Apparatus and method for tracking location of mobile station
AssigneeElectronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
InventorsEung-Bae Kim, Seung-Hwan Lee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is an apparatus and method for determining a mobile station's precise three-dimensional location in a simple way, that includes a beam-forming antenna's receiving of a signal from the mobile station; measuring the distance between a wireless base station and the mobile station from the received signal; determining the mobile station's azimuth angle by horizontal scanning of the beam-forming antenna and the mobile station's elevation angle by vertical scanning of the beam-forming antenna; and updating the mobile station's distance, azimuth angle, and elevation angle at regular time intervals, thereby acquiring the mobile station's three-dimensional location simply and with precision.
Claims13
An apparatus for tracking a location of a mobile station, comprising:
- a beam-forming antenna for receiving a signal from the mobile station;
- a distance detector for measuring the distance between a wireless base station and the mobile station from the signal received by the beam-forming antenna;
- an azimuth angle detector for measuring an azimuth angle of the mobile station with respect to the wireless base station by horizontal scanning of the beam-forming antenna;
- an elevation angle detector for measuring an elevation angle of the mobile station with respect to the wireless base station by vertical scanning of the beam-forming antenna;
- and
- a location determiner for calculating the output signals of the distance detector, the azimuth angle detector, and the elevation angle detector, determining the location of the mobile station and updating it.
A method for tracking a location of a mobile station, by which at least one wireless base station including a beam-forming antenna for generating an antenna beam in multiple directions tracks the location of the mobile station, the method comprising:
- (a) receiving a signal from the mobile station;
- (b) calculating the distance between the wireless base station and the mobile station from the received signal;
- (c) scanning the antenna beam of the beam-forming antenna in a horizontal direction;
- (d) selecting a first position of the beam-forming antenna at the peak power of the received signal during the horizontal scanning, and measuring an azimuth angle between the initial position of the beam-forming antenna and the first position;
- (e) scanning the antenna beam of the beam-forming antenna in a vertical direction;
- (f) selecting a second position of the beam-forming antenna at the peak power of the received signal during the vertical scanning, and measuring an elevation angle between the initial position of the beam-forming antenna and the second position;
- (g) putting the distance, the azimuth angle, and the elevation angle together to acquire an initial location of the mobile station;
- and
- (h) updating the acquired initial location of the mobile station at regular time intervals.
A method for determining a location of a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) mobile communication system, in which the TDMA mobile communication system includes a plurality of mobile stations and a wireless base station having a beam-forming antenna for generating an antenna beam in multiple directions, the method comprising:
- (a) measuring the distance between the wireless base station and an i-th mobile station for a time slot interval allocated to the i-th mobile station;
- (b) scanning the antenna beam of the beam-forming antenna in a horizontal direction for the time slot interval allocated to the i-th mobile station, selecting a first position at the peak power of a signal sent from the i-th mobile station to the wireless base station during the scanning, and calculating an azimuth angle of the mobile station from the first position;
- (c) scanning the antenna beam of the beam-forming antenna in a vertical direction for the time slot interval allocated to the i-th mobile station, selecting a second position at the peak power of the signal sent from the i-th mobile station to the wireless base station during the scanning, and calculating an elevation angle of the mobile station from the second position;
- (d) putting the distance, the azimuth angle, and the elevation angle together to acquire an initial location of the mobile station;
- and
- (e) updating the acquired initial location of the mobile station at regular time intervals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.