A method for estimating the location of a wireless terminal at an unknown location, such as within a building. A location engine using the disclosed method receives and uses samples of barometric pressure measured by the wireless terminal to generate a characterization of a pressure wave in the vicinity of the wireless terminal. The location engine generates an estimate of the location of the wireless terminal based on the characterization of the pressure wave and, in some cases, the location of the source of the pressure wave, such as a building's door that is opening or closing. The location engine also bases the estimate of the wireless terminal's location on a propagation characteristic of the pressure wave, such as its speed of propagation.

A positioning system has an initiator device configured for emitting a high-speed wireless signal, at least one reference device configured for receiving the high-speed wireless signal and emitting a low-speed wireless signal after receiving the high-speed wireless signal, at least one target device each having one or more components for receiving the low-speed wireless signals, and at least one engine configured for determining the position of each of the at-least-one target device by calculating the distance between the target device and each of the at-least-one reference device based on at least the times-of-arrival of the low-speed wireless signals, each time-of-arrival being the time that the corresponding low-speed wireless signal being received by the target device, and determining the position of the target device based on the calculated distances.

A driving support method for a vehicle includes: acquiring a sound of a sound source placed outside the vehicle; and displaying, on a display portion, driving support information corresponding to an utterance content of the sound, the utterance content of the sound being recognized by a sound recognition process, in a display mode suggesting a relative position of the sound source from the vehicle, the relative position being specified based on the sound.

A method and system for combining data obtained by sensors, having particular application in the field of navigation systems, are disclosed. The techniques provide significant improvement over state-of-the-art Markovian methods that use statistical noise filters such as Kalman filters to filter data by comparing instantaneous data with the corresponding instantaneous estimates from a model. In contrast, the techniques disclosed herein use multiple time periods of various lengths to process multiple sensor data streams, in order to combine sensor measurements with motion models at a given time epoch with greater confidence and accuracy than is possible with traditional “single epoch” methods. The techniques provide particular benefit when the first and/or second sensors are low-cost sensors (for example as seen in smart phones) which are typically of low quality and have large inherent biases.

A location server device includes a memory circuitry, a processor circuitry, and an interface. The location server device is configured to communicate, via the interface, with one or more positioning units configured to communicate with one or more electronic devices one or more first positioning signals at a first frequency. The processor circuitry is configured to select at least one of the one or more positioning units based on detecting a trigger event. The interface is configured to transmit, to the at least one selected positioning unit, an activation signal. The activation signal indicates to the at least one selected positioning unit to activate transmission of one or more second positioning signals at a second frequency that is different from the first frequency.

Various embodiments disclose an electronic device including a camera, at least one mmWave antenna module, and at least one processor, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: acquire image information of a surrounding environment via the camera; acquire signal information resulting from a signal emitted from the at least one mmWave antenna module by the surrounding environment; and track a position of the user, based on at least one of the image information acquired via the camera and the signal information acquired via the at least one mmWave antenna module. Various other embodiments derived from the specification are possible.

A positioning system has an initiator device configured for emitting a high-speed wireless signal, at least one reference device configured for receiving the high-speed wireless signal and emitting a low-speed wireless signal after receiving the high-speed wireless signal, at least one target device each having one or more components for receiving the low-speed wireless signals, and at least one engine configured for determining the position of each of the at-least-one target device by calculating the distance between the target device and each of the at-least-one reference device based on at least the times-of-arrival of the low-speed wireless signals, each time-of-arrival being the time that the corresponding low-speed wireless signal being received by the target device, and determining the position of the target device based on the calculated distances.

A technique for estimating the location of a wireless terminal at an unknown location in a geographic region. The technique is based on a two-part recognition, the first part being that a transient in atmospheric pressure attributed to a particular source, such as an entry door of a building opening and closing, is detectable in some environments while not being present in others. The second part of the recognition is that a correlation exists between i) the presence of a transient in the characterization of a pressure wave in the vicinity of a wireless terminal and ii) whether the wireless terminal is indoors or not. Transients in pressure waves are often present indoors but not outdoors. By accounting for the transients being detected or not being detected in the vicinity of the wireless terminal, the disclosed technique is able to estimate whether the wireless terminal is indoors.

A GNSS receiver includes an antenna device. Whether an environment around the GNSS receiver is a multipath environment in which an occurrence of multipath is probable. The antenna device is set in a first reception mode with a first directivity in response to not determining that the environment around the GNSS receiver is the multipath environment. In contrast, the antenna device is set in a second reception mode in response to determining that the environment around the GNSS receiver is the multipath environment. The second reception mode is a mode with a second directivity having an elevation angle higher than an elevation angle of the first directivity of the first reception mode.

A positioning apparatus includes: a reference device configured to provide a measured current motion angle of a vehicle; an inertial sensor configured to provide a current input angular rate of the vehicle and associated with at least one inertial sensor behavior parameter dependent on inertial sensor temperature; a temperature sensor configured to provide an input temperature variation of the inertial sensor on a time interval; and a digital estimator configured to recursively computing an estimated current motion angle of the vehicle and at least one previously estimated inertial sensor behavior parameter as function of: the measured current motion angle, a previously estimated motion angle, the current input angular rate, and the input temperature variation.