Method for improving signal acquistion in a global positioning system receiver

Abstract

A method and system improves signal acquisition in a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver by providing information to focus the acquisition search in the receiver. In particular, the invention relates to the case where a GPS receiver is integrated with a transceiver that is capable of communicating with a cellular or PCS network via the air-interface particular to that network. Standard information provided by the network is used to assist the integrated GPS receiver and improve its sensitivity and latency. The result of this improvement is that the receiver can rapidly acquire satellites and compute its position in environments where conventional, stand-alone GPS receivers cannot. This added performance is very important for the emergency location application, since the user may have high expectations for personal safety in a variety of situations. Furthermore, the rapid acquisition reduces power consumption, which is very important for battery-powered devices utilizing such combined GPS and cellular technologies.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.