Cellular tower disambiguation for use in geo-location of mobile devices

摘要

Determining a geo-location estimate of a mobile device determined based on detected radio transmitters needs to uniquely identify at least one of the visible cellular towers. The estimate may be improved if multiple cellular towers can be uniquely identified. However, mobile devices may not determine unique identifiers for each visible cellular tower based upon configuration of the cellular radio protocol stack implementation. It is possible to disambiguate non-unique parameters detected at a mobile device to unique IDs of the cellular towers to aid in geo-location. The disambiguation is accomplished using disambiguation information that is associated with the cellular tower the mobile device is currently camped on.

主权项

1. A method of cellular tower disambiguation for use in geo-location of mobile devices, the method comprising:
identifying at least one cellular tower for generating identifier (ID) disambiguation information associated therewith; accessing a plurality of radio scenes detected by a plurality of mobile devices when each of the plurality of devices were camped on the at least one cellular tower, where each of the plurality of radio scenes detected by a mobile device of the plurality of mobile devices comprises:
a unique tower identifier (ID) of the at least one cellular tower, andnon-unique tower parameters of at least one neighboring cellular tower of the at least one cellular tower, wherein each of the non-unique tower parameters are common between the at least one neighboring cellular tower and at least other cellular tower, wherein the non-unique tower parameters were detected by the mobile device when camped on the at least one cellular tower, and wherein the at least one neighboring cellular tower is a cellular tower other than the at least one cellular tower on which the mobile device was camped and from which the mobile device received radio frequency signals; generating, from the plurality of radio scenes, ID disambiguation information for the at least one cellular tower, wherein the ID disambiguation information relates at least a subset of the non-unique tower parameters from each of the plurality of radio scenes to a unique tower identifier of a neighboring cellular tower of at least one cellular tower; receiving a query radio scene after the ID disambiguation information has been generated, wherein the query radio scene comprises:
a unique ID of a cellular tower a mobile device that detected the query radio scene was camped on, anda respective non-unique tower parameter for each of one or more neighboring cellular towers detected by the mobile device; resolving the non-unique tower parameter of each of the one or more neighboring cellular towers using at least the ID disambiguation information of the at least one cellular tower, the resolving at least identifying a unique tower ID of each of the one or more neighboring cellular towers; and using the query radio scene with the resolved non-unique tower parameters to estimate a location of the mobile device that detected the radio scene.