In a vehicle, a vehicle body-side apparatus is configured to perform a main area determination and an auxiliary area determination. The main area determination determines whether a portable terminal is present in a main area based on a first reception intensity measured by the vehicle body-side apparatus in a wireless signal from the portable terminal. The auxiliary area determination determines whether the portable terminal is present in an auxiliary area based on a second reception intensity measured by a vehicle tire-side apparatus in a wireless signal from the portable terminal.

A system and method for estimating a position of an electronic label in an area are provided. A plurality of devices is distributed over the area. Information is obtained about signal strengths recorded at the respective devices when attempting to receive a wireless signal transmitted by the electronic label. Weights are formed for positions associated with the devices, based on the signal strengths recorded at the corresponding devices. The position of the electronic label is estimated as a weighted average including the positions, wherein the positions are weighted by the weights. In some embodiments, information is instead obtained about signal strengths recorded at the electronic label when attempting to receive wireless signals transmitted by the respective devices. The present method may for example be employed to estimate a position of a product in a retail store.

A method for distributed beacon management, including: broadcasting a packet from the beacon; receiving the packet at an application executing on a plurality of user devices; and transmitting beacon information extracted from the packet to the management system from the application.

Disclosed is a location information determining method and system for providing a variety of services based on a location. The location information determining method includes receiving cell information; and determining location information that matches the cell information as location information of a mobile terminal from a location information database that stores location information that matches a plurality of pieces of cell information, respectively.

There is described an interior positioning system for tracking spatial position of communication devices within a remote location. The interior positioning system generally has: a radio frequency network distributed through said remote location; beacons spaced-apart from one another throughout said remote location and powered by said radio frequency network, each beacon locally emitting a corresponding beacon identifier which when received by a nearby communication device is communicated over said radio frequency network by said communication device; and a tracking controller being communicatively coupled to said radio frequency network, said tracking controller stored thereon tracking data associating each of said beacon identifiers to respective spatial coordinates, and instructions that when executed perform the steps of: receiving said beacon identifier communicated over said radio frequency network by said communication device, and determining spatial coordinates of said communication device by cross referencing said received beacon identifier to said tracking data.

A system and method for locating objects using radio frequency identifiers is provided. Each object to be located by the user has an object unit attached thereto with a RFID transponder. The user carries a proximity unit with a RFID transponder and warning devices. The method comprises: -a controller receives the instruction to locate a specific object; the controller obtains RFID readings, from the main intermediate units associated with location areas, with information about the object units detected; -determining the location area of the object to be located; -sending information to the user about the location area; -detecting the presence of the proximity unit carried by the user when it is within the location area; -repeatedly obtaining, using readings of the RFID signal strength, information about the distance between the proximity unit and the object unit, reporting it to the user using warning devices.

Techniques for determining an item location based on multiple RFID parameters from multiple read events are described. In an example, a computer system may access a first read event. A first RFID reader located within a first zone may have generated the first read event at a first time. The first read event may identify an RFID tag and may include first RFID parameters. The computer system may access a second read event. A second RFID reader located within a second zone may have generated the second read event at a second time within a predefined amount of time from the first time. The second read event may identify the RFID tag and include second RFID parameters. The computer system may determine whether the item location falls within the first zone or the second zone based on two or more first RFID parameters and two or more second RFID parameters.

An indoor location system for locating a mobile device has at least one mobile device configured to be a radio frequency receiver or beacon signal transmitter, and a set of radio frequency units configured to be positioned in a plurality of rooms in a building. One or more of the radio frequency units is located in each room, and each unit is configured to emit or receive radio frequency beacon signals. The mobile device, or each radio frequency unit, is configured to determine a received signal strength (RSS) of each of the received beacon signals. The mobile device, or a computer module connected to the radio frequency units, is configured to calculate from the RSS a room-representative RSS for each room, and to determine which room the mobile device is located in, by selecting the room having the highest value of calculated room-representative RSS.

The present disclosure relates to a transmission device and a transmission method, a reception device and a reception method, and a program that enable acquisition of accurate location information in an indoor environment. A reception device includes: an intra-body communication reception unit that receives location identification information from another device by a communication method using the human body as the communication medium, the location identification information being for identifying the location of the reception device; a location recognition unit that recognizes the current location of the reception device in accordance with the received location identification information; and a storage unit that stores the recognized current location. The present disclosure can be applied to transmission/reception devices and the like that perform communication by a communication method using the human body as the communication medium.

Disclosed embodiments include vehicle locating systems and vehicles locatable by vehicle locating systems. An illustrative vehicle locating system includes a first Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon having a first location associated therewith and configured to receive a first radio frequency signal from a vehicle and coded with vehicle identification information. The first BLE beacon may be further configured to calculate a first proximity of the vehicle to the first BLE beacon and send to a server a first proximity signal indicative of the first proximity. A second BLE beacon has a second location associated therewith and is configured to receive a second radio frequency signal from the vehicle and coded with the vehicle identification information. The second BLE beacon may be further configured to calculate a second proximity of the vehicle to the second BLE beacon and send to the server a second proximity signal representative of the second proximity.