Determination of device location in crowded indoor environments

Judgment technology of device location in crowded indoor environment

DETERMINATION OF DEVICE LOCATION IN CROWDED INDOOR ENVIRONMENTS

The present invention relates to a technology for determining the position of a device in a crowded indoor environment.

Background of the invention

Since Apple added GPS functionality to the iPhone 3G in 2008, location-aware applications and services in mobile environments have seen tremendous growth. For example, in Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in 2014, it was announced that more than 600,000 iOS applications are using Apple's location service API (application programming interface). Similarly, there are hundreds of thousands of location-aware applications available for Android devices, and Microsoft provides location services for Window Phones, Surface tablets, and other mobile devices running the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Ideally, it is desirable to obtain the most accurate location available for a mobile device in a given use environment. GPS is a basic function installed in most mobile phones today. In order to locate a device with GPS support, a GPS receiver in the device receives signals from three or more GPS satellites and uses a well-known positioning algorithm to calculate the location of the device, which is based on a signal Between a given GPS satellite and the device The amount of time required for transmission is coupled with very accurate GPS location data. However, the use of GPS is generally limited to outdoor environments, where line-of-sight GPS satellites are available. In addition, there is a significant portion of mobile devices that do not have built-in GPS support, such as most tablets, laptops, and notebooks.

Another technology used to locate mobile devices is the use of three-point positioning through radio signals. Historically, E911 support for mobile phones is usually achieved through the use of cell phone tower location determination. According to this method, the locations of the cell phone towers are known, and the radio signal strength measurement is obtained from multiple cell phone towers and used to locate the location of the cell phone at three points. This will produce rather rough positioning results, which are impractical in today's mobile environment; for example, in the second phase of E911, mobile network operators need to provide the longitude and latitude of the caller within 300 meters. For comparison, GPS can be accurate to within a few meters in some environments.

In order to add location capabilities to devices that either do not support GPS or where GPS is not available, APPLE (and others) have deployed location services using Wi-Fi base stations (ie, access points) based on a mobile device The obtained received signal strength index (RSSI) of the broadcast signal of the access point is measured to locate the position of the mobile device at three points. A similar three-point positioning system based on RSSI is used to determine the location of the device based on the location of a known (or at least expected to be known) Wi-Fi access point. This almost requires the acquisition of millions of Wi-Fi access points, which was originally done by companies such as Skyhook through "street scanning", according to which GPS-equipped vehicles were driven along the street and used to get them. Broadcast MAC address to confirm The location of the Wi-Fi access point. Recently, APPLE and GOOGLE have adopted crowdsourcing technology, according to which APPLE and Android devices themselves are used to generate the location of new Wi-Fi access points (and/or update the location of existing Wi-Fi access points) ). According to Apple's approach, an iOS device has a local database containing the locations of thousands of Wi-Fi access points, using their own MAC address as a key value. iOS devices, including iPads without GPS support, are enabled to use RSSI measurements to locate the location of a new Wi-Fi access point at three points, and provide corresponding location information to a location database outsourced by the APPLE crowd. According to GOOGLE, the ANDROID device sends information about RSSI measurements obtained from the new Wi-Fi access point and (potentially) other access points, as well as GPS location information (if any). The location of the new Wi-Fi access points is then determined by GOOGLE's location service server and added to the location database.

This method of outsourcing Wi-Fi access points by the masses is suitable for relatively sparse (Wi-Fi access points) density environments and some internal environments (for example, at home or in a wooden frame structure), but in high-density environments And there are some disadvantages in larger buildings. One disadvantage is that the RSSI measurement is affected by attenuation, etc., causing Wi-Fi access points to "appear" at locations different from their actual locations. Another problem is that some Wi-Fi access points provide a stronger broadcast signal than others, making such access points appear relatively closer than their actual locations.

The second Wi-Fi-based positioning technology uses time-of-flight (ToF) technology, in which a Wi-Fi device establishes a ToF session with multiple access points and communicates Often with 3-4 or more access points to get high accuracy. The device will keep the session valid as long as the indoor location with all the access points is needed, and will open a new session to other access points when the device is moved. Generally speaking, this ToF technology achieves high accuracy for indoor locations, but also requires high power consumption from these Wi-Fi core components. Long-term use of the ToF technology will have a significant negative impact on the battery of the device.

When a high and dense number of users uses ToF in very crowded places, such as shopping malls, train stations, stadiums, etc., the total number of ToF talks will be very high. Consider a limited number of deployed access points, each of which must maintain hundreds of ToF sessions to support all such ToF users. Due to the limitations of the network and channels, it is not feasible to maintain this number of meetings. Therefore, the user experience in this indoor location will be greatly reduced.

In addition, when the shortage of access points is not enough to provide for such a large number of ToF users, the number of conflicts among ToF users will increase. This will cause the general noise (white noise) in the environment to increase and therefore the access point will require all these ToF users to increase their transmitter power. This problem will make the use of ToF technology more power-consuming in an indoor crowded environment.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a mobile device is specifically proposed, which includes: a processor; a memory, operatively coupled to the processor; and an IEEE 802.11-based (Wi-Fi) radio subsystem, operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna; a low-energy radio subsystem, operatively coupled to the processor And an antenna; and a non-electrical storage device, which is operatively coupled to the processor, has a number of instructions stored therein, and is configured to enable the mobile device to use a mobile device when executed by the processor A time-of-flight (ToF) positioning scheme determines a position of the mobile device; and the low-energy radio subsystem is used to broadcast the position of the mobile device determined through the ToF positioning scheme.

<p>100Indoor environment</p><p>102, 104, 106, 108Wi-Fi access point</p><p>110, 700Mobile device</p><p>112antenna</p><p>114Wi-Fi Radio Subsystem</p><p>400Program</p><p>402~418Block</p><p>502, 504, 600, 602, 604, 606 devices</p><p>506Bluetooth radio subsystem</p><p>508, 510location data</p><p>512, 514Low energy broadcast signal</p><p>512R, 514RRSSI measurement</p><p>516, 518RSSI distance circle</p><p>520Location</p><p>602L, 604L, 606Llocation data</p><p>602d, 604d, 606d arc</p><p>608, 610, 612Wi-Fi access point</p><p>702Processor SoC</p><p>704Application Program Processor</p><p>706Memory</p><p>708Non-electrical storage</p><p>710802.11 (Wi-Fi) subsystem</p><p>712Bluetooth Subsystem</p><p>718, 720, 722antenna</p><p>720Mobile Radio Subsystem</p><p>724LCD/OLED touch screen</p><p>726I/O port</p><p>728Virtual or physical keyboard</p><p>730Microphone</p><p>732, 734 Speaker</p><p>736operating system</p><p>738Location Service API</p><p>740Wi-Fi Module</p><p>742Bluetooth Module</p><p>744ToF Module</p><p>746Low Energy Position Sharing Module</p><p>748Location Determination Module</p><p>750 Fusion Module</p>

By referring to the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, the aforementioned aspects and many additional advantages of the present invention will become easier to appreciate and at the same time become better understood, wherein the same reference numbers in various views refer to The same components, unless otherwise specified: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram showing an exemplary solution for determining the location of a mobile device using time-of-flight (ToF) measurements; Figure 2 is a schematic diagram according to a solution, The figure shows the exchange of information and timing information related to the determination of a ToF measurement; Figure 3 is a schematic diagram showing the MAC beacon signal of a Wi-Fi access point; Figure 4 is a flowchart showing the The figure shows the operations and logic performed by the mobile device to facilitate the realization of the various aspects of the location determination embodiment discussed herein; The energy location sharing mechanism receives location information from two nearby mobile devices; Figure 5b is a schematic diagram showing the use of the wireless device in Figure 5a The RSSI measurement of the low-energy broadcast signal broadcast by the two nearby mobile devices determines its position relative to the two nearby mobile devices.

Figure 6 is a schematic diagram showing a mobile device based on RSSI signal measurements from three nearby mobile devices to determine its position via three-point positioning; and Figure 7 is configured to implement aspects of the embodiments described herein Schematic diagram of an exemplary mobile device.

Detailed description of the preferred embodiment

Embodiments of the method and apparatus for determining the location of a device in a crowded indoor environment will be described herein. In the following description, many specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the present invention. However, those skilled in the relevant fields will recognize that the present invention can be practiced without one or more of these specific details, or using other methods, components, materials, and the like. In other examples, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the present invention.

Reference to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" throughout this specification means that a particular function, structure, or feature described as being connected with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Therefore, the appearances of the words "in one embodiment" or "in one embodiment" throughout the specification do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment. In addition, the specific functions, structures, or features can be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

For the sake of clarity, the individual components in the illustrations in this document can also be referenced by their labels in the illustrations, rather than by a specific reference number. In addition, a reference number that refers to a specific type of component (instead of referring to a specific component) can be displayed with a reference number followed by "(typ)" which means "typical". It will be understood that this configuration of these components will be typical of similar components that are present in the drawings but are not shown for simplicity and clarity or other similar components that are not labeled with individual numbers. On the contrary, "(tpy)" should not be interpreted as meaning that the component, element, etc. is typically used for its disclosed function, implementation, usage, etc.

FIG. 1 illustrates an indoor environment 100, which includes four Wi-Fi access points 102, 104, 106, and 108, and a mobile device 110. Wi-Fi (which originally stood for Wireless Fidelity) is a wireless local area network (WLAN) technology that uses 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signals, as defined by the corresponding International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards. Each Wi-Fi access point has a respective antenna 112, and the mobile device 110 may have one or more antennas, including a Wi-Fi antenna. The mobile device 110 also provides a Wi-Fi radio subsystem including a transmitter, receiver, and antenna, and is also depicted as participating in 4 ToF talks.

Unlike positioning technology based on RSSI measurement, ToF requires communication between a mobile device and a Wi-Fi access point. In order to estimate the distance between two devices (for example, a mobile device and a Wi-Fi access point), a packet is transmitted between the devices. The time required for the packet to propagate from one device to another and back It is called the round trip time (RTT). The distance traveled by the packet can be obtained by multiplying the RTT by the speed of light (c), resulting in a gap between the two devices. The formula for distance d is as follows:<maths><img file="TW201636637A_D0001.tif" he="162" img-content="drawing" img-format="tif" inline="no" orientation="portrait" wi="1058" /></maths>

In one embodiment, the RTT is measured at the MAC layer using Wi-Fi beacon packets, and the beacon packets do not require acknowledgment (ACK), and do not require Wi-Fi access point association and authentication. In one embodiment, in the paper Wibowo, SB; Klepal, M.; Pesch, D., Time of Flight Ranging Using Off-the-Self IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi Tags. Proceedings of the International Conference on Positioning and Context-Awareness The method described in (PoCA'09), Antwerp, Belgium, 28 May 2009 is implemented. This is only an example of a technique used to measure ToF and is not restrictive, because other position determination techniques based on the ToF principle can also be implemented.

Two devices A and B, separated by a distance d, are shown in Figure 2. The destination of the packet is confirmed by the MAC address of the destination node and devices A and B only consider packets with their own MAC addresses. In order to measure this distance, the packets need to be exchanged at least twice. The first packet exchange is used to record a time stamp in each device. Device A activates the beacon and just before the beacon is sent, the time stamp is recorded. Once the packet is received by device B, the receiving timestamp is recorded. Then, in response, device B generates a beacon packet reply with the same beacon sequence number. Like device A, just before the packet is transmitted, the transmission time stamp is stored in device B.

Once the beacon response packet is received by device A, the time stamp is recorded. Although four timestamps can be Record, the round trip time cannot be calculated because the timestamp of device B cannot be transmitted during a single exchange to device A. This second packet exchange is required to transmit device B's receiving and sending time stamps to device A.

As shown in Figure 1, there is a processing delay (t proc) which occurs between when a beacon is received and when a beacon response is transmitted back. By using the timestamps, this delay can be confirmed and subtracted from the RTT observed on device A to obtain the true RTT. Another way to view this is that an RTT of t proc is considered a distance of 0 meters, and therefore the actual distance is,<maths><img file="TW201636637A_D0002.tif" he="145" img-content="drawing" img-format="tif" inline="no" orientation="portrait" wi="896" /></maths>

It is desirable that a good measurement sample is taken, and then statistical processing is performed to determine a more accurate distance d.

In another method, the time stamp is implemented at the physical layer (PHY) instead of at the MAC layer. Generally speaking, these RTT calculations are still performed at the MAC layer, but it is conceivable that future Wi-Fi access points can include support for performing timestamp and RRT calculations in their PHYs.

Figure 3 illustrates a standard IEEE 802.11 beacon frame format. The timestamp column is used to store a (maximum) 64-bit timestamp. In one embodiment, clock cycles are used for the time stamps. Other sources of time stamps can also be used in a similar way. The MAC header also includes the MAC destination address (DA), the MAC source address (SA), the basic service set identification code (BSS ID), and the sequence control. In addition, as depicted in Figure 3, there are many optional columns that are not used Bit.

As shown in FIG. 1, the mobile device 110 uses four ToF sessions (and corresponding RTT measurements) to determine its position through multiple three-point positioning (four-point positioning in this example). In an alternative implementation, the mobile device 110 either has a Wi-Fi access point database containing MAC addresses and corresponding location coordinates (for example, longitude and latitude in one embodiment), or by providing The MAC address of the Wi-Fi access point is given to the location service server. The location information can be retrieved from a location service server.

By knowing the location of the Wi-Fi access points 102, 104, 106, and 108 in combination with the ToF distance information, a mobile device can accurately determine whether it is indoors or where the GPS is not provided or where it is incorrectly located. However, this comes at a cost, in that there is an increased power consumption for establishing and maintaining ToF talks with multiple Wi-Fi access points at the same time and the need for support in such additional connections for each Wi-Fi access point. In addition, although ToF provides an accurate position measurement, it is not easy to make good adjustments, especially for high-density environments.

According to other aspects of the implementations discussed herein, an indoor location sharing mechanism used by a significant portion of the ToF talks in crowded indoor environments is offloaded. This method allows mobile devices to maintain a small number of ToF sessions (such as 1 or 2) with these Wi-Fi access points, while also using a location sharing mechanism that ensures that they maintain high positioning accuracy to receive Indoor location input.

In an embodiment of the method, each ToF user who knows its location with high accuracy uses a low-power technology, such as Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) to anonymously broadcast its location, for example, with a low-power Transmitter (Tx) The power mode is broadcast to its surroundings. These broadcasts are sent periodically and can be received by nearby devices (for example, any device within the signal reception range of the Tx). One device that wants to use these location broadcasts will turn on its low-power receiver and receive location broadcasts from one or more nearby devices. For each broadcast node, the RSSI of the signal broadcast by the node is determined. Using a proximity algorithm, the device then converts the RSSI into a corresponding distance. Since the indoor location sharing mechanism is aimed at being implemented in a dense environment, each device may usually have multiple nodes that will broadcast its own location. The device collects these location broadcasts and merges this data with ToF data to accurately determine its location. Due to the crowded environment of users, it is expected that there will be a good density of BLE location broadcasters. This will compensate for the relative inaccuracy of the BLE RSSI distance measurement and will provide higher position accuracy.

In one embodiment, in order to prevent the wrong location from drifting, only the device with at least one ToF session will broadcast its location. Other devices that do not have ToF capabilities can be enabled to use these low-energy broadcasts to determine their locations, but it is not allowed to use low-energy broadcasts to share their locations with other devices.

The method used by these embodiments provides improvements over known solutions in at least two aspects. First, when the number of ToF users increases in a very crowded environment, the ToF service level decreases significantly, as described above. This may even cause most of these ToF users to block services due to a very high load on one of these access points. For example, this kind of blocked service situation may occur in some locations such as spikes in train stations. Time period, or in other high-density environments. The more crowded the environment is, the more likely the ToF solution will be degraded. In addition, when a large number of Wi-Fi ToF users collide in the air, the delay of the message will increase, because backoff algorithms are usually used to support the confirmed delivery of data, such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). This delay leads to a very bad user experience.

On the contrary, using the method implemented in the embodiments herein, the number of concurrent ToF users (in the same environment) will be reduced by approximately 3 or 4 times. Or to look at it in another way, these embodiments enable the number of users who use ToF with good service quality to be multiplied by a factor of 3 to 4 times that of the traditional ToF methods used today. As a result, the method supports a larger number of users without negatively affecting location accuracy.

The second aspect relates to reducing the power consumption of the indoor positioning process. ToF technology itself is a very power-consuming technology, which requires the Wi-Fi core operation to consume a large amount of energy to obtain such highly accurate calculations and transmissions. In addition, the noise level increases in crowded environments, which causes the access points to ask their Wi-Fi users to increase their Tx power. Performing all ToF protocols in a high Tx power mode will result in a larger amount of power consumption.

According to the embodiments herein, the number of ToF talks between the device and the access point is reduced, which also reduces the noise level. In some embodiments, the low-energy broadcasts may be performed using a frequency band different from ToF talks (for example, the 2.4 GHz frequency band is used for the low energy sharing technology and the 5 GHz frequency band is used for the Wi-Fi ToF). Therefore, the number of ToF users who collide is reduced, and the overall miscellaneous The level of information is also reduced. At the same time, reducing the number of ToF sessions per user and the noise level in the environment will provide a significant effect on the power consumption of the indoor positioning program, even when considering using another technology to obtain these locations The same is true when broadcasting.

As mentioned above, in order to enable an accurate indoor positioning service in a very crowded environment, it is necessary to reduce the number of ToF talks. In order to reduce the number of ToF sessions and maintain the high-precision positioning that can be obtained from the ToF technology, a location sharing mechanism that receives location input from other sources is provided. In addition, the location sharing mechanism is a low-power location sharing mechanism implemented using low-energy technology.

Referring to the flowchart 400 of FIG. 4, in one embodiment, the following procedure is used to implement the location sharing mechanism. The process starts at the start block 402, where the user enters an indoor area where the GPS is either unavailable and/or the user's device does not support GPS. At block 404, the user's device uses a ToF-based positioning scheme to obtain the location of the device. For example, in one embodiment, the procedure illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 is used to establish the position of the device using 3 or 4 ToF sessions and three-point positioning or four-point positioning. Alternatively, another ToF program can be used in conjunction with three-point positioning or four-point positioning, if applicable.

Once an accurate indoor location is established using ToF, the device starts to share its location by using the low-energy location sharing mechanism to anonymously broadcast its location to other nearby devices, as depicted in block 406. The details of the low-energy broadcast of a device location will be described below with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6.

In block 408, it is determined whether the ToF service level is lower than a ToF threshold. Generally, the service level indicator can be determined based on well-known variables such as transmission retry, packet loss percentage, and other channel estimation indicators. When the ToF service level of a device drops below the critical value, which represents a significant reduction in the accuracy of the indoor positioning, the answer to decision block 408 is no, and the logic proceeds to block 410, where two operations are basically acceptable. Are executed simultaneously. First, these devices reduce the number of ToF talks to only 1 or 2 talks. For example, the device can be selectively disconnected from the most heavily loaded access point or from the farthest access point. Second, the device turns on its low-energy receiver to receive low-energy location broadcasts from other nearby devices.

In block 412, while maintaining 1 or 2 ToF sessions, the device fuses the ToF location data with the low-energy location data received from neighboring devices to generate an updated location. If the device has received a low-energy location broadcast from other nearby devices (via a low-energy location sharing mechanism), in block 414 the device checks its fused location accuracy according to a fusion algorithm. If the fused accuracy is sufficiently accurate (for example, greater than an accuracy threshold), a yes decision is generated by the decision block 414, and the device remains in the operating state until the service level of the Wi-Fi ToF increases or until the The device stops using the indoor location. During this operating state, the device saves the fused location and initiates a low-energy broadcast of the fused location, as depicted at block 418. The logic then returns to decision block 408. If the answer to decision block 414 is no, the logic proceeds to an exit block 418, where it may attempt to use another indoor positioning technology (if available), or otherwise leave the program.

As shown in the loop from decision block 408 to block 408 and then back to decision block 406, the ToF service level is measured on a continuous basis. As a result, the logic can also cycle through the operations of blocks 410, 412, 414, 416, and 418 periodically.

Figure 5a shows this operating state of the device 110 at block 410. Before this state, the device 110 has used ToF (block 404, also shown in FIG. 1) to determine its position, and then enters a state in which the ToF service level falls below the ToF threshold, resulting in the logic Proceed to block 410. Therefore, the device 110 reduces its 4 ToF talks to 2 (in this example), and discards the ToF talks with the Wi-Fi access points 104 and 108. Device 110 then turns on its low-energy receiver (for example, a low-energy Bluetooth receiver in one embodiment), and starts receiving low-energy broadcasts from nearby devices at these locations, as depicted by devices 502 and 504.

As a further illustration, each of the devices 110, 502, and 504 includes a Wi-Fi radio subsystem 114 and a low energy Bluetooth® radio subsystem 506. Devices 502 and 504 use the transmitter of their Bluetooth® low energy radio subsystem 510 to broadcast their respective locations via broadcast signals 512 and 514 (as depicted location profiles 508 and 510). Generally speaking, the location data 508 and 510 will include an anonymous identification code (ID) and the location coordinates corresponding to the most recently determined location of the low-energy broadcast device. In addition, in some embodiments, the low-energy broadcast may include a signal strength mark that confirms the strength of the broadcast signal transmitted from the low-energy transmitter of the broadcast device.

In order to generate an additional value from the location broadcasts of other devices, the device collects time-related indoor location broadcasts based on their indoor locations. When determining an RSSI of the received signal. This procedure is described in Figure 5b, which now focuses on location determination based on the low-energy location sharing mechanism (while noting that the ToF-related operations shown in Figure 5a are still being executed simultaneously). The use of RSSI to measure distance is well known and used by location services, such as those provided by APPLE and GOOGLE, so that iOS and Android devices can determine their location. RSSI is a power measurement of a received radio signal. Since the power output of the low energy Bluetooth® transmitter is either limited (via an applicable specification), or a specific signal strength mark is included in the broadcast signal itself, RSSI can be used to determine whether the transmitter and the receiver A distance with reasonable accuracy between the transmitter and receiver, especially when the transmitter and receiver are close together.

In one embodiment, the RSSI measurement is used as raw data, which is provided as an input to a proximity algorithm, which then processes the RSSI data and determines the distance between the broadcasting device and the receiving device . As shown in Figure 5b, device 110 is depicted as calculating RSSI measurements 512R and 514R, corresponding to low energy broadcast signals 512 and 514 transmitted from devices 502 and 504, respectively. In this embodiment, one device receives the location data transmitted from the other two devices using the low-energy location sharing mechanism. Generally speaking, a given device can use a low-energy location sharing mechanism to provide location data from one or more other devices. In the case of two devices, the intersections of the RSSI distance circles 516 and 518 (depicted as arcs in Figure 5b due to the limitation of the drawing size) correspond to the potential positions in the device 110-in the device The position 110 is shown and a position 520. Since device 110 is still receiving and processing ToF bits from Wi-Fi access points 102 and 106 Therefore, it determines that the position is the correct position, and the position 520 is incorrect.

It is desirable that a given device will only consider broadcasts from nearby devices sharing their location using a low-energy location sharing mechanism, because when the distance between devices is small, the adverse effects of RSSI will be significant The ground is lowered, making it more accurate to use a low-energy location sharing mechanism from a closer device to determine the location. In some embodiments, the desirable distance is about 7 meters or less, although this is not meant to be limiting. Therefore, in this embodiment, if the RSSI distance determination results in a distance greater than a threshold distance, the location data from the corresponding low-energy broadcasting device is ignored. Alternatively or additionally, in determining the location of a device that receives the low-energy broadcast signals, the RSSI measurement itself can be used to determine whether the location data from a given low-energy broadcast device will be included .

As discussed above with reference to block 412 of flowchart 400, the next operation of the program is to merge the ToF position input and the low energy broadcast input. In one embodiment, the fusion of the two inputs uses another algorithm, which outputs the fused position and an estimated error level. The error level indicates the level of matching between the ToF position and the low energy broadcast position. It is worth noting that the algorithm can also use two inputs of the original data. Generally, the implementation of the fusion algorithm can use known techniques for fusing (ie, combining) the input data to determine the updated position of one of the devices, including but not limited to weighting the input data (for example, in one embodiment, the ToF data is given greater weight so that after confirming that the error level meets the matching criterion, the position of the device either adopts the ToF position or Either use a weighted average of these locations. Using other methods, the positions can be combined so that the new position is an average of the ToF and low-energy broadcast position determinations.

If the error level is low, it means that the positions determined using the ToF-based scheme have a good match with the positions determined using low-energy broadcasting, and the positions will be considered valid and merged. The procedure for the two inputs will continue. If the error level between the two positions is too high, it means that the two positions do not have a good match, the procedure is terminated and the device will return to ToF or other types of indoor positioning technology. Determine its location.

During subsequent operations, the device maintains a low number of ToF talks (take 1 or 2 as an example) to match the low-energy broadcast indoor positioning. When the device is sensing a better ToF service level according to the service level indicator, it will prompt that the device can only use ToF technology to generate the indoor positioning.

FIG. 6 shows an example of how a device 600 can be activated to determine its position by using the three-point positioning of the low-energy broadcast signals received from the other three devices 602, 604, and 606. Each of the devices 602, 604, and 606 currently has 1 or 2 ToF sessions (with Wi-Fi access points 608, 610, and 612), and it has been determined that it has a sufficiently precise location so that it has used the relatively high The low-energy location sharing mechanism begins to broadcast its respective locations. As further depicted, the Wi-Fi radio subsystem of the device 600 is disabled (for illustration purposes only; it can also be enabled), while its Bluetooth® radio subsystem 506 is enabled and its low-energy receiver is Configure to receive from Low-energy broadcast of other devices. In general, the low-energy broadcast uses low transmitter power to prevent increased noise levels in one of the four surroundings, which results in only nearby receivers receiving the broadcast. In one embodiment, the low-energy broadcast includes a location information that is anonymously broadcast (for example, it can be obtained by the privacy function implemented in the Bluetooth® low energy privacy), and includes information for confirming the Tx power, An autonomous identification code (ID), and the locations of the broadcast device (for example, using longitude and latitude coordinates), as depicted by the broadcast of location data 602L, 604L, and 606L. Based on the Tx power and the RSSI measurement, the receiving device (600) is activated to calculate the distance between each broadcaster and itself. In Figure 6, the respective distances to devices 602, 604, and 606 are depicted by arcs 602d, 604d, and 606d. In one embodiment, if the distance is relatively small (for example, 3-7 meters), depending on the technology, the position input is regarded as an input to the fusion positioning algorithm. Otherwise (for example, distance&gt; 7 meters), the position input is considered unreliable (due to the inaccuracy of using low-power RSSI measurement in determining the distance) and is not used as part of the fusion positioning algorithm enter.

In addition to three-point positioning, a device can also use a low-energy location sharing mechanism based on location data broadcast by two or more devices or even a single device to determine its location. Generally speaking, when the received location data is input from multiple devices, multi-point positioning is performed to determine the location of the receiving device. An example of a device location that can be determined based on location information received from a single low-energy broadcast device, such as a Wi-Fi disabled first device (or at least either ToF has been turned off, or the first device has been turned off). (Upper ToF is not supported) It is detected that it is in the use of low-energy location sharing The mechanism broadcasts its location in a distance of 3-4 meters or less of the second device. This distance is so close that the first device can be co-located with the second device in consideration of its co-system, thereby using the location of the second device. For most and most applications, this type of location determination (while also considering the accuracy of the location determined by the second device) meets the accuracy requirements of the application. Moreover, the accuracy of using the low-energy location sharing mechanism to obtain the location of the first device is likely to be higher than that of the traditional method that uses RSSI measurement of multiple Wi-Fi access points to locate the location of the device at three points. .

FIG. 7 illustrates a mobile device 700 that includes various software modules to support the operation of the mobile device 700 as both a low-energy position broadcaster and a receiver, according to aspects of the embodiments described herein . The mobile device 700 is generally illustrative of multiple types of mobile devices, including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, notebooks, Chromebooks, media players, and may include a Wi-Fi radio subsystem and a low energy Radio subsystem, such as but not limited to any other types of mobile devices such as Bluetooth® Low Energy. The mobile device 700 can also (only) be implemented as a low-energy broadcast receiving device, in which case including a Wi-Fi radio subsystem (and associated ToF operation) is optional.

The mobile device 700 includes a processor system on a chip (SoC) 702 which includes an application processor 704 including one or more cores. The processor SoC 702 is operatively coupled to each of the memory 706, the non-electrical storage 708, an IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) subsystem 710, and a Bluetooth® subsystem 712, the latter two being connected to A respective antenna 716 And 718. If the mobile device 700 includes a mobile phone, or otherwise includes a mobile device with facilities that can access a mobile network, the mobile device 700 further includes a mobile radio subsystem 720 coupled to an antenna 722. It should be noted that the functions of the two or more antennas 716, 718, and 722 may be implemented by a single antenna in some embodiments.

In an embodiment where the mobile device 700 is a mobile phone or a tablet computer, the mobile device 700 includes a display screen 724, which includes a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen, or other types of display screens such as an organic light emitting diode ( OLED) display. The display screen 724 can be configured as a touch screen by using capacitive, resistive, or another type of touch screen technology. The mobile device 700 further includes an I/O port 726, a virtual or physical keyboard 728, a microphone 730, and a pair of speakers 732 and 734.

During operation, the software commands and modules that constitute an operating system 736 include location service API 738, Wi-Fi module 740, a Bluetooth® module 742, a ToF module 744, and a low-energy location sharing module. Group 746, a position determination module 748, and a fusion module 750 are loaded from the non-electrical storage 710 to the memory 708 for execution on a suitable processing element (for example, , A core) on. For example, these software components and modules, and other software commands are stored in the non-electrical storage 710, which may include any type of non-electrical storage device, such as flash memory. In addition to software instructions, a part of the instructions for facilitating various operations and functions in this document can be configured to be stored in non-electrical storage 710 or another non-electrical storage device (not shown in the figure) Firmware instructions.

Generally speaking, the operating system 736 can include any existing or future operating systems, including but not limited to: APPLE® iOS^TM, GOOGLE® ANDROID^TM, MICROSOFT® WINDOWS^TMAnd WINDOWS PHONE^TM, BLACKBERRY® OS or QNS operating system, and various variants of Linux operating system. The location service API 738 varies with the operating system, and may or may not include a local database of the location of the Wi-Fi access point. In some embodiments, the location service API can use ToF to offload the location of a given device to a location service server, where the ToF data is sent to the server, which processes the data and returns a determined device location ( For example, return the longitude and latitude of the device).

The Wi-Fi module 740 contains instructions for configuring the Wi-Fi subsystem 710 and facilitating the use of a Wi-Fi connection with a Wi-Fi access point to establish a talk. This includes the appropriate 802.11 network stacking layer, in addition to application layer software. Similarly, the Bluetooth® module 742 contains commands for configuring the Bluetooth® wireless subsystem 712, including appropriate Bluetooth® network stacking layer and application layer software.

The ToF module 740 contains instructions for implementing operations involving the use of ToF to determine the location of the device, as described herein. Except for one of these instructions configured in the Tof module 740 to be executed on the application processor 704, all or part of the ToF module function can be implemented as an embedded logic in the Wi-Fi radio subsystem 710 And/or embedded software. For example, the Wi-Fi radio subsystem 710 may include a Wi-Fi chip with built-in ToF support.

The low energy location sharing module 746 contains instructions for implementing various aspects of the lower energy location sharing mechanism described herein. Except for one The instructions configured in the low-energy location sharing module are executed outside of the application processor 704, and all or part of the low-energy location sharing module functions can be implemented as in the Bluetooth® radio subsystem 712 Embedded logic and/or embedded software.

The position determination module 748 contains commands to facilitate the use of applicable input data, such as ToF measurement and RSSI measurement, to perform position determination operations. For example, the position determination module 748 contains instructions for multi-point positioning based on ToF measurement and RSSI measurement. The position determination module 748 also contains instructions for implementing the general operations and logic of the flowchart 400. In addition, the fusion module 748 contains instructions for implementing the fusion algorithm described herein.

In addition to the configuration shown in FIG. 7, the position determination operation can also be performed in an unloading engine or the like. The offload engine can be implemented using well-known techniques, such as but not limited to being implemented in a separate offload engine chip, or as embedded logic in an existing chip. In addition, one or both of the ToF measurement and the low-energy broadcast RSSI measurement can be implemented in the Wi-Fi radio subsystem and the low-energy radio subsystem, respectively.

Other aspects of the technical subject described in this article are listed in the following numbered clauses:

1. A mobile device comprising: a processor; a memory, operatively coupled to the processor; a (Wi-Fi) radio subsystem based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11, Be operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna; A low-energy radio subsystem is operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna; and a non-electrical storage device is operatively coupled to the processor and is configured to have a number of instructions stored therein, When executed by the processor, it can cause the mobile device to use a time-of-flight (ToF) positioning scheme to determine a position of the mobile device; and use the low-energy radio subsystem to broadcast the determined position via the ToF positioning scheme The location of the mobile device.

2. The mobile device of clause 1, wherein the command is further configured to cause the mobile device to: establish a ToF session with two or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points; for the one or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points Each of the Wi-Fi access points performs a ToF message exchange with the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point to determine a ToF-based distance between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point; Retrieve and confirm the information of the location of each of these ToF-enabled access points; and use the location of each of these ToF-enabled access points and the ToF-based Wi-Fi access point between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point Use multi-point positioning to determine the location of the mobile device.

3. The mobile device as in clause 2, wherein the instructions are further configured so that the mobile device can: determine that a ToF service level exceeds a threshold; and Use the low-energy radio subsystem to activate and continue to broadcast one of the location of the mobile device.

4. For the mobile device of clause 2, in which three or more ToF talks are established, and wherein the low-energy radio subsystem includes a low-energy receiver, the method further includes: reducing the number of ToF talks to one or two ToF talks; to receive location data broadcasted by mobile devices that are broadcasting one or more of their respective locations using a low-energy broadcast; and to combine the positions obtained by using these 1 or 2 ToF talks The data is combined with the location data received from the one or more nearby mobile devices via one or more respective low-energy broadcasts to determine an updated location of the mobile device.

5. The mobile device of clause 4, wherein the determination of the updated location uses a fusion algorithm which combines a first location of the mobile device determined by the distance based on ToF and the one or more nearby actions received by A second location of the mobile device determined by the location data of the device is compared to determine whether the first and second locations match within a matching threshold.

6. The mobile device of clause 4 or 5, wherein the instructions are further configured to enable the mobile device to: For each of one or more nearby mobile devices, receive data including broadcast signal power and the nearby mobile device A low-energy broadcast signal of location information; a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement of the received low-energy broadcast signal; Use the RSSI measurement and the broadcast signal power data to calculate a distance between the mobile device and the nearby mobile device.

7. For the mobile device of clause 6, where there are two or more nearby mobile devices, the distance between the mobile device and the two or more nearby mobile devices is calculated, and the instructions are further It is configured to enable the mobile device to use multi-point positioning to determine a location of the mobile device.

8. The mobile device of clauses 4 to 7, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the mobile device to broadcast the updated location of the mobile device as determined by using the low-energy radio subsystem.

9. The mobile device of clauses 4 to 8, wherein the instructions are further configured to enable the mobile device to: receive location data from a second mobile device that is broadcasting its location using a low-energy broadcast signal; At least one of the distance between the mobile device and the second mobile device exceeds a critical value and it is detected that a signal level of the low-energy broadcast signal drops below a critical value, and in response to this, it is determined In an updated location of the mobile device, the location data broadcast from the second mobile device is not used.

10. The mobile device according to any of the preceding clauses, wherein the low-energy radio subsystem includes a Bluetooth® radio subsystem.

11. A method executed by a mobile device, the mobile device includes a radio subsystem based on the International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 (Wi-Fi) and a low-energy wireless electronics A system, the method includes: using a time of flight (ToF) positioning scheme to determine a position of the mobile device; and using the low-energy radio subsystem to broadcast the position of the mobile device determined through the ToF positioning scheme.

12. The method in clause 11 further includes: establishing a ToF meeting with two or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points; for each of the one or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points, Perform a ToF message exchange with the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point to determine a ToF-based distance between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point; retrieve and confirm each of the ToF-enabled access points Point location information; and using the location of each of the ToF-enabled access points and the ToF-based distance between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point, using multi-point positioning to determine the action The location of the device.

13. The method of clause 12 further includes: determining that a ToF service level exceeds a threshold; and using the low-energy radio subsystem to activate and continue to broadcast one of the location of the mobile device.

14. The method of clause 12 or 13, wherein at least three ToF talks are established, wherein the low-energy radio subsystem includes a low-energy receiver, and wherein the commands are further configured to cause the mobile device to: The number of talks is reduced to 1 or 2 ToF talks; Receiving location data broadcast by mobile devices that are broadcasting one or more nearby locations using a low-energy broadcast; A respective low-energy broadcast determines an updated location of one of the mobile devices from the location data received by the one or more nearby mobile devices.

15. The method of clause 14, wherein the determination of the updated location uses a fusion algorithm which combines a first location of the mobile device determined by using a distance based on ToF and a first location received from the one or more nearby mobile devices via A second position of the mobile device determined by the position data is compared to determine whether the first and second positions match within a matching threshold.

16. The method of clause 14 or 15, further comprising: for each of one or more nearby mobile devices, receiving a low-energy broadcast signal containing broadcast signal power data and location information of the nearby mobile device; executing the A received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement in which low-energy broadcast signals are received; the RSSI measurement and the broadcast signal power data are used to calculate a distance between the mobile device and the nearby mobile device.

17. The method of clause 16, in which there are two or more nearby mobile devices, for which the distance between the mobile device and the two or more nearby mobile devices is calculated, and the method further includes the use of more Point positioning to determine a location of the mobile device.

18. The method of clauses 14 to 17, further comprising updating the location of the mobile device to be determined by using a low-energy radio subsystem.

19. The method of clauses 14 to 18, further comprising: receiving location data broadcast by a second mobile device that is broadcasting its location using a low-energy broadcast signal; determining that it is between the mobile device and the second mobile device At least one of a distance exceeding a critical value and detecting that a signal level of the low-energy broadcast signal has fallen below a critical value, and in response to this, in determining an update position of the mobile device, ignore the signal from the The location data broadcast by the second mobile device.

20. The method of any of the preceding clauses, wherein the low energy radio subsystem includes a Bluetooth radio subsystem.

21. A tangible non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, configured to be executed on the mobile device to enable the mobile device to perform the method of any one of clauses 11 to 20.

22. A mobile device comprising: a processor; a memory operatively coupled to the processor; a low-energy radio subsystem operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna, including a A low-energy transmitter and a low-energy receiver; and a non-electrical storage device, operatively coupled to the processor, configured to have a number of instructions stored therein, and when executed by the processor, So that the mobile device can, Receive via the low-energy receiver the location data broadcast by one or more nearby mobile devices using a low-energy broadcast signal that is broadcasting their respective locations; and determine by processing the location data received via the low-energy receiver A location of the mobile device.

23. The mobile device of clause 22, wherein the command is further configured to cause the mobile device to: For each of one or more nearby mobile devices, receive information including broadcast signal power data and location information of the nearby mobile device A low-energy broadcast signal; perform a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement of the received low-energy broadcast signal; use the RSSI measurement and the broadcast signal power data to calculate between the mobile device and the nearby mobile device A distance.

24. The mobile device of clause 23, wherein the mobile device calculates a distance between itself and at least two nearby mobile devices, and wherein the instruction is further configured to cause the mobile device to use multi-point positioning to use the The calculated distance and the location information broadcast by the at least two nearby mobile devices using low-energy broadcast signals are used to determine their location.

25. The mobile device of clause 23 or 24, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the mobile device to: determine a calculation between the mobile device and a nearby mobile device that is broadcasting location data via a low-energy broadcast signal The distance of is below a critical value; and Set the location of the mobile device to be equal to the location of the nearby mobile device.

26. The mobile device of any of clauses 22 to 25, wherein the low energy radio subsystem includes a Bluetooth radio subsystem.

27. A method performed by a mobile device having a low-energy radio subsystem including a low-energy receiver and the method comprising: receiving via the low-energy receiver using a low-energy broadcast signal. Broadcasting location data broadcast by one or more nearby mobile devices of their respective locations; and determining a location of the mobile device by processing the location data received through the low-energy receiver.

28. The method of clause 27, further comprising: for each of one or more nearby mobile devices, receiving a low-energy broadcast signal containing broadcast signal power data and location information of the nearby mobile device; performing the reception A received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement for low-energy broadcast signals; the RSSI measurement and the broadcast signal power data are used to calculate a distance between the mobile device and the nearby mobile device.

29. The method of clause 28, wherein the mobile device calculates a distance between itself and at least two nearby mobile devices, and wherein the instruction is further configured to cause the mobile device to use multi-point positioning using the calculated Distance and the use of low energy by the at least two nearby mobile devices The location information broadcast by the broadcast signal is used to determine its location.

30. The method of clause 28 or 29 further includes: determining that the calculated distance between the mobile device and a nearby mobile device that is broadcasting location data via a low-energy broadcast signal is lower than a threshold; and setting The location of the mobile device is equivalent to the location of the nearby mobile device.

31. The method of any one of clauses 27 to 30, wherein the low energy radio subsystem includes a Bluetooth radio subsystem.

32. A tangible non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, configured to be executed on the mobile device to enable the mobile device to perform any of the methods in clauses 27 to 31.

32. A mobile device having a low-energy radio subsystem including a low-energy receiver and means for performing any of the methods in clauses 27 to 31.

33. A mobile device, comprising: a processor; a (Wi-Fi) radio subsystem based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11, operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna; The low-energy radio subsystem is operatively coupled to the processor and an antenna; and the component is used to determine the mobile device's status using a time-of-flight (ToF) positioning scheme A location; and using the low-energy radio subsystem to broadcast the location of the mobile device determined by the ToF positioning scheme.

34. The mobile device of Clause 33 further includes a component for: establishing a ToF meeting with two or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points; for the one or more ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access points Each of them performs a ToF message exchange with the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point to determine a ToF-based distance between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point; retrieve and confirm each of these Information on the location of ToF-enabled access points; and use multipoint positioning using the location of each of these ToF-enabled access points and the ToF-based distance between the mobile device and the ToF-enabled Wi-Fi access point To determine the location of the mobile device.

35. The mobile device of Clause 34 further includes a component for determining that a ToF service level exceeds a critical value; and using the low-energy radio subsystem to activate and continue to broadcast one of the location of the mobile device.

36. The mobile device of clause 34 or 35, wherein three or more ToF talks are established, and wherein the low-energy radio subsystem includes a low-energy receiver, and further includes components for: reducing the number of ToF talks to one 1 or 2 ToF talks; receiving location data broadcast by mobile devices that are using a low-energy broadcast to broadcast one or more of their respective locations; and By combining the location data obtained using these 1 or 2 ToF talks with the location data received from the one or more nearby mobile devices via one or more respective low-energy broadcasts, determine the mobile devices One update location.

37. The mobile device of clause 36, wherein the determination of the updated location uses a fusion algorithm which uses the ToF-based distance to determine the first location of the mobile device and the one or more nearby actions received from it. A second location of the mobile device determined by the location data of the device is compared to determine whether the first and second locations match within a matching threshold.

38. The mobile device of clause 36 or 37 further includes a component for: for each of one or more nearby mobile devices, receiving a low-energy broadcast containing broadcast signal power data and location information of the nearby mobile device Signal; perform a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) measurement of the received low-energy broadcast signal; use the RSSI measurement and the broadcast signal power data to calculate a distance between the mobile device and the nearby mobile device.

39. For the mobile device of clause 38, where there are two or more nearby mobile devices, the distance between the mobile device and the two or more nearby mobile devices is calculated, and the instructions are further calculated It is configured to enable the mobile device to use multi-point positioning to determine a location of the mobile device.

40. Such as the mobile devices in clauses 36 to 39, including component use The updated location in the broadcast of the mobile device is determined by using the low-energy radio subsystem.

41. The mobile device of clauses 36 to 40 further includes a component for: receiving location data broadcast by a second mobile device that is broadcasting its location using a low-energy broadcast signal; determining whether it is between the mobile device and the second mobile device At least one of a distance between mobile devices exceeding a critical value and detecting that a signal level of the low-energy broadcast signal drops below a critical value, and in response to this, in determining an update position of the mobile device , Do not use the location data broadcast from the second mobile device.

42. The mobile device of clauses 33 to 41, wherein the low energy radio subsystem includes a Bluetooth radio subsystem.

Although some embodiments have been described with reference to specific implementations, other implementations are possible according to some embodiments. In addition, the arrangement and/or order of the elements or other features illustrated in the drawings and/or described herein need not be arranged in the particular way illustrated and described. Many other arrangements are possible according to some embodiments.

In each system shown in an illustration, in some cases, the elements may each have the same reference number or different reference numbers to indicate that the representative elements may be different and/or similar. However, an element may be flexible enough to have different implementations and be suitable for part or all of the system shown or described herein. The various elements shown in the illustrations can be the same or different. That one is called a first dollar The piece and which one is called a second element are arbitrary.

In this specification and the scope of the patent application, the terms "coupled" and "connected" and their derivative terms can be used. However, it should be understood that these terms are not intended as synonyms for each other. In contrast, in certain embodiments, "connected" may be used to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. "Coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact. However, "coupled" may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but still cooperate with or interact with each other.

An embodiment is an implementation or example of the present invention. Reference in this specification to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," "some embodiments," or "other embodiments" refers to a specific function, structure, or structure that is described as being linked to these embodiments Or features are included in at least some embodiments, but not necessarily in all embodiments of the present invention. The various appearances of "one embodiment," "an embodiment," or "some embodiments" do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment.

Not all components, functions, structures, features, etc. described and shown herein need to be included in a particular embodiment or multiple embodiments. For example, if this specification states that a component, function, structure, or feature "may", "may", "may" or "can" be included, the specific component, function, structure, or feature is not required to be included . If this specification or claim refers to "a" or "an" element, this does not mean that there is only one of the elements. If the specification or the scope of the patent application mentions "an additional" element, it does not exclude the existence of more than one such additional element Pieces.

In this article, an algorithm is generally regarded as a self-consistent sequence of actions or operations that can lead to a desired result. These physical operations contain physical quantities. Usually, though not required, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals that can be stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has been proved that referring to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like is several times more convenient, mainly for general reasons. However, it should be understood that all of these and similar terms will be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities.

As discussed above, various aspects of the embodiments herein can be facilitated by corresponding software and/or firmware components and applications, such as software and/or firmware executed by an embedded processor or the like . Therefore, the embodiments of the present invention can be used or to support a software program, software module, firmware, and/or distributed software, which executes on a certain processor, processing core or embedded logic, and executes a A virtual machine on the processor or core, or implemented or implemented in other ways on or in a computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium. A computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (for example, a computer). For example, a computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium includes anything provided in a form that can be accessed by a computer or computing machine (for example, computing device, electronic system, etc.) Mechanisms for storing and/or sending information, such as recordable/non-recordable media (e.g., read-only Memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices, etc.). The content can be directly executable ("object" or "executable" form), source code, or differential code ("difference" or "patch" code). A computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium can also include a storage or database from which content can be downloaded. The computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium may also include a device or product on which the content at the point of sale or delivery is stored. Therefore, transmitting a device with stored content or providing content for downloading through a communication medium can be understood as providing a product that includes a computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage with one of the contents described herein. media.

The various components described herein, which are referred to above as programs, servers, or tools, can be a component for performing the described functions. The operations and functions performed by the various components described herein can be implemented by software running on a processing element, through embedded hardware or the like, or any combination of hardware and software. Such components can be implemented as software modules, hardware modules, special purpose hardware (for example, application-specific hardware, ASIC, DSP, etc.), embedded controllers, fixed-wire circuits, hardware logic, and many more. Software content (for example, data, instructions, configuration information, etc.) can be provided through a product containing a computer-readable or machine-readable non-transitory storage medium, which provides content representing the executable command. This content will cause a computer to perform various functions/operations described in this article.

As used herein, combined by the term "at least one of" A series of items can mean any combination of these listed items. For example, the phrase "at least one of A, B, or C" can mean A; B; C; A and B; A and C; B and C; or A, B and C.

The illustrated embodiments of the present invention include the above description of those described in the abstract, and are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the precise form disclosed. Although the specific embodiments and examples of the present invention are described herein for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications are possible within the scope of the present invention, just as those skilled in the art will Realized.

In view of the above detailed description, these modifications can be made to the present invention. The terms used in the scope of the patent application should not be construed as limiting the present invention to the specific embodiments disclosed in this specification and the drawings. On the contrary, the scope of the present invention will be determined entirely by the following patent scope, which is interpreted according to the established principles of the interpretation of the patent scope.