MOBILE PHONE SENSING FOR GENERATION OF NETWORK COVERAGE MAPS

摘要

The application relates to mobile phone sensing and in particular to the collection of geo-tagged measurements from a plurality of mobile devices in order to generate a network map. It is time consuming and expensive to obtain exact coverage maps of a network. Typically, network operators deploy specialized field teams to collect signal information including a measurement and a location, and then compile the information into coverage maps. The problem is solved by the present application in that a plurality of user equipments such as cellular phones (100-A, ?, 100-D) record a measurement, e.g. of the signal strength, and pair this measurement with the associated location which has previously been determined by the user equipment itself, e.g. by using positioning signal from a satellite positioning system, such as GPS. In order to avoid additional traffic the information pairs are piggybacked on messages (315-A, ?, 315-D) exchanged for another purposes, in particular one which requests so-called assistance data, e.g. in the form of a satellite almanac. The pairs are then compiled into a map (440). The application is not restricted to coverage maps and signal strength measurements because the measurements also comprise e.g. sound level, light level, temperature, pressure, magnetic measurement or similar local measurement at the mobile device, which then acts as a remote sensor.