TECHNIQUES FOR COMPUTING LOCATION OF A MOBILE DEVICE BASED ON OBSERVED WI-FI ACCESS POINTS

摘要

In one embodiment, scanning data is received for wireless access points whose wireless signals were observed by the one or more scanning devices in a target area. For each group of scanning data that shares a common identifier of a Wi-Fi access point, a centroid of the scanning data is determined, a set of scanning data of the group that exceeds a threshold distance from the centroid is designated as having potential error, and a location of the Wi-Fi access point is calculated. The calculated location of the Wi-Fi access point for each group of scanning data is stored in a reference database. Upon receiving a request for a location of a mobile device, an identity of one or more Wi-Fi access points in range of the mobile device is determined, and the location of the mobile device is computed using calculated locations from the reference database.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at a server from one or more scanning devices, scanning data for wireless access points whose wireless signals were observed by the one or more scanning devices in a target area; identifying groups of scanning data that share a common identifier of a Wi-Fi access point; for each group of scanning data, determining a centroid of the scanning data of the group, designating a set of scanning data of the group that exceeds a threshold distance from the centroid as having potential error, and calculating a location of the Wi-Fi access point by applying a reverse triangulation algorithm to the scanning data of the group that has not been designated as having potential error; storing the calculated location of the Wi-Fi access point for each group of scanning data in a reference database; receiving a request for a location of a mobile device; obtaining an identity of one or more Wi-Fi access points in range of the mobile device; and computing the location of the mobile device using calculated locations of the one or more Wi-Fi access points from the reference database.