An apparatus obtains fingerprints that have been collected by a plurality of mobile devices at a particular site for supporting a positioning of other mobile devices, each fingerprint comprising results of measurements on radio signals of at least one communication node at a particular location and an indication of the particular location. The apparatus generates feedback information based on the obtained fingerprints as a whole for coordinating a collection of fingerprints by the plurality of mobile devices. The apparatus transmits the feedback information to the plurality of mobile devices for presentation to users of the mobile devices.

The invention relates to a method of detecting a relative position of a mobile terminal device with respect to a vehicle.

It is provided for the method to include the following steps: generating reference measurement values relating to a predefined relative position of a calibration device with respect to a calibration vehicle, generating position measurement values which relate to the current relative position of the mobile terminal device with respect to the vehicle, evaluating the reference measurement values and the position measurement values for detecting the current relative position of the mobile terminal device with respect to the vehicle, and storing the generated reference measurement values in a database, wherein the database is a database outside the vehicle which the vehicle may access by means of a communication connection.

The invention is based on the object to provide a possibility to minimize deviations in the detection of the relative positions of different mobile terminal devices with respect to a vehicle.

Disclosed is an approach for improving performance of a radio-based positioning system by detecting and excluding mobile radio nodes. The disclosed approach involves processors (e.g., of positioning server(s) and/or of a computing device) making a determination (i) that a speed of a computing device is at or above a threshold speed, and (ii) that at least one condition is met, the at least one condition indicating that a radio node is moving substantially along with the computing device. In response to making the determination, the processors may deem the radio node to be a mobile node. Given this, the processors may in turn exclude the radio node for positioning purposes, which may ultimately improve performance of the radio-based positioning system.

A method for identifying a location of a mobile device is disclosed. The method includes during each of a plurality of instances of time: measuring one or more signal properties of one or more other devices across a time interval; obtaining an identifier from each of the one or more other devices; creating a data point to include the one or more signal properties; and storing the data point in a database. The method further includes analyzing the plurality data points in the database to determine clusters of data points; detecting an event at an input device of the mobile device; measuring one or more new signal properties of one or more of the plurality of other devices at one or more new times; creating a new data point from the one or more new signal properties; and identifying a first cluster corresponding to the new data point.

An apparatus obtains fingerprints that have been collected by at least one mobile device for supporting a positioning of other mobile devices. Each fingerprint comprising results of measurements on radio signals of at least one communication node at a particular location and an indication of the particular location. The apparatus estimates values of parameters defining a radio model for the at least one communication node based on the obtained fingerprints. The apparatus determines a quality of the radio model. The apparatus generates data for a feedback for a user of the at least one mobile device based on the determined quality of the radio model.

Method, mobile device, computer program product, and apparatus for optimizing sensor reporting are described. A mobile device can measure radio frequency (RF) signal characteristics while receiving data from one or more mobile device sensors. The mobile device may determine its relative displacement between RF signal measurements. The mobile device can send a representation of the RF signal characteristics and the displacement data to one or more servers. The representation displacement data may include one or more reliability characteristics and/or a displacement reliability rating. A server can obtain the displacement data and RF signal characteristics to determine positioning of wireless transmitters in an environment and build a positioning database.

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to estimate the reference position associated with fingerprint data by selectively utilizing an online positioning system. In the context of a method and in an instance in which a global navigation satellite system is available for location determination, the method determines the location of a data collection device in conjunction with the collection of fingerprint data. In this instance, the location is determined based upon information provided by the global navigation satellite system. However, in an instance in which the global navigation satellite system is unavailable for location determination, the method provides, via a computer network, an online positioning system with at least some fingerprint data collected by the data collection device. In this instance, the method also determines the location of the data collection device in conjunction with the fingerprint data based upon information provided by the online positioning system.

Described herein are technologies related to estimating location of a mobile device especially while the device is traveling a known and mapped route. That is, the described technologies estimate a user's location when they are traversing a commonly traveled route. More particularly, the described technologies are especially suited to estimating geo-location of a user. This Abstract is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

In accordance with the disclosed approach, positioning server(s) could receive, from mobile devices, information indicating a plurality of GNSS rescue areas, each respective GNSS rescue area of the plurality of GNSS rescue areas corresponding to a respective geographic area visited by a respective one of the mobile devices in which (i) at least one GNSS-based position estimate is or was unavailable and (ii) the respective mobile device had demand for positioning data of at least a particular quality level. Given this, the server(s) could generate a GNSS rescue map representing radio data for the plurality of GNSS rescue areas. In this way, the server(s) could transmit, to a mobile device, an offline radio map representing a subset of the GNSS rescue map, to provide radio data for at least one of the GNSS rescue areas or portion thereof.

Techniques describe tagging visual data (e.g., image and/or video data) with wireless and sensor measurement information by a mobile device. Tagged visual data may be sent to a server, such as a crowdsourcing server. Techniques further describe receiving visual data from a device, wherein the visual data is tagged with information comprising source identifying information associated with an at least one signal emitting device, identifying at least one visual feature from the visual data, determining a coordinate on a map at which the visual data was acquired based on identifying the at least one visual feature from the visual data, and associating the coordinate on the map with the information associated with the at least one signal emitting device.