Network overlay location system and method for air interface with frequency hopping

In a method for geo-locating a mobile appliance comprising the steps of retrieving channel assignment information from a geolocation control system, monitoring a reverse channel at a plurality of sensors for a signal from the mobile appliance, measuring an attribute of the reverse channel signal at the plurality of sensors, and determining the location of the wireless appliance from the measured reverse channel signal attributes,

• the improvement comprising the steps of:
• monitoring a signal in the forward channel to the mobile appliance;
• retrieving synchronization information from the forward channel signal;
• determining synchronization information for the reverse channel from the synchronization information retrieved from the forward channel;
• monitoring the reverse channel as a function of the determined synchronization information;
• and,
• measuring an attribute of a signal in the reverse channel from the mobile appliance to thereby geo-locate the mobile appliance.

A system for generating an estimate of the geo-location of a frequency hopping mobile appliance operating within a wireless communication system with a plurality of base stations and having a network overlay geo-location system, comprising:

• plural wireless location sensors for:
• monitoring a signal on a forward channel between one of said plurality of base stations and the mobile appliance;
• retrieving synchronization information from said forward channel;
• synchronizing a property of the plural wireless location sensors with a reverse channel between the mobile appliance and the base station as a function of the synchronization information from the forward channel to thereby receive a signal on the reverse channel;
• and
• measuring an attribute of the reverse channel signal;
• a geolocation control system operably connected to each of said plural wireless location sensors for generating an estimate of the geo-location of the mobile appliance based in part upon the measured attribute from said plural wireless location sensors.

A method of geo-location of the wireless appliance in a wireless communication system with plural base stations and a network overlay geo-location system with a plurality of sensors comprising the steps of:

• communicating from one of the plural base stations to the wireless appliance over a forward channel;
• communication from the wireless appliance to the one of the plural base stations over a reverse channel;
• monitoring the forward channel for synchronization information;
• and tuning a property of the plurality of sensors to the reverse channel with the synchronization information;
• wherein the reverse channel is a frequency hopping channel and the forward channel contains information to synchronize a property of the base station with the hopping sequence of the mobile appliance over the reverse channel.