the wireless access point, or other message conventionally used to broadcast network characteristics necessary for a client device to establish a connection to the wireless access point. In terms of the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) layered model of a network, layer 2 control messages, including beacons, probe responses, or other suitable transmissions may be used for control messages or announcement transmissions. The other wireless access points and client devices may receive the location data broadcast by the wireless access point without establishing a connection to the client device. Devices receiving the location data may use the received location data to determine their own locations, and may provide the determined locations to consumers of location data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed on a wireless network computing device, the method comprising:
segmenting location data into a plurality of parts, the location data describing a physical location of the wireless network computing device;
encoding each part of the plurality of parts in a different information element of a plurality of information elements;
combining the plurality of information elements into a single beacon;
transmitting the beacon, where the transm…

Assignees

• Wu Deyun
• Kuehnel Thomas W
• Hassan Amer A
• Lu Yi
• Shen Hui
• Subramani Sundar P
• Swamy Vinod K
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Wu Deyun
• Kuehnel Thomas W
• Hassan Amer A
• Lu Yi
• Shen Hui
• Subramani Sundar P
• Swamy Vinod K

Classifications

• H04W64/003 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G01C21/20 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04W4/02

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W4/029

  Electricity · mapped topic