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US 2011/0084881 A1Published application
Identifying neighbors of geo-spatially distributed radio transmitters
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorMarkus Fischer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Processes and systems are presented, for identifying a set of neighbors of a radio transmitter based on available geo-spatial coordinates of radio transmitters in operation around the world. In one aspect, the identified set of radio transmitters can be have a desired size (in terms of number of neighbors and/or radial range). The identified set of radio transmitters can be further customized to include radio transmitters of a specific type, and/or radio transmitters that belong to specific network carriers, and/or other possible grouping criteria.
Claims20
A method performed by a server computer, the method comprising:
- receiving from a central source updates about geographically distributed radio transmitters;
- responsive to the received updates, generating an associated set of neighbors for each of the geographically distributed radio transmitters, wherein the associated set of neighbors of a radio transmitter includes up to a predetermined number of geographically-closest neighboring radio transmitters of the radio transmitter, wherein each radio transmitter of the associated set of neighbors of the radio transmitter is located up to a predetermined geographical-distance away from the radio transmitter;
- and
- upon request from a mobile device in communication with a given radio transmitter, providing to the mobile device geo-spatial coordinates for each of a generated set of neighbors associated with the given radio transmitter to facilitate location-based services (LBS).
1 more element
A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:
- receiving from a central source updates about geographically distributed radio transmitters;
- and
- responsive to the received updates, generating an associated set of neighbors for each of the geographically distributed radio transmitters, wherein the associated set of neighbors of a radio transmitter includes up to a predetermined number of geographically-closest neighboring radio transmitters of the radio transmitter, wherein each radio transmitter of the associated set of neighbors of the radio transmitter is located up to a predetermined geographical-distance away from the radio transmitter.
A system comprising:
- a user device;
- one or more computers operable to interact with the device;
- a set of geographically distributed assets of known latitude and longitude;
- and
- a specified geographic location, wherein
- the one or more computers are further operable to provide to the user device a subset of the set of assets, the subset comprising assets located within a predetermined radial-distance from the specified location, wherein the one or more computers are configured to perform operations comprising:
- group assets from the set of geographically distributed assets in latitude-bins, each latitude-bin having a width equal to twice the predetermined radial-distance, and overlapping half of a next-to-the-North latitude-bin and half of a next-to-the-South latitude-bin;
- sort the assets, in two latitude-bins containing the specified location, by longitude-distance to the specified location;
- for each sorted asset having the longitude-distance to the specified location shorter than the predetermined radial-distance, calculate a geographical-distance to the specified location;
- and
- add to the subset an asset having the calculated geographical-distance to the specified location shorter than the predetermined radial-distance.
8 more elements
A system comprising:
- a user device;
- one or more computers operable to interact with the device;
- a set of geographically distributed radio transmitters of known latitude and longitude;
- and
- a specified geographic location, wherein
- the one or more computers are further operable to provide to the device a subset of the set of radio transmitters, the subset comprising up to a predetermined number of radio transmitters located within a predetermined radial-distance from the specified location, wherein the one or more computers are configured to perform operations comprising:
- group radio transmitters from the set of geographically distributed radio transmitters in latitude-bins, each latitude-bin having a width equal to twice the predetermined radial-distance, and overlapping half of a next-to-the-North latitude-bin and half of a next-to-the-South latitude-bin;
- sort the radio transmitters, in two latitude-bins containing the specified location, by longitude-distance to the specified location;
- for each sorted radio transmitter having the longitude-distance to the specified location shorter than a maximum distance for the subset, calculate a geographical-distance to the specified location, wherein the maximum distance for the subset is equal to
- the predetermined radial-distance, if the predetermined number of radio transmitters has not been reached, and
- a geographical-distance corresponding to an radio transmitter of the subset that is located farthest from the specified location, if the predetermined number of radio transmitters has been reached;
- add to the subset, a radio transmitter having the calculated geographical-distance shorter than the maximum distance for the subset;
- and
- responsive to the predetermined number of radio transmitters having been reached, remove from the subset the radio transmitter that is located farthest from the specified location.
11 more elements
A computer-implemented method for searching waypoints, the method comprising:
- a) receiving a set of waypoints, each waypoint having associated latitude and longitude values;
- b) ordering the received set of waypoints along lines of latitude, sorted by longitude values;
- c) closing the lines of latitude by linking the highest and lowest longitude value waypoints per latitude line;
- d) examining each one of the set of waypoints starting at a reference waypoint on a line of latitude and moving away from the reference waypoint through longitude values;
- e) during the examination, ascending and descending along the lines of latitude and calculating a geographical-distance between the reference waypoint and an examined neighboring waypoint;
- f) stopping examination and providing a set of neighbors of the reference waypoint when a last examined waypoint is closer than a next waypoint in latitude-distance, either ascending or descending, wherein the set of neighbors comprises the examined waypoints;
- and
- g) repeating steps (d-f) for all of the set of waypoints along the lines of latitude, for all the lines of latitude.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.