Energy-efficient location determination

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9986375-B2
Application number	US-201414179209-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 12, 2014
Priority date	Feb 12, 2014
Publication date	May 29, 2018
Grant date	May 29, 2018

Abstract

A location management system identifies points of interest that may be of interest to one or more users. The location management system defines a geofence boundary encompassing a particular point of interest. When the location management system determines that the user device is inside the geofence boundary—but not, for example, when the location management system determines that the user determines that the user device is outside the geofence boundary—the location management system instructs the user device to determine wireless signals available to the user device. The location management system then receives wireless signal data from the user device for available wireless signals. By matching the received wireless signal data to known wireless signals available at the identified points of interest, the location management system determines that the user device (and hence the user) is at the point of interest.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer implemented method to determine locations of user computing devices, comprising:
identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a plurality of points of interest, wherein the plurality of points of interest comprises a particular point of interest;
determining, by the one or more computing devices at a first time, a location of a user computing device within a proximity to the particular point of interest;
in response to determining the location of the user computing device within the proximity to the particular point of interest, determining, by the one or more computing devices, geofence boundary data for a geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest;
communicating, by the one or more computing devices, the geofence boundary data to the user computing device;
determining, by one or more computing devices and at a second time that is subsequent to the first time, that the user computing device is located outside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest, wherein the user computing device is separate and distinct from the one or more computing devices;
determining, by the one or more computing devices and at a third time that is subsequent to the first time and subsequent to the second time, that the user computing device is located inside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest; and,
in response to determining at the third time that the user computing device is located inside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest:
communicating, by the one or more computing devices, instructions to the user computing device to invoke a wireless signal detection module associated with the user computing device that scans for wireless signal data in accordance with the instructions;
receiving, by the one or more computing devices, particular wireless signal data for a particular wireless signal from the user computing device after invocation of the wireless signal detection module associated with the user computing device and receipt of the particular wireless signal data by the wireless signal detection module associated with the user computing device, the particular wireless signal data comprising a wireless device identifier associated with the particular wireless signal;
determining, by the one or more computing devices and based on the particular wireless signal data, that the particular wireless signal available to the user computing device and comprising the particular wireless device identifier is associated with the particular point of interest; and
determining, by the one or more computing devices and in response to determining that the particular wireless signal is associated with the particular point of interest, that the user computing device is at the particular point of interest.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the particular wireless signal is associated with the particular point of interest comprises:
identifying, by the one or more computing devices, one or more wireless signals that are available at each of the one or more of the plurality of points of interest, each of the one or more wireless signals comprising a respective wireless device identifier;
associating, by the one or more computing devices and in a record for the plurality of points of interest, the identified one or more wireless device identifiers with the one or more points of interest where the corresponding wireless signal is available;
reading, by the one or more computing devices, the content of the received particular wireless signal data comprising the particular wireless device identifier;
comparing, by the one or more computing devices, the particular wireless device identifier with the record of the plurality of points of interest comprising corresponding wireless device identifiers;
identifying, by the one or more computing devices and based on the comparison of the particular wireless device identifier with the record of the plurality of points of interest comprising corresponding wireless device identifiers, a match between the particular wireless device identifier and the particular wireless device identifier in the record; and
associating, by the one or more computing devices and in response to identifying the match for the particular wireless device identifier in the record for the point of interest, the received particular wireless signal with the particular point of interest.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein communicating the instructions to the user computing device to invoke a wireless signal detection module in response to determining that the user computing device is inside the geofence boundary results in reduced energy consumption of the user computing device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the user computing device is inside the geofence boundary comprises receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a notification from the user computing device that the user computing device is at or inside the geofence boundary.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless signal data for the particular wireless signal that is available to the user computing device comprises a Wi-Fi wireless local area network (WLAN) signal, a Bluetooth signal, a near field communication (NFC) signal, or combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the particular wireless device identifier comprises a media access control (MAC) address associated with the Wi-Fi wireless local area network (WLAN) signal.

7. A system to determine locations of user computing devices, comprising:
a storage device;
a processor communicatively coupled to the storage device, wherein the processor executes application code instructions that are stored in the storage device to cause the system to:
identify a plurality of points of interest, wherein the plurality of points of interest comprises a particular point of interest;
determine, at a first time, a location of a user computing device within a proximity to the particular point of interest;
in response to determining the location of the user computing device within the proximity to the particular point of interest, determine geofence boundary data for a geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest;
communicate the geofence boundary data to the user computing device;
determine, at a second time subsequent to the first time, that the user computing device is located outside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest;
determine, at a third time that is subsequent to the first time and subsequent to the second time, that the user computing device is located inside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest;
communicate, in response to determining at the third time that the user computing device is located inside the geofence boundary encompassing the particular point of interest, instructions to the user computing device to invoke a wireless signal detection module associated with the user computing device; and
receive, in response to invoking the wireless signal detection module associated with user computing device, wireless signal data for a particular wireless signal from the user computing device after receipt of the particular wireless signal data by the wireless signal detection module associated with the user computing device, wherein the availability of the wireless signal to the user computing device at the point of interest provides an indication that the user computing device is at the point of interest.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the processor is further configured to execute application code instructions that are stored in the storage device to cause the system

Assignees

• Google Inc
• Google Llc

Inventors

• Scellato Salvatore
• Stuttle Matthew Nicholas
• Thota Chandrasekhar

Classifications

• H04W4/021 Primary

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• H04W64/00

  Locating users or terminals {or network equipment} for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management · CPC title

• G01S5/0252

  Radio frequency fingerprinting · CPC title

• Y02D70/164

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• Y02D70/144

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic