Low-energy consumption location of movable objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9606238-B2
Application number	US-201615060442-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 3, 2016
Priority date	Mar 6, 2015
Publication date	Mar 28, 2017
Grant date	Mar 28, 2017

Abstract

Low-energy consumption techniques for locating a movable object using a global satellite navigation system (GNSS) are provided. A mobile station attached to or included in a movable object can communicate bidirectionally with a fixed base station to determine a location of the movable object. The mobile station may communicate an estimated position to the base station and receive from the base station a set of GNSS satellites that are visible to the mobile station. The mobile station can acquire satellite timing information from GNSS signals from the set of satellites and communicate minimally-processed satellite timing information to the base station. The base station can determine the position of the mobile station and communicate the position back to the mobile station. By offloading much of the processing to the base station, energy consumption of the mobile station is reduced.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for locating a movable object, the system comprising:
a mobile station configured to be associated with the movable object, the mobile station comprising:
a radio frequency (RF) mobile communication system configured to operate an RF link having an RF link frequency in an RF band that is not licensed for cellular communications;
a mobile station clock;
a mobile global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver; and
a dead reckoning system including a non-GNSS sensor, the dead reckoning system configured to use measurements from the non-GNSS sensor to provide an estimated position for the mobile station; and

a base station located at a fixed position, the base station comprising:
a base RF communication system configured to bidirectionally communicate with the mobile communication system over the RF link;
a base station clock;
a base GNSS receiver; and
a hardware processor,

wherein the base station is configured to:
receive, from the mobile station over the RF link, the estimated position of the mobile station determined by the dead reckoning system;
determine satellite acquisition information that includes a set of GNSS satellites predicted to be viewable at the estimated position of the mobile station and GNSS code phases associated with each GNSS satellite in the set, the set of GNSS satellites including at least a minimum number of GNSS satellites;
synchronize the base station clock to a time representative of the set of GNSS satellites;
communicate, to the mobile station over the RF link, the satellite acquisition information;
receive, from the mobile station over the RF link, chip transition time information associated with the set of GNSS satellites;
determine, based at least in part on the chip transition time information, an updated position for the mobile station; and

communicate, to the mobile station over the RF link, the updated position, and
wherein the mobile station is configured to:
communicate, to the base station over the RF link, the estimated position of the mobile station determined by the dead reckoning system;
exchange, with the base station over the RF link, clock timing information;
synchronize, based at least partly on the clock timing information, the mobile station clock to the base station clock that is representative of the time for the set of GNSS satellites;
receive, from the base station over the RF link, the satellite acquisition information;
wake up the mobile GNSS receiver;
acquire, by the mobile GNSS receiver based on timing of a GNSS code phase transition, GNSS signals from at least some of the GNSS satellites in the set of GNSS satellites;
put the mobile GNSS receiver to sleep;
determine, from the acquired GNSS signals, the chip transition time information associated with the GNSS code phases for the at least some of the GNSS satellites in the set; and
communicate, to the base station over the RF link, the chip transition time information.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the movable object comprises a human-propelled cart having a wheel, and the non-GNSS sensor comprises a magnetic heading sensor and a wheel rotation sensor.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the movable object comprises a human or an animal, and the non-GNSS sensor comprises a pedometer and a magnetic heading sensor.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the RF link frequency is in a range from 426 MHz to 435 MHz, 779 MHz to 787 MHz, 863 MHz to 870 MHz, 900 MHz to 928 MHz, 2.400 GHz to 2.483 GHz, or 5.725 GHz to 5.875 GHz.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the satellite acquisition information further comprises Doppler shift information associated with the satellite in the set of GNSS satellites.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the base station is configured to rank the set of GNSS satellites according to one or more ranking criteria, wherein the ranking criteria include one or more of: whether a satellite is along a direction of movement or a direction of interest of the mobile station, whether a satellite is near a horizon of the mobile station, an altitude of a satellite above the horizon of the mobile station, a Doppler shift for a satellite, ionospheric propagation errors for a satellite, positional proximity information for at least two satellites, an antenna pattern of a mobile station GNSS antenna, or presence of obstructions near a mobile station that can inhibit reception of GNSS signals from a satellite.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the satellite acquisition information includes selection information associated with an order in which the mobile station should attempt to capture GNSS signals from satellites in the set of GNSS satellites.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the order is based at least in part on whether a contingency occurs.

9. The system of claim 1 , where the base station is configured to determine the set of GNSS satellites based at least in part on reducing or minimizing a dilution of precision.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the chip transition time information further comprises a quality indicator for the at least some of the GNSS satellites in the set, the quality indicator associated with a quality of the GNSS signal received by the mobile GNSS receiver, wherein the quality indicator comprises information associated with one or more of a GNSS signal power, a width of a peak in a correlator output, or a signal-to-noise ratio.

11. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a link repeater, wherein the mobile station and the base station are each configured to bidirectionally communicate over the RF link with the link repeater.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the mobile station comprises a mobile station clock, the link repeater comprises a link repeater clock, and the base station comprises a base station clock that is representative of time for the GNSS satellites, and where the mobile station and the link repeater are configured to synchronize the mobile station clock with the link repeater clock, and the link repeater and the base station are configured to synchronize the link repeater clock with the base station clock.

13. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a pseudolite configured to communicate a navigation signal to the mobile station, and wherein the mobile station is configured to:
acquire the navigation signal from the pseudolite;
determine a pseudolite chip transition time associated with the navigation signal; and
communicate, to the base station over the RF link, the pseudolite chip transition time.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the base station is configured to determine the updated position of the mobile station based at least in part on the pseudolite chip transition time.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the pseudolite is configured to communicate the navigation signal at a pseudolite carrier frequency within 100 MHz of a GNSS satellite signal carrier frequency.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the pseudolite carrier frequency is in a range from 1626.5 MHz to 1645.5 MHz.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the mobile station is configured to store sleep parameters that include a time or a condition when the mobile station is to wake up and begin to communicate to with the base station.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the mobile station is configured to:
include an autonomous mode in which the mobile station computes its position using GNSS signals acquired from GNSS satellites; and
operate in the autonomous mode if the mobile station is unable to receive communications from the base s

Assignees

• Gatekeeper Systems Inc

Inventors

• Carter Scott J

Classifications

• G01S19/05 Primary

  providing aiding data · CPC title

• G01S19/28 Primary

  Satellite selection · CPC title

• G01S19/34

  Power consumption · CPC title

• G01S19/14

  specially adapted for specific applications · CPC title

• G01S19/252 Primary

  Employing an initial estimate of location in generating assistance data · CPC title