US 2013/0210449 A1 · MOBILE GEOLOCATION

Abstract

Estimating a location of a first mobile communication unit (220) in a cellular wireless communications system (200) comprises comparing a first signature from the first mobile communication unit with known signatures. The first signature may comprise control information, a set of observable cells and received power level information for the first mobile communication unit (220). A location estimate is provided from the known location of a known signature in a database (410), if that known signature matches the first signature. The comparison may be a correlation to determine the degree of matching. Context information may link two or more known signatures in the database (410), the known signatures having been obtained in temporal succession from one mobile device (258) in use in the system. The context information may be used in the comparison.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A method of estimating a location of a mobile communication unit in a cellular wireless communications system, the cellular wireless communications system comprising mobile communication units, the method comprising:

compiling a first signature, for signals received by a first mobile communication unit at a first point in time, the first signature comprising:
control information;
a set of cells, the set of cells being cells observable by the first mobile communication unit;
and
received power level information, for signals received from the observable cells;
estimating a location of the first mobile communication unit at the first point in time, the estimate being based on location information of a first known signature, the first known signature being selected by comparing the first signature with known signatures entered in a database, the known signatures comprising location information.

3 more elements

A method of estimating a location of a mobile communication unit in a cellular wireless communications system, the method comprising:

receiving a first signature from a first mobile communication unit in the cellular wireless communications system, the first signature comprising information about signals received by the first mobile communication unit from one or more base stations of the cellular wireless communications system;
using the signature to select at least two known signatures from a database, each of the at least two known signatures having been obtained successively from a second mobile communication unit operating in the cellular wireless communications system;
estimating a location of the first mobile communication unit as the known location of one of the at least two known signatures.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Mobile geolocation

Life of this patent

Mobile geolocation

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25