High resolution localization for indoor environments
Assignee3Com Corporation
InventorsJustin Drummond-Murray, Andrew Terry, Niels Erven, Peter Doggart
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to locating a person who is operating a wireless communications device in an indoor environment. In particular, it relates to processing various combinations of RSSI, direction of arrival and flight time characteristics of a signal, as received at two or more and preferably three or more access points. In one embodiment, the access points implement a wireless LAN (WLAN) and the communications device is a telephone operating over the WLAN. In another embodiment, the localization of a wireless device allows a system to reject users who are outside a predefined physical area.
Claims26
A method of locating a wireless device in an indoor environment using three or more wireless access points connected to a network, the method including:
- collecting, at the wireless access points, direction of arrival and at least one of received signal strength or flight time data about signals from the wireless device to be located;
- and
- calculating at a location processing device, a location of the wireless device, using the data from the wireless access points.
A system for locating a wireless device in an indoor environment, the system including:
- three or more wireless access points having multiple antennas, coupled to a network;
- first logic and resources, integrated into the wireless access points, adapted to calculate direction of arrival and at least one of received signal strength or flight time of signals from the wireless device;
- and
- a location processing device in communication with the first logic and resources, including second logic and resources to calculate a location of the wireless device.
A multi-antenna access point, adapted to provide information about one or more signals from a wireless device to a location processing device, the access point including:
- an antenna array;
- a signal processor, operatively coupled to the antenna array, including logic and resources to calculate received signal strength, direction of arrival and flight time characteristics of the signals from the wireless device;
- and
- a port coupled to the signal processor, adapted to communicate the calculated characteristics to the location processing device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.