Methods and apparatus for determining environmental factors to modify hardware or system operation
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsPatrick S. Piemonte, Billy P. Chen, Christopher Blumenberg
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus for an environment analysis tool on a mobile device which may construct a model of the surrounding environment in order to determine whether or not characteristics of the model implicate a degradation in wireless signal quality. In response to an analysis of the constructed model to determine signal quality, the environment analysis tool may alter the behavior of any number of hardware or software functions to avoid or reduce efforts to receive or use the affected signal over the duration of the mobile device's presence within the environment with the signal-degrading characteristics.
Claims24
A method, comprising:
- performing, by a mobile computing device:
- receiving mapping information for a surrounding environment of the mobile computing device;
- determining, based on height values included in the mapping information, one or more spatial dimensions for one or more particular objects in the surrounding environment;
- determining, based on analyzing the one or more spatial dimensions for the one or more particular objects with respect to a signal type, whether reception on the mobile computing device of a signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects;
- and
- modifying operation of a component on the mobile computing device in response to said determining that reception of the signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects,
- wherein the component on the mobile computing device is related to processing the signal, and
- wherein the operation of the component on the mobile device is modified to search less frequently for the signal or the operation of the component on the mobile device is modified to operate in a low-power mode.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable on a mobile computing device to implement:
- receiving mapping information for a surrounding environment of the mobile computing device;
- determining, based on height values included in the mapping information, one or more spatial dimensions for one or more particular objects in the surrounding environment;
- determining, based on analyzing the one or more spatial dimensions for the one or more particular objects with respect to a signal type, whether reception on the mobile computing device of a signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects;
- and
- modifying operation of a component on the mobile computing device in response to said determining that reception of the signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects,
- wherein the component on the mobile computing device is related to processing the signal, and
- wherein the operation of the component on the mobile computing device is modified to search less frequently for the signal or the operation of the component on the mobile device is modified to operate in a low-power mode.
A system, comprising:
- a mobile device comprising at least one processor;
- and
- a memory comprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable by the at least one processor to perform:
- receiving mapping information for a surrounding environment of the mobile device;
- determining, based on height values included in the mapping information, one or more spatial dimensions for one or more particular objects in the surrounding environment;
- determining, based on analyzing the one or more spatial dimensions for the one or more particular objects with respect to a signal type, whether reception on the mobile device of a signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects;
- and
- modifying operation of a component on the mobile device in response to said determining that reception of the signal of the signal type could be affected by the one or more particular objects,
- wherein the component on the mobile device is related to processing the signal, and
- wherein the operation of the component on the mobile device is modified to search less frequently for the signal or the operation of the component on the mobile device is modified to operate in a low-power mode.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.