Room association device conveying sector data for in-room position and facing determinations

A system comprising:

• a plurality of room association devices, each comprising an optical signal transmitter, a radio frequency (RF) receiver, and a network transmitter, each of said room association devices for emitting via the optical signal transmitter spatially constrained optical signals along a plurality of different zones, each zone having a zone specific identifier encoded within the optical signal and having an identifier of the room association device encoded within the optical signal;
• at least one mobile device comprising a plurality of optical sensors and a radio frequency (RF) transmitter, said mobile device for detecting via one of the optical sensors optical signals emitted from the room association devices, for encoding data detected within the optical signals into at least one radio frequency signal transmitted via the radio frequency transmitter, wherein said radio frequency receiver of each of the room association devices is for receiving radio frequency signals transmitted by the mobile device;
• and
• a computing device comprising a processor and a network receiver, wherein said network transmitter of each of the room association devices is for transmitting data to the computing device, wherein the data transmitted by the room association device is received by the room association device from a mobile device, wherein the processor of the computing device executes a computer program product for determining a position within a room of the mobile device, wherein said determining of the position is based on which of the different zones the mobile device is in, wherein the different zones are the zones defined by spatially constrained optical signals received by the mobile device.

A room association device (RAD) comprising;

• a processor for processing programmatic instructions;
• a memory comprising a storage medium;
• an optical signal transmitter for emitting optical signals in a plurality of different spatially constrained zones, each optical emission comprising digitally encoded data comprising a unique transmitter key associated with the room association device and a unique sector key that uniquely identifies which of the different spatially constrained zones is associated with the optical signals;
• a radio frequency signal receiver for receiving radio frequency communications;
• a network transmitter for conveying data digitally encoded within carrier waves over a network to a remotely located computing device;
• a bus for communicatively linking said processor, said memory, said optical signal transmitter, said RF signal receiver, and said network transceiver;
• and
• a logic unit comprising at least one computer program product stored in said memory and executable by said processor, wherein execution of at least one computer program product of the logic unit causes the room association device to:
• receive content digitally encoded in the radio frequency communications received by the radio frequency signal receiver, said received content comprising data uniquely identifying a mobile device, data identifying one of a plurality of optical sensors of the mobile device, where said identified optical sensor is one that detected at least one of the optical signals transmitted by the optical signal transmitter, data identifying the unique transmitter key and the sector key encoded within the identified optical sensor;
• and
• transmit a digitally encoded message via said network transmitter, said digitally encoded message comprising encoded information based at least in part on the received content for determining a triangulated relative position of said mobile device, wherein the determining of the triangulated relative position is based exclusively on a set of optical signals detected by the mobile device.

A mobile device comprising:

• a processor for processing programmatic instructions;
• a memory comprising a storage medium;
• a plurality of optical sensors for detected optical energy emissions comprising digitally encoded data;
• an RF signal transmitter for transmitting content encoded within carrier waves within the RF spectrum;
• a bus for communicatively linking said processor, said memory, said optical sensors, and said RF signal transmitter;
• a logic unit comprising at least one computer program product stored in said memory an executable by said processor, wherein execution of at least one computer program product of the logic unit causes the mobile device to:
• receive at least two different optical signals emitted from different optical transmitters;
• for each received optical signal, decode via a processor content contained within the at least two different optical signals, said content comprising an indicator of an optical source that transmitted the corresponding one of the at least two different optical signals and the spatially constrained zone of the corresponding one of the at least two different optical signals;
• query a tangible storage medium of the mobile device for an unique identifier of the mobile device;
• and
• transmit at least one radio frequency signal, comprising digitally encoded RF data, said RF data comprising, for each of the at least two different optical signals, the identifier of the optical source associated the corresponding one of the at least two different optical signals and the spatially constrained zone associated with the corresponding one of the at least two different optical signals, and a sensor identifier of a sensor that received the corresponding one of the at least two different optical signals, said RF data also comprising the unique identifier of the mobile device.