CN114143714A - System and method for enabling combined cycle and triggered positioning of a mobile device - Google Patents

Abstract

Methods and techniques for initiating a period and triggering positioning (200) in a target UE (102) are described. After an LCS client (160) requests (1) a start period from the UE and triggers a location report, the network returns two intermediate responses (7, 11). A first response (7) indicates that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted by the network. A second response (11) indicates that periodic and triggered positioning has been activated in the UE. In addition, periodic and triggered positioning requests may include a maximum event sampling interval and a maximum reporting interval, and one or more position triggers. The maximum event sampling interval may limit UE power consumption, and the maximum reporting interval may detect periods and times when a trigger position fix is no longer valid in the UE. The location trigger may include periodic reporting, reporting using area events, or reporting based on UE motion.

Description

System and method for enabling combined cycle and triggered positioning of a mobile device

The divisional application is a divisional application of PCT national phase patent application with PCT international application date 2017, 10/11, national application number 201780067038.2 entitled "system and method for enabling combined cycle and triggered positioning of a mobile device".

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for supporting location services for User Equipment (UE) associated with a wireless network.

Background

UEs that form part of the internet of things (IoT) will typically only connect to the wireless network for short intervals (e.g., to provide some sporadic service). For example, a UE that is part of an IoT may include features such as extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) or Power Saving Mode (PSM). In an eDRX or PSM case, the UE may remain in an idle state and may neither be reachable from nor connected to the serving wireless network for a long period of time (e.g., hours or longer). During the time period in which the UE remains in the idle state, the client device (e.g., a location services (LCS) client) may not be able to reach the UE, thereby limiting or preventing location services. This may prevent or hinder real-time location services such as geofencing, asset tracking, and child or pet location, as it may not be possible to access the UE or measure signals from the UE to enable the location of the UE to be obtained while the UE is in an idle state. Therefore, methods to overcome these limitations may be desirable.

Disclosure of Invention

Methods and techniques for initiating a period and triggering a location service in a target User Equipment (UE) are described. After a location services (LCS) client requests a start period from the UE and triggers a location report, two intermediate responses are returned. A first response is provided from the network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered location service request has been received and accepted by the network entity. The UE provides a second response indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been activated in the UE. If the UE is part of the internet of things (IoT) and connects to the wireless network for a short interval, the second response may return soon after the first response, or may return hours or days after the first response. Additionally, triggering a location service request may include a maximum reporting interval and one or more location triggers. If no positioning report is provided after the maximum reporting interval, it may be assumed that the positioning report is terminated in the UE.

In one implementation, a method of performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment at a first network entity includes: receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment from a second network entity; transmitting a first response to the second network entity indicating that the period and triggering the positioning request have been received and accepted; if the target user equipment is not in the reachable state currently, waiting for the target user equipment and the wireless network to be in the reachable state; establishing a signaling connection with a target user equipment; transmitting a period and triggering a positioning request to a target user equipment; receiving confirmation from the target user equipment that the indication period and the triggered positioning request have been accepted; and sending a second response to the second network entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and that the positioning request is triggered.

In one implementation, a first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment includes: an external interface configured to communicate with a second network entity and a target user equipment; and at least one processor configured to receive a period and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment from a second network entity through an external interface, transmit a first response to the second network entity through the external interface indicating that the period and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted, wait for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state with a wireless network if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state, establish a signaling connection with the target user equipment through the external interface, transmit the period and triggered positioning request to the target user equipment through the external interface, receive an acknowledgement of the received period and triggered positioning request from the target user equipment through the external interface, and transmit a second response to the second network entity indicating that the period and triggered positioning request has been activated in the target user equipment.

In one implementation, a first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment includes: means for receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment from a second network entity; means for transmitting a first response to the second network entity indicating that the periodicity and triggering that the positioning request has been received and accepted; means for waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state with the wireless network if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state; means for establishing a signaling connection with a target user equipment; means for transmitting a period and triggering a positioning request to a target user equipment; means for receiving an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the period and the trigger positioning request have been accepted; and means for sending a second response to the second network entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and that the positioning request is triggered.

In one implementation, a method at a user equipment for performing periodic and triggered positioning includes: the method includes receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request from a first network entity, the periodic and triggered positioning request including a type of a positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, returning a response to the first network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request was accepted, monitoring the positioning reporting event to determine whether a positioning reporting event occurred, and transmitting a positioning report to a second network entity when the positioning reporting event occurred or when the positioning reporting event did not occur during the maximum reporting interval.

In one implementation, a user equipment for performing periodic and triggered positioning includes: a wireless transceiver configured to wirelessly communicate with a first network entity; and at least one processor configured to receive, by the wireless transceiver, a periodic and triggered positioning request from the first network entity, the periodic and triggered positioning request comprising a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, return, by the wireless transceiver, a response to the first network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request was accepted, monitor the positioning reporting event to determine whether the positioning reporting event occurred, and transmit, by the wireless transceiver, a positioning report to the second network entity when the positioning reporting event occurred or when the positioning reporting event did not occur during the maximum reporting interval.

In one implementation, a user equipment for performing periodic and triggered positioning includes: the apparatus generally includes means for receiving a period and a triggered positioning request from a first network entity, the period and triggered positioning request including a type of a positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, means for returning a response to the first network entity indicating that the period and triggered positioning request was accepted, means for monitoring the positioning reporting event to determine whether the positioning reporting event occurred, and means for transmitting a positioning report to a second network entity when the positioning reporting event occurred or when the positioning reporting event did not occur during the maximum reporting interval.

In one implementation, a method of performing periodic and triggered positioning at a first network entity for a target user equipment includes: the method comprises receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for the user equipment from a second entity, transmitting the periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment to a third entity, receiving a first response from the third entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted by a serving network entity of the target user equipment, transmitting the first response to the second entity, receiving a second response from the third entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been activated in the target user equipment, and transmitting the second response to the second entity.

In one implementation, a first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment includes: an external interface configured to wirelessly communicate with a first network entity and a second network entity; and at least one processor configured to receive a period and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment from a second entity through an external reception, transmit the period and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment to a third entity through an external interface, receive a first response entity indicating that the period and triggered positioning request have been received and accepted by a serving network entity from the third entity through the external interface, transmit a first response to the second entity through the external interface, receive a second response indicating that the period and triggered positioning request have been activated in the target user equipment from the third entity through the external interface, and transmit a second response to the second entity through the external interface.

In one implementation, a first network entity performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment includes: the apparatus generally includes means for receiving a period and triggered positioning request for the user equipment from a second entity, means for transmitting the period and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment to a third entity, means for receiving a first response from the third entity indicating that the period and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted by a serving network entity of the target user equipment, means for transmitting the first response to the second entity, means for receiving a second response from the third entity indicating that the period and triggered positioning request has been activated in the target user equipment, and means for transmitting the second response to the second entity.

Drawings

A further understanding of the nature and advantages of various embodiments may be realized by reference to the following figures.

Fig. 1 is a simplified block diagram illustrating an architecture for implementing a system that supports positioning of mobile devices, according to an embodiment.

Fig. 2 is a signaling flow illustrating a process for initiating and performing a cycle and triggering a positioning request.

Fig. 3 is a signaling flow illustrating the procedure of canceling the periodicity and triggering the positioning procedure when the LCS client requests cancellation.

Fig. 4 is a process signaling flow illustrating cancellation of the periodicity and triggering of the positioning procedure when the UE requests cancellation.

Fig. 5, 6 and 7 show process flows illustrating methods of performing periodicity and triggering location services, in accordance with different embodiments.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a mobile device or UE.

Figure 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a network entity, such as an MME, E-SMLC or GMLC.

Fig. 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an external client.

Elements in different figures having the same numbering (except for the numbering stages in figures 2 to 4) may correspond to each other.

Detailed Description

UEs that form part of the internet of things (IoT) will typically only connect to a wireless network for short intervals (e.g., to provide some sporadic service, such as reporting the status or condition of an associated entity, object, or person). For example, a UE that is part of an IoT may include features such as extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) or Power Saving Mode (PSM). In an eDRX or PSM case, the UE may remain in an idle state and may neither be reachable from nor connected to the serving wireless network for a long period of time (e.g., hours or longer). During the time period in which the UE remains in the idle state, the client device (e.g., a location services (LCS) client) may not be able to reach the UE, thereby limiting or preventing location services. This may prevent or hinder real-time location services such as geofencing, asset tracking, and child or pet location, as it may not be possible to access the UE or measure signals from the UE to enable the location of the UE to be obtained while the UE is in an idle state. One possible solution to this would allow for periodic and triggered location reporting in IoT UEs during periods when real-time location access is required. However, existing procedures for periodic and triggered positioning have been defined (e.g., by 3GPP) only for UEs that are typically reachable at any time, and not UEs that are typically unreachable. For example, it may not be possible to initiate hours or days of unreachable periods and trigger positioning in the UE using current procedures.

A new procedure supporting different types of periodicity and triggered positioning is described herein. The new procedure may be used for both UEs that are typically reachable at any time and IoT UEs that are unreachable for long periods of time, e.g., due to features such as extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) or Power Saving Mode (PSM). The program may include a first feature comprising returning two intermediate responses to the LCS client through the network after the LCS client initiates a periodic request for the target UE and a request to trigger a location report. The first response may indicate that the LCS client request has been accepted by the network and that the network is ready to initiate the procedure in the target UE. Unlike conventional procedures, a second response may be provided indicating that a periodic and triggered positioning request has been activated in the UE, i.e., the target UE will start to return to the period and trigger a positioning report. The second response may be returned soon after the first response, e.g., for a normal UE, or may be returned hours or days after the first response, e.g., for an IoT UE.

The new procedure may additionally include a second feature that includes a maximum reporting interval for periodic and triggered positioning requests, where the triggering event is reported instead of a periodic event in order to force the UE to issue a positioning report even when a normal reporting event has not occurred. Receiving the location report may confirm to the network and LCS client that the location report is still valid in the UE. On the other hand, if no location report is received after the maximum reporting interval, the LCS client or the network may assume that the location report terminates in the UE, and may then terminate and/or explicitly cancel the request. This may avoid the traditional query procedure that requires the LCS client or network entity to periodically query the UE in order to determine whether the ongoing location session is still valid. In some aspects of the second feature, a minimum reporting interval may also be included to avoid an excessive number of positioning reports from the UE. For example, setting the minimum reporting interval equal to a certain short period (e.g., 10 to 15 minutes) may avoid a large number of reports from the UE in a short time (e.g., one hour) when triggering events occur frequently.

The new process may further include a third feature that includes a maximum event sampling interval that may define a maximum time interval between two consecutive sampling actions of the UE, wherein the UE determines whether the requested positioning trigger event has occurred, e.g., because the UE has moved more than a threshold distance or has entered or left a specified target area. If the above is possible without requiring more additional power consumption, the UE may employ a sampling interval that is less than the maximum event sampling interval. Increasing the maximum event sampling interval may reduce UE power and battery consumption by possibly reducing the frequency of UE sampling actions, but may also increase the delay in reporting a triggering event that has occurred. Thus, the maximum event sampling interval may be adjusted by the LCS client to achieve the best tradeoff between power and battery consumption and the delay of the trigger event reporting the best match to the desired location service and capabilities of the target UE. The maximum event sampling interval may be contrasted with, and may provide more flexibility than, the minimum event sampling interval in which the UE needs to verify whether a triggering event has occurred for some minimum time interval. For example, the minimum event sampling interval may prevent the UE from using a shorter sampling interval when the UE may support the above without significant additional power consumption. As an example, a UE that is part of a vehicle or that is attached to a vehicle or that possesses its own charging source (e.g., powered by light, heat, or the user's movement) may be less limited in power consumption.

Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating a system architecture 100 for positioning support for a User Equipment (UE) 102. For example, the system architecture 100 may support wireless communications involving Machine Type Communications (MTC), internet of things (IoT), cellular IoT (ciot), and narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), as defined in specifications from the 3 rd generation partnership project (3 GPP). NB-IoT is a Radio Access Type (RAT) supported by the evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS) terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), which is added by 3GPP in the specification of 3GPP release 13 to provide 200KHz UL/DL (uplink/downlink) carrier bandwidth (and an available UL/DL bandwidth of 180 KHz). CIoT relates to EPC (evolved packet core) support for NB-IoT, and MTC, and is complementary to NB-IoT (i.e., NB-IoT is primarily related to E-UTRAN and CIoT is primarily related to EPC). The system architecture 100 may support NB-IoT radio access, class M1(1.4MHz) LTE radio access for MTC, or wide bandwidth Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio access with CIoT operation, or may support wireless communications involving other types of user equipment.

The system architecture 100 may be referred to as an Evolved Packet System (EPS) 100. As illustrated, system architecture 100 may include UEs 102, a Radio Access Network (RAN)120, which may be an evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), and an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) 130. Radio Access Network (RAN)120 and EPC 130 may be part of a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN) that communicates with Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN)140 of UE 102. System architecture 100 may interconnect with other access networks. For example, the internet may be used to carry messages to and from different networks, such as the HPLMN 140 and the VPLMN EPC 130. Those entities/interfaces are not shown for simplicity. As shown, the system architecture 100 provides packet switched services, however, as will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, the various concepts presented throughout this disclosure may be extended to networks providing circuit switched services.

The UE102 may be any electronic device that may be configured for NB-IoT, class M1 or (wideband) LTE radio access or other types of radio access, if desired. UE102 may be referred to as a device, a wireless device, a mobile terminal, a Mobile Station (MS), a mobile device, a Secure User Plane Location (SUPL) -enabled terminal (SET), or by some other name, and may correspond to (or belong to) a smart watch, digital glasses, a fitness monitor, a smart car, a smart appliance, a cell phone, a smart phone, a laptop computer, a tablet, a PDA, a tracking device, a control device, or some other portable or mobile device. The UE102 may comprise a single entity or may comprise multiple entities, such as in a personal area network where a user may use audio, video and/or data I/O devices and/or body sensors, as well as separate wired or wireless modems. Typically, although not necessarily, the UE102 may support wireless communications, for example using global system for mobile communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), wideband CDMA (wcdma), LTE, New Radio (NR) (also known as fifth generation (5G)), High Rate Packet Data (HRPD), IEEE 802.11WiFi, (BT), WiMax, and so forth. For example, the UE102 may also support wireless communications using a wireless lan (wlan), Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or packet cable. Although fig. 1 shows only one UE102, there may be many other UEs that may each correspond to a UE 102.

UE102 may enter a connected state with a wireless communication network, which may include a Radio Access Network (RAN) 120. In one example, the UE102 may communicate with a cellular communication network by transmitting and receiving wireless signals to and from a cellular transceiver, such as an evolved node B (eNodeB, also referred to as eNB)122 in the RAN 120. The RAN 120 may include one or more additional enbs 124. As illustrated, an additional RAN, such as RAN 126, may be in system architecture 100, which may include one or more enbs 128. eNB122 provides user and control plane protocol terminations toward UE 102. The eNB122 may also be referred to as a base station, a base station transceiver, a radio base station, a radio transceiver, a radio network controller, a transceiver function, a Base Station Subsystem (BSS), an Extended Service Set (ESS), or some other suitable terminology. The UE102 may also transmit wireless signals to, or receive wireless signals from, a local transceiver, such as an Access Point (AP), femtocell, home base station, small cell base station, home node b (hnb), or home enodeb (henb), and may provide access to a wireless local area network (WLAN, such as an IE EE 802.11 network), a wireless personal area network (WPAN, such as a bluetooth network), or a cellular network (e.g., an LTE network or other wireless wide area network, such as those discussed in the next paragraph). Of course, it should be understood that these are merely examples of networks that may communicate with a mobile device over a wireless link, and claimed subject matter is not limited in this respect.

Examples of network technologies that may support wireless communication include NB-IoT, but may further include GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE, HRPD, and NR. NB-IoT, CIoT, GSM, WCDMA, LTE, and NR are technologies defined by 3GPP (or defined by 3 GPP). CDMA and HRPD are technologies defined by third generation partnership project 2(3GPP 2). WCDMA is also part of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and may be supported by HNBs. Cellular transceivers, such as enbs 122,124, and 128, may comprise a deployment of devices that provide users access to a wireless telecommunications network of services (e.g., under a service contract). Here, the cellular transceiver may provide functionality of a cellular base station for user equipment within a cell determined based at least in part on a range in which the cellular transceiver is capable of providing access services.

The enbs 122,124 are connected to the VPLMN EPC 130 through an interface (e.g., a wireless or wired backhaul connection). As illustrated, EPC 130 includes a Mobility Management Entity (MME)131 through which UE102 signaling messages are transmitted. MME131 may be a serving MME for UE 102. MME131 is a control node that handles signaling between UE102 and EPC 130 and supports attachment and network connection of UE102 and manages establishment and release of data, representing signaling and voice bearers for UE 102. MME131 may also support User Plane (UP) data transfer to and from UE102 using a 3GPP cellular iot (CIoT) feature called CIoT Control Plane (CP) optimization, where data packets are transferred to and from the UE via MME131, rather than by bypassing MME131, in order to avoid the overhead of establishing and releasing data bearers for UE 102. Generally, the MME131 provides bearer and connection management for the UE102 and may connect to the enbs 122 and 124, an enhanced serving mobile location center (E-SMLC)133 and a visited gateway mobile location center (V-GMLC)132 in the VPL MN EPC 130. As illustrated, the EPC 130 may include one or more additional MMEs, such as MME131#, connected to enbs 122 and 124, another E-SMLC 133#, and another V-GMLC 132 #. In some implementations, E-SMLC 133# may be the same entity as E-SMLC 133, and/or V-GMLC 132# may be the same entity as V-GMLC 132. Additionally, as illustrated, the system architecture 100 may include additional VPLMN EPCs (corresponding to different PLMNs), such as EPC134, which may include one or more additional MMEs, such as MME 135, illustrated as connected to eNB 128, another E-SMLC 136, and another V-GMLC 137.

E-SMLCs 133, 133#, and 136 may each be configured to support positioning of UE102 using a 3GPP Control Plane (CP) positioning solution defined in 3GPP Technical Specifications (TS)23.271 and 36.305. V- GMLCs 132, 132#, and 137 (each of which may also be referred to simply as Gateway Mobile Location Centers (GMLCs) 132, 132#, or 137) may be configured to provide location access to UE102 on behalf of an external client (e.g., external client 160) or another network (e.g., HPLMN 140). The external client may also be referred to as an LCS client.

As illustrated, the HPLMN 140 includes a home gateway mobile location center (H-GMLC)142 that may be connected to the V- GMLCs 132, 132#, and 137 (e.g., via the internet). The H-GMLC142 may be connected to a home location register or home subscriber server (HLR/HSS)144, which is a central database containing subscriber-related and subscription-related information about the UE 102. The HGMLC 142 may provide location access to the UE 105 for external user terminals, such as external user terminal 160. The H-GMLC142 may be connected to an external client 160, for example, over another network such as the internet (not shown in fig. 1). In some cases, a requesting GMLC (R-GMLC)152 located in a requesting plmn (rplmn)150 may be connected to the HGMLC 142 (e.g., via the internet) to provide location access to the UE102 on behalf of an external user terminal connected to the R-GMLC 152. The R-GMLC, HGMLC 142 and VGMLC 132 may support location access to the UE102 using the 3GPP CP location solution defined in 3GPP TS 23.271. It should be noted that R-GMLC152, H-GMLC142, and V- GMLCs 132, 132#, and 137 may each be referred to simply as a GMLC (e.g., if the type of GMLC is known).

In a CP positioning solution, such as the 3GPP CP positioning solution defined in 3GPP TS 23.271, signaling supporting positioning of the UE102 may be communicated between the participating entities (e.g., V-GMLC 132, MME131, E-SMLC 133, eNB122, and UE 102) using existing signaling interfaces and protocols of the VPLMN EPC 130 and RAN 120. In contrast, in user plane location solutions such as the SUPL location solution defined by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), signaling to support location of the UE102 may be communicated between participating entities, such as the UE102 and a SUPL Location Platform (SLP), using data bearers, such as using Internet Protocol (IP).

It should be understood that although VPLMN networks (including RAN 120 and VPLMN EPC 130) and separate HPLMNs 140 and RPLMNs 150 are illustrated in fig. 1, one or more of the PLMNs (networks) may be the same PLMN. In that case, HLR/HSS144 may be in the same network (EPC) as MME131, and one or more of V-GMLC 132, H-GMLC142, and R-GMLC152 may be the same GMLC.

In particular implementations, the UE102 may have circuitry and processing resources capable of obtaining position location related measurements (e.g., signals received from GPS or other Satellite Positioning System (SPS) satellites 110, cellular transceivers, such as enbs 122,124, or local transceivers) and possibly calculating a position fix or estimating a position location of the UE102 based on these position location related measurements. In some embodiments, the location-related measurements obtained by the UE102 may be transmitted to a location server, such as the E-SMLC 133, which may then estimate or determine the location of the UE102 based on the measurements. The positioning-related measurements obtained by the UE102 may include measurements of signals received from satellites 110 belonging to SPS or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), such as GPS, GLONASS, galileo, or beidou, and/or may include measurements of signals received from terrestrial transmitters (e.g., eNB122, eNB 124, or other local transceivers) fixed at known positions. UE102 or a separate location server (e.g., E-SMLC 133) may then obtain a location estimate for UE102 based on these location related measurements using any one of several location methods (e.g., GNSS, assisted GNSS (a-GNSS), Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT), observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA), enhanced cell ID (E-CID), or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) location, or a combination thereof). In some of these techniques (e.g., AFLT and OTDOA), timing differences may be measured at the UE102 for three or more terrestrial transmitters fixed at known positions, or pseudoranges may be accurately measured (e.g., for a-GNSS) for four or more satellites having accurately known orbit data, or a combination thereof. These measurements may be based, at least in part, on pilots, Positioning Reference Signals (PRSs), or other positioning-related signals transmitted by transmitters or satellites and received at UE 102.

In some implementations, a positioning server, such as E-SMLC 133, may be capable of providing positioning assistance data to UE102, including, for example, information about signals to be measured (e.g., expected signal timing, signal coding, signal frequency, signal doppler), positioning and identification of terrestrial transmitters, and/or signal, timing and orbit information of GNSS satellites, to facilitate positioning techniques such as a-GNSS, AFLT, OTDOA, and E-CID. Facilitating may include UE102 improving signal acquisition and measurement accuracy, and in some cases, enabling UE102 to calculate its estimated position based on positioning measurements. For example, a location server (e.g., E-SMLC 133) may include an almanac that indicates the location and identification of cellular transceivers (e.g., enbs 122 and 124) and/or local transceivers in a particular area or areas such as a particular venue, and may provide information describing signals transmitted by cellular base stations or APs, such as transmit power and signal timing. In the case of E-CID, UE102 may obtain measurements of signal strength (e.g., Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) or Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP)) of signals received from a cellular transceiver (e.g., enbs 122, 124) and/or a local transceiver and/or may obtain signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), signal quality level (e.g., Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ)) or round trip signal propagation time (RTT) between UE102 and one or more cellular transceivers (e.g., enbs 122, 124) and/or local transceivers. In the case of E-CID, UE102 may obtain a global cell ID or a physical (local) cell ID for each of one or more nearby cells, which may enable approximate positioning of UE 102. In the case of WLAN positioning, UE102 may obtain a Media Access Control (MAC) address for each of one or more nearby WLAN APs, which may enable accurate positioning of UE102 due to the short radio range (e.g., 50 meters) used for the WLAN APs. The UE102 may communicate these measurements to a location server, such as E-SMLC 133 or a SUPL SLP (not shown in fig. 1), to determine the location of the UE102, or in some implementations, may use these measurements along with associated data received from the location server, such as terrestrial almanac data or GNSS satellite data, such as GNSS almanac and/or GNSS ephemeris information, to determine the location of the UE 102.

In the case of OTDOA, UE102 may measure a Reference Signal Time Difference (RSTD) between signals, such as Positioning Reference Signals (PRS) or cell-specific reference signals (CRS), transmitted by pairs of nearby transceivers and base stations, such as enbs 122 and 124. The RSTD measurements may provide a time difference of arrival between signals (e.g., CRSs or PRSs) received at the UE102 from two different transceivers (e.g., RSTDs between signals received from the eNB122 and the eNB 124). UE102 may return the measured RSTD to a location server (e.g., E-SMLC 133), which may calculate an estimated location of UE102 based on the known locations and known signal timings of the measured transceivers. In some implementations of OTDOA, signals used for RSTD measurements (e.g., PRS or CRS signals) may be precisely synchronized by the transceivers to a common universal time, such as GPS time or coordinated Universal Time (UTC), e.g., using a GPS receiver when each transceiver accurately obtains the common universal time.

The estimate of the location of the UE102 may be referred to as a position, a position estimate, a position fix, a bearing, a position, a location estimate, or a position fix, and may be geodetic, thus providing position coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude) of the UE102, which may or may not include an altitude component (e.g., altitude above ground level, or depth below ground level, floor level, or basement level). Alternatively, the location of the UE102 may be expressed as a municipal location (e.g., as a postal address or the name of a certain point or small area in a building, such as a particular room or floor). The location of the UE102 may also be expressed as a region or volume (defined geographically or in a municipal form) in which the UE102 is expected to be located with a certain probability or confidence (e.g., 67% or 95%, etc.), and so on. The location of the UE102 may further be a relative location, including, for example, a distance and direction defined relative to some origin at some known location or relative X, Y (and Z) coordinates, which may be defined geographically or in a municipal manner or with reference to a point, area, or volume indicated on a map, plan, or architectural plan. In the description contained herein, the use of the term orientation may include any of these variants, unless otherwise indicated.

Triggered positioning (e.g., based on a regional event) and periodic positioning of the UE102 at the request of an external client (e.g., external client 160) are defined for GSM and UMTS access by the UE102 in 3GPP TS 23.271 using a mobile terminated positioning request (MT-LR) procedure. Different MT-LR procedures are defined in 3GPP TS 23.271 to support periodic positioning of the UE102 (using MT-LR procedures for periodic positioning) and triggered positioning of the UE102, wherein the UE102 enters, leaves or remains in a defined geographical area (using MT-LR procedures change area events). However, such MT-LR procedures (e.g., MT-LR procedures for periodic location or change of area events) are not defined in 3GPP TS 23.271 for E-UTRAN access by the UE102 (e.g., using LTE or NB-IoT). In the case of CIoT features used by the UE102, the capability to support reporting of location changes of the UE102 is defined in 3GPP TS 23.682, but the solution is not consistent with positioning support in 3GPP TS 23.271 (e.g., because the capabilities in 3GPP TS 23.682 use a different architecture and a different protocol than the solution in 3GPP TS 23.271), only provides positioning at the granularity of a cell ID or Tracking Area (TA), and only reports positioning when the UE102 becomes available (e.g., perhaps at an interval of almost three hours in the case of a long eDRX paging cycle for the UE 102).

More flexible periodicity and/or triggered MT-LR capabilities may be used to enable positioning of a UE102 with LTE access, class M1 access, or NB-IoT access at times other than when the UE102 becomes normally available (e.g., connected to the VPLMN EPC 130) and/or with better granularity than cell ID or TA. For example, a user may want to know when a valuable asset, child, or pet enters or leaves a particular area immediately after an event occurs, rather than after two hours, and may additionally prefer a more accurate current location when such an event occurs.

A single program (e.g., MT-LR program) may be used to support different types of periodic and triggered fixes. Examples of such a single process herein are referred to as "periodic and triggered positioning," periodic and triggered MT-LR positioning, "" periodic and triggered positioning determination, "" periodic positioning and triggered positioning, "" periodic or triggered positioning, "" periodic position determination and triggered positioning determination, "or" periodic position determination or triggered positioning determination. Moreover, the request for such a single procedure may be referred to herein as a "periodic and triggered location request," a "periodic and triggered MT-LR location request," a "periodic location and triggered location service request," a "periodic or triggered location request," a "periodic location request and a triggered location request," or a "periodic location request or a triggered location request. Using a single procedure that supports periodic and different types of triggered location reporting may be advantageous over separate procedures, each supporting only one type of reporting (e.g., only periodic reporting or only reporting area events), due to reduced implementation of the UE102 and/or for network elements such as the MME131 and GMLCs 132, 142, and 152. The procedures may be used for both UEs 10 that are typically reachable at any time and IoT UEs 102 that are unreachable for long periods of time. The procedures may contain several features that support location services, e.g., for IoT UEs. In one feature of the process, after an LCS client (e.g., external client 160) requests the network (e.g., R-GMLC 152) to initiate a period for a target UE (e.g., UE 102) and trigger a location report, two intermediate responses may be returned to the LCS client by the network (e.g., by MME 131). The first response, which may typically be returned in a few seconds, may indicate that the LCS client request has been accepted by the network or the network (e.g., by R-GMLC152, H-GMLC-142, V-GMLC-132, and MME 131) and that the network (e.g., MME 131) is ready to initiate the procedure in the target UE. The second response may return shortly (e.g., after a few seconds) after the first response for normal UEs, or may return hours or days after the first response for IoT UEs, may indicate that a periodic and triggered positioning request has been activated in the UE. Unlike conventional procedures that do not provide this second response, the second response may inform the LCS client that the target UE will start the return period and trigger the location report.

After activating periods and triggering positioning reports in a UE (e.g., UE 102), the UE may report the type of periods and/or triggering events requested when these occur and are detected by the UE, and may include these reported positioning estimates (or the network may include positioning estimates). However, when no trigger event occurs (e.g., the UE remains within the geo-fenced area and does not need to report), the network (e.g., R-GMLC152 and H-GMLC 142) and LCS clients (e.g., external client 160) may not receive any location reports, so that the network or LCS client may not know whether the location request is still valid in the UE or terminated (e.g., due to the UE being powered off). Traditionally, an additional query procedure may be used that allows an LCS client or a network entity (e.g., GMLC) to query the UE for an ongoing, active location session. However, using additional queries to determine the current state of a positioning session with a UE may increase the impact on the wireless network and the UE and may result in delayed responses when the UE in an idle state is unreachable for a long time. Another feature of the procedures described herein may provide a more efficient solution with less delay, where a maximum reporting interval is provided for the period of the triggering event (e.g., area event reporting) and for triggering the positioning request to force the UE to issue a positioning report even if a normal reporting event does not occur. The location report may confirm to the network (e.g., R-GMLC152 and H-GMLC 142) and LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160) that the location report is still valid in the UE. The LCS client or network (e.g., R-GMLC152 and H-GMLC 142) may assume that location reporting is terminated in the UE if no location report is received after the maximum reporting interval.

Periodic and triggered positioning of EPC services may support initiation of positioning reports at periodic intervals or whenever the UE detects some triggering event and cancels positioning reports (e.g., by the UE or LCS client). For example, supported trigger events for positioning reporting may include area events (e.g., if a UE enters, leaves, or remains within a predefined area) and motion events. In one implementation, only one type of report may be included in any request among a period, area event, and motion event. In another implementation, more than one type of report may be supported for the same period and trigger positioning procedure (e.g., from period, area event, and motion event reports). In the case of a regional event, the target area may be defined, for example, by a geographic area for PLMN, country or geopolitical name, PLMN identity, set of cells, and/or TA. In the case of a motion event, the motion may, for example, correspond to movement by the UE that exceeds a linear distance threshold from a previous location of the UE that reported the motion event from the UE. The procedure may support UE mobility between different serving MMEs and different serving PLMNs without interrupting event reporting.

Fig. 2 shows a signaling flow 200 illustrating a process for initiating and performing event and location reporting for MT-LR and target UEs with LTE and/or NB-IoT wireless access for periodicity and triggering of LCS client requests. The example in fig. 2 and the examples shown later in fig. 3 and 4 apply to the UE102 in the system architecture 100, where elements from the system architecture 100 are shown with the same numbers in fig. 2-4. As illustrated in signaling flow 200, at phase 1, LCS client 160 sends an LCS service request to R-GMLC152 providing the type of location (or location event) report requested (e.g., into area, out of area, within area, periodic report, or sports event report) and associated parameters. In this example, assume that only one type of positioning report is requested at phase 1 (e.g., a requested report at phase 1 of a periodic event, but not a region event or motion event, for example). However, there may be other instances in which more than one type of positioning report is requested (e.g., at phase 1, which reports both periodic and motion events). For any type of report, the LCS service request may include an identification including UE102, such as a Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN), an international mobile subscriber number (IMSI), or some other identification known to LCS client 160 and R-GMLC 152. For periodic reporting, for example, the LCS service request may further include consecutive location reports, a time interval between the total number of reports, and may include a location quality of service (QoS) that may include a desired position accuracy. For example, for area event reports (e.g., into an area, out of an area, or within an area), the LCS service request may further include details of the target area (e.g., a definition of a geographical or urban target area), the events to be reported are the UE being within the target area, entering or leaving the target area, the duration of the event report, the minimum and/or maximum time interval between successive event reports, the maximum event sampling interval, whether a location estimate may be included in the event report (and associated location QoS), and whether only one location report or more than one location report is needed. If the target region is expressed by a local coordinate system, a civic location, or a geopolitical name, R-GMLC152 may convert the target region to a geographic region represented by a geographic shape such as a circle, an ellipse, or a polygon (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 23.032). For motion event reporting, for example, the LCS service request may further include a threshold linear distance that the UE102 triggers movement of the motion event report, a duration of the event report, a minimum and/or maximum time interval between successive event reports, a maximum event sampling interval, whether a location estimate may be included in the event report (and associated location QoS), and whether only one location report or more than one location report is needed. In some embodiments, LCS client 160 may have received information (not shown in fig. 2) from another entity (e.g., a user of LCS client 160) of the LCS service request sent in phase 1.

At phase 2, LCS service request handling is performed between GMLCs 152, 142 and 132. LCS service request handling at phase 2 may include one or more of: (i) one or more of the H-GMLC142 address, V-GMLC 132 address, address of the serving MME131, and/or additional identification (e.g., MSISDN or IMSI) of the UE102 queried and obtained from the HLR/HSS144 by the R-GMLC 152; (ii) forward the LCS service request to the H-GMLC142 through the R-GMLC 152; (iii) the H-GMLC142 performs privacy and authorization verification on the LCS service request; (iv) one or more of the V-GMLC 132 address, the address of the serving MME131, and/or additional identification (e.g., MSISDN or IMSI) for the UE102 are queried and obtained by the H-GMLC142 from the HLR/HSS 144. As part of LCS service request handling at phase 2, the H-GMLC142 may record the received information and parameters in the LCS service request. The H-GMLC142 may also allocate a Location Deferral Request (LDR) reference number to the LCS service request and optionally the reporting PLMN list (which in this example shall include the serving PLMN corresponding to the VPLMN EPC 130), e.g., based on subscriber related and subscription related information for the UE102 received from the HLR/HSS144 or previously configured in the H-GMLC 142. The H-GMLC142 then communicates the LCS service request to the V-GMLC 132 and includes the LDR reference number, the H-GMLC142 address, any optional reporting PLMN list, and an optional request for privacy notification or verification by the UE102 and/or the user of the UE 102. In the case where the LCS service request for phase 1 is sent by the LCS client 160 directly to the H-GMLC142 rather than via the R-GMLC152 (e.g., where the R-GMLC152 is the same as the H-GMLC 142), the actions described for the R-GMLC152 only for phase 2 may be omitted. Sending LCS service requests from the H-GMLC142 to the V-GMLC 132 may be omitted in the same case of the H-GMLC142 and the V-GMLC 132 (e.g., when the VPLMN EPC 130 is part of the HPLMN 140).

At stage 3, in the case of a request for area event reporting, if the target area is defined by a geographical shape (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 23.032), the V-GMLC 132 may convert the target area to a corresponding list of cell identities and/or Tracking Areas (TAs) defined for the RAN 120. If the V-GMLC 132 is unable to convert the entire target area to a network identification such as a cell identification and tracking area, the V-GMLC 132 may reject the request for an error reason (not shown in fig. 2) and send an LCS service response to the H-GMLC 142. Otherwise, the V-GMLC 132 sends a location request and related parameters to the MME131, e.g. in a provide user location request message, including details of the event to be reported, the LDR reference number, the H-GMLC142 address, any optional list of reporting PLMNs, and any optional request for privacy notification or verification. MME131 may be the serving MME for UE102 and may be identified in the information provided to R-GMLC152 or H-GMLC142 from HLR/HSS144 in response to the query as previously described for phase 2.

At phase 4, the MME131 may verify the capability of the UE102 with respect to support for location service related call independent supplementary services (e.g., notification of LCS), which may have been previously provided by the HLR/HSS144 to the MME131 as part of the UE102 subscription information (e.g., not shown in fig. 2 when the UE102 first attached to the VPLMN EPC 130 or performed a tracking area update). If the UE102 does not support call independent supplementary services related to location services, or if the MME131 does not support location requests for periodic and triggered locations (for temporary or permanent reasons), a provide user location error response may be returned to the V-GMLC 132 (not shown in fig. 2) with the appropriate error cause by the MME 131. Otherwise, MME131 returns an acknowledgement, e.g., a provide user location acknowledgement (Ack) message, to V-GMLC 132 to confirm that the request has been accepted by MME 131. In one aspect, the acknowledgement may include an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the UE102 next becomes reachable if the UE102 is currently unreachable (e.g., this may be based on the remaining amount of time of the eDRX cycle or PSM period). In an aspect, the acknowledgement may also or alternatively include the last known location of the UE102, e.g., if available based on information of the UE102 stored at the MME 131. The provide user location request message at phase 3 and the provide user location confirm message at phase 4 may be as defined for the EPC LCS Protocol (ELP) in 3GPP TS 29.172.

In some implementations, there may be no UE102 capability information directly indicating support for periodic and triggered positioning requests. However, if UE102 supports at least one location service related call independent supplementary service (e.g., notification of, e.g., LCS), MME131 may assume support of periodic and triggered location in some embodiments. In these embodiments, if UE102 does not recognize the request sent later in stage 9, UE102 may return an error response (e.g., a facility rejection indication) to MME131 in stage 10 (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 24.008), in which case MME131 may terminate the request made by stages 19 to 24 initiating signaling flow 200 for an appropriate error cause in the message sent at stage 19 (e.g., a user location report).

At phases 5-7, the V-GMLC 132 returns an LCS service response to the LCS client 160 via the H-GMLC142 and the R-GMLC152 to inform whether the periodic and triggered location request is accepted. LCS client 160 may then return a notification to another entity (e.g., the user of LCS client 160) (not shown in fig. 2). When the H-GMLC142 returns the LCS service response to the R-GMLC152 at stage 6, the LDR reference number allocated by the H-GMLC142 at stage 2 may be included, and the R-GMLC152 may then transmit the LDR reference number, or another reference number allocated by the R-GMLC152, in the LCS service response to the LCS client 160 at stage 7. The LCS service response returned at phases 5-7 may also include an indication of an expected or maximum time interval at phase 4 until the next time the UE102 becomes reachable and/or the last known location of the UE102 if any of these were included at phase 4. Note that stage 6 may be omitted when R-GMLC152 is the same as H-GMLC142, and stage 5 may be omitted when H-GMLC142 is the same as V-GMLC 132.

Note that neither the message at phase 4 (e.g., providing user location confirmation) nor the LCS service responses at phases 5-7 can confirm that the location report is activated in the UE102, or the UE102 may have to be able to support the request. However, the messages at phase 4 (e.g., providing user location confirmation) and LCS service responses at phases 5-7 may confirm the ability and intent to support the request at the network side and may be useful to the LCS client 160 when the response from the UE102 is delayed due to the UE102 being temporarily unreachable (e.g., if in idle state due to PSM or eDRX). The provision of the user location confirmation at phase 4 and the LCS service responses at phases 5 to 7 may correspond to the first of the two responses mentioned previously for the first feature, which includes returning two intermediate responses to the LCS client over the network.

At phase 8, if the UE102 is not currently reachable (e.g., when in PSM or in eDRX case), the MME131 waits until the UE102 becomes reachable again (e.g., when the UE102 can be paged again at the end of the eDRX cycle or if a signaling connection to the RAN 120 is requested again in PSM). When the UE102 becomes reachable, the UE102 may request to establish a signaling connection to the VPLMN EPC 130 via the RAN 120, in which case the UE102 and MME131 may establish the signaling connection and perform authentication and encryption. Alternatively, if the UE102 is in an IDLE state after becoming reachable (e.g., in an EPS connection management IDLE (ECM-IDLE) state), the MME131 may perform paging, and then the UE102 and MME131 may perform authentication and ciphering to establish a signaling connection to the UE 102. If privacy notification/verification is requested (e.g., at phase 3 or according to subscription information of UE102 obtained by MME131 from HLR/HSS 144) and UE102 supports call independent supplementary services related to location services, then MME131 may send an LCS location notification invoke message to UE102 as part of phase 8, where the location type indicates activation of a deferred location request, the deferred location event type indicates the type of location reporting event (i.e., entering area, leaving from area, within area, periodic or moving) and an indication of whether privacy verification is required. If privacy verification is requested, the UE102 may return an LCS location notification return result message to the MME131 indicating whether permission for the location request is granted or denied (e.g., by the user of the UE 102) as part of phase 8. If UE102 rejects the grant or does not return a response when needed, MME131 may terminate the request as described further for phase 11. In an aspect, if UE102 changes serving MME131 (e.g., to a new serving MME, such as MME131 #) before becoming reachable from MME131, MME131 may return a message (e.g., a user positioning report message) to V-GMLC 132 indicating the change of MME131 and may include the new MME131 address (e.g., the address of MME131# when MME131# is the new serving MME), if available (not shown in fig. 2). In this aspect, the V-GMLC 132 may then forward the error to the LCS client 160 via the H-GMLC142 and the R-GMLC152, or may repeat phase 3 to transfer the periodic and triggered location request to the new MME (e.g., MME131 #) if provided by the MME131 (not shown in fig. 2). In this regard, when phase 4 is later performed again by a new MME (e.g., MME131 #), V-GMLC 132 may not repeat phases 5-7 because LCS client 160 has been informed that the network accepted the request when phases 5-7 were initially performed.

Returning to the signaling flow 200 for the normal (successful) procedure, where the procedure is not terminated and not directed to another MME, at stage 9 the MME131 sends a message (e.g. LCS period triggered invoke message) to the UE102 carrying all event related information received from the V-GMLC 132 at stage 3, including the type of location reporting event (e.g. into area, out of area, within area, periodic reporting or motion event reporting), LDR reference number, H-GMLC142 address, optional list of reported PLMNs (if provided) and any requested QoS in case location estimation is needed.

In phase 10, if UE102 supports periodic and triggered positioning according to the request received at phase 9 and currently has resources to service the request, UE102 sends an acknowledgement to MME131 that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been accepted by UE102 and activated in UE 102. Otherwise, the UE102 may send a return error response to the MME131 with an appropriate error cause. The LCS period trigger invoke message at phase 9 and any acknowledgements at phase 10 may be as defined in 3GPP TS 24.080.

At stage 11, if UE102 cannot support periodic and trigger a location request, MME131 may return a message (e.g., a user location report message) containing the LDR reference number and H-GMLC142 address to V-GMLC 132 with the appropriate error cause. Otherwise, if UE102 acknowledges the support period and triggers a location request at stage 10, as part of stage 11, MME131 may return a message (e.g., a user location report message) to V-GMLC 132 indicating that an event report is activated in UE102 and including the LDR reference number and H-GMLC142 address received at stage 3. If a subsequent event reports that a location estimate is needed (e.g., as indicated at stage 3), MME131 may obtain the current location of UE102 (e.g., stages 15-17 as described later) and may include the location estimate in a message sent to V-GMLC 132 (e.g., which V-GMLC 132 may acknowledge to MME 131). As part of phase 11, the V-GMLC 132 then returns an LCS service response to the LCS client 160 via the H-GMLC142 and the R-GMLC152 to inform whether a periodic activation and triggering of a location request in the UE102 is enabled. When the H-GMLC142 returns the LCS service response to the R-GMLC152 as part of the phase 11, the LDR reference number assigned by the H-GMLC142 and H-GMLC142 addresses may be included, and the R-GMLC152 as part of the phase 11 may communicate the LDR reference number to the LCS client 160 in the LCS service response. LCS client 160 may then return a response to another entity (e.g., the user of LCS client 160) (not shown in fig. 2). As part of phase 11, V-GMLC 132, H-GMLC142, and/or R-GMLC152 may also record billing information for the request. After phase 11, MME131 and V-GMLC 132 may release all resources for the request including any state information. Note that the user location report message and the LCS service response with the activation indication described above for phase 11 may each correspond to the second of the two responses previously referenced for the first feature, including returning two intermediate responses back to the LCS client through the network (e.g., and may confirm to the LCS client 160 that a location (or location event) report has started in the UE 102). The user location report message and associated acknowledgement message at phase 11 may be as defined by the EPC LCS Protocol (ELP) in 3GPP TS 29.172.

At stage 12, for a regional event or motion event, the UE102 monitors the requested event (or trigger event) at an interval equal to or less than the maximum event sampling interval received at stage 9. The UE102 may use a default maximum event sampling interval if the maximum event sampling interval is not received at phase 9 (e.g., due to not being included by the LCS client 160 at phase 1 or included by the H-GMLC142 as part of phase 2). Using the maximum event sampling interval at stage 12 may correspond to the third feature previously described herein, including the maximum event sampling interval, and may enable limiting or reducing UE102 power and/or battery consumption for event monitoring as well as the limitation of the maximum delay to detect events, as previously described. The UE102 may detect an event (or trigger event) when any of the following occurs: (i) UE102 has detected a requested area event (e.g., entered into the area, exited from the area, or within the area) or a requested motion event, and a minimum reporting interval has elapsed since the last report at phase 14 (if this is not the first event report) (if included at phase 9); (ii) the requested periodic positioning event has occurred; or (iii) the maximum reporting interval for a regional event or an action event has expired. The event trigger corresponding to alternative (iii) and its subsequent reporting, further described subsequently in association with phases 13-24, may support the event reporting previously described for the second feature of the present procedure, including the period for the triggering event and the maximum reporting interval for triggering the location request, and may enable the network entities (e.g., R-GMLC152 and H-GMLC 142) and LCS client 160 to determine whether the period and triggering the location reporting are still valid in UE 102.

When the UE detects the event trigger at stage 12, once the UE102 can register (e.g., using RAN 120) with a PLMN in the optional list of reporting PLMNs received at stage 9, or if no list of reporting PLMNs is provided, or if the UE102 does not support the optional list of reporting PLMNs, then the UE102 proceeds to stage 13. If the UE102 is unable to register with the licensed PLMN, the UE102 may wait until the licensed PLMN is accessible for reporting the event, or terminate due to cancellation of the LCS client 160, cancellation of the UE102, or expiration of the allowed reporting duration for the period and triggering of the location request. Note that if the UE102 uses a different serving PLMN to report the occurrence of an area event, the UE102 may still continue to use the target area provided by the original serving PLMN (e.g., VPLMN EPC 130 in this example) containing the cell ID and/or TA for the original serving PLMN. The restriction of using only licensed PLMNs may not affect PLMN selection by UE 102.

At stage 13, if UE102 is in an IDLE (e.g., ECM-IDLE) state, UE102 may perform a UE-triggered service request or connection restoration (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 23.401) in order to obtain a signaling connection via RAN 120 to serve MME 131. Note that the MME131 and V-GMLC 132 of phases 13-24 may be different from the MME131 and V-GMLC 132 of phases 1-11, but may still belong to the VPLMN EPC 130. In another example of periodic and triggered location requests (not shown in fig. 2), the UE102 may attach to another PLMN EPC other than the VPLMN EPC 130 at phase 13, in which case the MME131, V-GMLC 132, and E-SMLC 133 shown in fig. 2 for phases 13-24 may be replaced with an MME, V-GMLC, and E-SMLC for this other PLMN. For example, the UE102 may attach to the VPLMN EPC134 in the system architecture 100 via the RAN 126, in which case the MME131, V-GMLC 132, and E-SMLC 133 shown in fig. 2 for phases 13-24 may be replaced with an MME 135, V-GMLC 137, and E-SMLC 136, respectively. This attachment to another PLMN may occur if UE102 cannot access VPLMN EPC 130 after phase 12 (e.g., if UE102 is not within the coverage of RAN 120) but can access other PLMNs (e.g., because VPLMN EPC134 can be accessed in the coverage of RAN 126).

At stage 14, UE102 may send an LCS mobile originated location request (MO-LR) invoke message to MME131 indicating a deferral period and an event report triggering the location request. The LCS MO-LR call message may contain the type of event reported (e.g. entering into a region, leaving from a region, within a region, a periodic event, a motion event or the expiration of a maximum reporting interval), the LDR reference number, the H-GMLC142 address and whether a location estimate is required. When a location estimate is needed (e.g., for a periodic location event or for a regional or motion event, if requested by the LCS client 160), the UE102 may include any QoS received at stage 9 along with the location estimate (if the location estimate is currently available to the UE 102). The UE102 may also indicate whether the period and trigger positioning request is now terminated in the UE102 (e.g., due to the report duration expiring or because only one event report is requested). Note that when requested at stage 9, the UE102 providing a location estimate at stage 14 may be applied in some aspects to events corresponding to the expiration of a maximum reporting interval for a region event or a motion event. The LCS MO-LR invoke message sent in phase 14 and the LCS MO-LR return result message described later for phase 18 may be as defined in 3GPP TS 24.080.

In the case where the UE102 sends the LCS MO-LR invoke message at phase 14 at or before the maximum reporting interval expires (e.g., because the UE102 was powered off or unable to access the VPLMN EPC 130 or another allowed PLMN after phase 12), one or more of the LCS client 160, H-GMLC142, or R-GMLC152 may determine that the UE102 is no longer able to support the periodic and triggered MT-LR due to no response prior to the maximum reporting interval. In this scenario (not shown in fig. 2), LCS client 160, H-GMLC142, and/or R-GMLC152 may cancel the periodic period and trigger the location request-e.g., as described below with respect to fig. 3 and 4.

Returning to fig. 2, if UE102 indicates that location estimation is needed at stage 14, MME131 may initiate location of UE102 by sending a location request message for UE102 to E-SMLC 133 at stage 15. The E-SMLC 133 may then obtain the location of the UE102 at stage 16 using a control plane location solution, as previously described herein. For example, the E-SMLC 133 may exchange positioning protocol messages (e.g., messages related to the LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) defined in 3GPP TS 36.355) with the UE102 at stage 16 (not shown in fig. 2) and/or may exchange positioning protocol messages (e.g., related to the LPP a (LPPa) protocol defined in 3GPP TS 36.455) with a serving eNB for the UE102, such as eNB122, in the RAN 120 at stage 16 (not shown in fig. 2). Positioning protocol messages may be exchanged via the MME131 and (e.g., for LPP messages) via the RAN 120. E-SMLC 133 may use positioning protocol messages (e.g., LPP messages) to request and receive positioning measurements from UE102 (e.g., for a-GNSS, OTDOA, E-CID, or WLAN positioning) and/or may use positioning protocol messages (e.g., LPPa messages) to request and receive positioning measurements from a serving eNB for UE102 (e.g., eNB 122) (e.g., for E-CID positioning). The E-SMLC 133 may also use positioning protocol messages (e.g., LPP messages) to provide assistance data to the UE102 to help enable the UE102 to obtain location measurements (e.g., for a-GNSS, OTDOA, E-CID, or WLAN locations) and possibly compute a positioning estimate from these positioning measurements. The E-SMLC 133 may then determine (or verify) a location estimate for the UE102 from the received location measurements (e.g., according to a-GNSS, OTDOA, E-CID, or WLAN location methods), and may return the location estimate to the MME131 at stage 17. If UE102 provides a location estimate at stage 14, MME131 may omit stages 15-17 (e.g., depending on configuration information in MME 131), or MME131 may perform steps 15-17 and may include a location estimate provided by UE102 at stage 14 for the location request sent to E-SMLC 133 at stage 15.

At stage 18, MME131 sends MO-LR return result message to UE102, confirming that the positioning event report will be sent. If the MME131 is unable to send a location event report (e.g., because the MME131 does not support this capability), then a MO-LR return error may be returned instead of the UE102 (not shown in fig. 2). UE102 may then terminate the period and trigger a positioning procedure after receiving an implementation defining the number of such MO-LR return errors.

Assuming that MME131 is able to send a location event report, at stage 19 MME131 selects V-GMLC 132 in the same network (e.g., in VPLMN EPC 130) and sends a message (e.g., a subscriber location report message) to V-GMLC 132 along with: an indication of the type of event reported (or a location event) (e.g., entry into an area, exit from an area, within an area, a periodic event, a motion event, or expiration of a maximum reporting interval), the LDR reference number, the H-GMLC142 address, any location estimate received at stage 14 or obtained at stages 15 to 17, and optionally information about the location method used for location estimation. The MME131 may also include the UE102 IMSI or MSISDN and may indicate whether the periodic and triggered MT-LR is now terminated in the UE102 (e.g., if so indicated by the UE102 at stage 14).

At stage 20, V-GMLC 132 sends an acknowledgement message to MME131 and MME131 may record charging information. The user location report message at stage 19 and the acknowledgement message at stage 20 may be as defined for the ELP protocol.

At stage 21, the V-GMLC 132 forwards the information received at stage 19 to the H-GMLC142, as identified by the H-GMLC142 address received at stage 19. V-GMLC 132 may record charging information.

At stage 22, the H-GMLC142 uses the LDR reference number and/or IMSI or MSISDN received at stage 21 to identify the location request to which the message received at stage 21 applies. The H-GMLC142 may also perform privacy checks at stage 22 (e.g., may determine whether to forward the information received at stage 21 to the LCS client 160 at stage 23).

At stage 23, the H-GMLC142 forwards the information received from the V-GMLC 132 in the LCS service response to the R-GMLC 152. The periodic and triggered MT-LR location request may be completed in the H-GMLC142 if the UE102 indicates termination of the location request. The H-GMLC142 may record billing information.

At stage 24, R-GMLC152 communicates the event report and any included location estimate to LCS client 160. LCS client 160 may then communicate the event report and any included location to another entity (e.g., a user of LCS client 160) (not shown in fig. 2). The location request may be completed in the R-GMLC152 if the UE102 indicates termination of the periodic and triggered MT-LR location request. R-GMLC152 may record charging information. Note that when R-GMLC152 is identical to H-GMLC142, stage 23 may be omitted, and when H-GMLC142 is identical to V-GMLC 132, stage 21 may be omitted.

At stage 25, if the UE102 does not terminate the location request after stage 18, the UE102 may continue to monitor for the requested event as at stage 12, and may report each occurrence of the requested event at stages 13-24 until the requested duration expires or until the UE102 or LCS client 160 terminates the reporting for other reasons.

The signaling flow 300 shown in fig. 3 illustrates a procedure for canceling deferred location requests for periodic and triggered locations when cancellation is requested by the LCS client 160. Assume for signaling flow 300 that the period is successfully started and MT-LR is triggered for UE102 as described for signaling flow 200 and that possible ones of phases 1-7 or phases 1-11 and 12-24 of signaling flow 200 have been successfully performed.

At phase 1 of signaling flow 300, LCS client 160 requests to cancel the previously requested period and the triggered MT-LR location request. The LDR (or other) reference number contained in the previous LCS service response sent by the R-GMLC152 to the LCS client 160 (e.g., as at phase 7 or phase 11 of the signaling flow 200) may be included in the request sent at phase 1 of the signaling flow 300 to indicate which ongoing location request should be cancelled.

At stage 2, the R-GMLC152 sends a cancellation request to the H-GMLC142, containing the LDR reference number. In some scenarios (shown in fig. 3), R-GMLC152 may initiate cancellation itself, e.g., whenever R-GMLC152 never has a location report for a long period of time inferring that the location request may have been terminated by UE 102.

In phase 3, the H-GMLC142 may SEND a message (e.g., SEND _ ROUTING _ INFO _ FOR _ LCS message) to the HLR/HSS144 using the IMSI or MSISDN of the UE102 to query the current VPLMN of the UE 102. This may be required if the UE102 is no longer served by the original V-PLMN EPC 130 or the original MME 131.

At stage 4, HLR/HSS144 returns the current serving MME131 address and V-GMLC 132 address of UE 102. Note that the MME131 and V-GMLC 132 indicated by the HLR/HSS144 at phase 4 may be different from the original MME131 and V-GMLC 132 used for phases 1-11 in the signaling flow 200 at the initial start of the periodic and triggered MT-LR.

At stage 5, the H-GMLC142 forwards the LCS cancel service request to the V-GMLC 132, along with the LDR reference number received from the R-GMLC152, the H-GMLC142 address, the serving MME131 address (e.g., received from the HLR/HSS144 at step 4), and possibly the IMSI or MSISDN for the UE 102. In some scenarios (shown in fig. 3), the H-GMLC142 may initiate a cancellation procedure itself (e.g., when the privacy profile for the UE102 stored in the H-GMLC142 changes in a manner that no longer allows the LCS client 160 to receive events and location reports for the UE 102).

At stage 6, V-GMLC 132 sends a message (e.g., provide user location request message) to serving MME131 indicating the cancellation of the deferred location request and including the LDR reference number and H-GMLC142 address (and possibly UE102 IMSI or MSISDN) received from H-GMLC142 at stage 5. The V-GMLC 132 cancels with the transmit location even when the V-GMLC 132 is not involved in establishing a location request (e.g., according to signaling flow 200). The provide subscriber location request message at phase 6 and the provide subscriber location confirm message described later for phase 10 may be as defined for the EPC protocol.

At stage 7, if the UE102 is not currently reachable (e.g., during eDRX cycle or at PSM), the MME131 may wait until the UE102 becomes reachable. When the UE102 becomes reachable, the MME131 performs paging, authentication, and encryption if the UE102 is in an IDLE state (e.g., ECM-IDLE state).

At stage 8, the MME131 sends an LCS periodic location cancel request message (including the LDR reference number and optionally the H-GMLC142 address) to the UE 102.

At phase 9, UE102 stops cycling and triggers location event reporting and returns an LCS cycle location cancel confirm message to MME 131. The return LCS period location cancellation acknowledgement may be applied even when the UE102 does not know that the location procedure was cancelled (e.g., if the UE102 powers down during the procedure). The LCS periodic positioning cancellation request at phase 8 and the LCS periodic positioning cancellation acknowledgement message at phase 9 may be as defined in 3GPP TS 24.080.

At stage 10, the MME131 sends a cancellation acknowledgement to the V-GMLC 132 (e.g., in providing a user location acknowledgement message), and optionally with the LDR reference number and H-GMLC142 address. In an aspect, if the MME131 is unable to perform stages 7 to 9 (e.g., because the UE102 changes MME131 or VPLMN, or because the MME131 never activates a period in the UE102 and triggers the MT-LR at stage 8 in the signaling flow 200), the MME131 may return an error response (e.g., provide a user location error response message) with the appropriate error cause. In this aspect, the V-GMLC 132 then returns an error to the H-GMLC142, and the H-GMLC142 may retry cancellation with a different MME131 or a different PLMN if applicable.

At stage 11, the V-GMLC 132 sends an LCS cancel service response message to the H-GMLC142, and optionally with the LDR reference number and H-GMLC142 address.

At stage 12, the H-GMLC142 sends an LCS cancel service response message to the R-GMLC152, optionally with an LDR reference number.

At phase 13, the R-GMLC152 sends an LCS cancel service response to the LCS client 160.

Fig. 4 shows a signaling flow 400 illustrating a procedure for canceling a period and triggering positioning when the UE102 requests cancellation. If a network entity (e.g., H-GMLC142, V-GMLC 132, or MME 131) cancels the period and triggers positioning, the procedure described above for signaling flow 300 may be used to cancel the period and trigger positioning towards the UE102, while the procedure for signaling flow 400 may be used to cancel the period and trigger positioning towards the LCS client 160. Assume for signaling flow 400 that a successful start of a period and triggering of the MT-LR for UE102 as described for signaling flow 200 and that possibly some of phases 1-11 and 12-24 of signaling flow 200 have been successfully performed occur.

In phase 1 in signaling flow 400, UE102 waits until UE102 registers or can register with a PLMN (e.g., via RAN 120) in an optional list of reporting PLMNs received at phase 9 of signaling flow 200, or registers with the original serving PLMN (e.g., VPLMN EPC 130) for signaling flow 200 if the optional list of reporting PLMNs is not provided to UE102 or if UE102 does not support the optional list of reporting PLMNs. If the UE102 is in an IDLE state (e.g., ECM-IDLE state), the UE102 may perform a UE-triggered service request or connection restoration (e.g., as defined in 3GPP TS 23.401) in order to obtain a signaling connection to the serving MME 131. It should be noted that the MME131, RAN 120, and V-GMLC 132 shown in fig. 4 may be different from the MME131, RAN 120, and V-GMLC 132 used to establish the period and trigger the location at stages 1-11 in the signaling flow 200.

At phase 2, the UE102 sends an LCS MO-LR invoke message to the serving MME131 for cancelling the deferred MT-LR for periodic and triggered positioning. This message includes the termination reason (e.g., indicating the user terminated the procedure) as well as the H-GMLC142 address and LDR reference number received by the UE102 at stage 9 in the signaling flow 200.

In phase 3, a cancellation request may be sent from MME131 to V-GMLC 132 and may include the H-GMLC142 address, LDR reference number, and the identity of UE102 (e.g., IMSI or MSISDN). V-GMLC 132 may be determined by MME 131-e.g., based on configuration information in MME 131.

At phases 4-6, the cancellation request may be transmitted to the H-GMLC142, R-GMLC152 of the serving LCS client 160, and finally to the LCS client 160.

At phases 7 to 10, a response from the LCS client 160 is transmitted back to the MME131 to confirm the cancellation.

At phase 11, the MME131 returns an acknowledgement to the UE102 in the LCS MO-LR return result message. The LCS MO-LR invoke message sent at phase 2 and the LCS MO-LR return result message sent at phase 11 may be as defined in 3GPP TS 24.080.

The previous examples of initiating periodic and triggered location requests for UE102 in signaling flow 200 and canceling ongoing periodic and triggered location requests for UE102 in signaling flows 300 and 400 are based on the exemplary system architecture 100 of fig. 1, where RAN 120 and RAN 126 both provide wireless access to UE102 using NB-IoT or LTE RATs, and where VPLMN EPC 130 and VPLMN EPC134 both support E-UTRAN access for UE102 using RAN 120 and RAN 126, respectively. However, signaling flows similar to or the same as signaling flows 200, 300, and 400 may be possible for other RATs and other networks. In one example embodiment, the RAN 120 and the RAN 126 in fig. 1 may each be replaced with a next generation RAN (NG-RAN) that provides radio access to the UE102 according to NR or 5G. In this embodiment, VPLMN EPC 130 and VPLMN EPC134 may each be replaced with a 5G core network (5GC), where access and mobility management functions (AMFs) may replace each of MMEs 131, 131# and 135, Location Management Functions (LMFs) may replace each of E-SMLCs 133, 133# and 136, and V- GMLCs 132, 132# and 137 may remain un-replaced or may be replaced by the same named entity performing similar functions. Signaling flows similar or nearly identical to signaling flows 200, 300, and 400 may then be created by replacing each reference to MME pair 131, 131# or 135 in these signaling flows with a reference to an AMF, replacing each reference to E-SMLC 133, 133# or 136 with a reference to an LMF, and replacing each reference to an eNB (e.g., eNB122 or 124) with a reference to a gNB. Signaling flows similar to signaling flows 200, 300, and 400 may then also be created by replacing each reference to MME pair 131, 131# or 135 in these signaling flows with a reference to an LMF, replacing each reference to E-SMLC 133, 133# or 136 with a reference to an LMF (which may be the same LMF that replaces the MME), removing stages 15 and 17 in signaling flow 200 (to enable the LMF to perform some of the functions described for the MME in signaling flow 200), and replacing each reference to an eNB (e.g., eNB122 or 124) with a reference to a gNB. When the UE uses NR for wireless access instead of NB-IoT or LTE, the modified signaling flow may be defined to perform periodic and positioning-triggered procedures for the UE 102.

Fig. 5 shows a process flow 500 illustrating a method of performing periodic and triggered location services for a target user equipment, such as UE 102. Process flow 500 may be performed by a first network entity. The first network entity may be any one of an MME (e.g., MME131#, or MME 135 in system architecture 100), an AMF, or an LMF. In the description of process flow 500 below, the reference to actions performed by the AMF or LMF may correspond to one or more stages in signaling flow 200 modified as described above to apply to UE102 NR radio access via NG-RAN to 5 GC.

Process flow 500 may begin at block 502, where a first network entity receives a periodic and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment (e.g., UE 102) from a second network entity. The second network entity may be a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC). For example, the second network entity may be a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132) or an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), and block 502 may correspond to stage 3 in the signaling flow 200. For example, periodic and triggered location requests may correspond to providing user location request messages.

At block 504, the first network entity transmits a first response to the second network entity indicating that the period and the trigger positioning request have been received and accepted. For example, the first response may correspond to providing a user location acknowledgement message, and block 504 may correspond to stage 4 in signaling flow 200.

At block 506, if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state, the first network entity waits for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state with the wireless network (e.g., VPLMN EPC 130 and RAN 120). For example, block 506 may correspond to part of phase 8 in signaling flow 200.

At block 508, the first network entity establishes a signaling connection with the target user equipment. A signaling connection may be established with a target user equipment using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT. Block 508 may correspond to part of stage 8 in the signaling flow 200.

At block 510, the first network entity transmits a periodic and triggered positioning request to a target user equipment. The period transmitted to the target user equipment at block 510 and the trigger positioning request may include the type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, as described for phase 9 of signaling flow 200. The type of location reporting event may further include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting, as described for stage 9 of signaling flow 200. Block 510 may correspond to stage 9 in signaling flow 200.

At block 512, the first network entity receives an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the target user equipment has accepted the period and triggered the positioning request. Block 512 may correspond to stage 10 in the signaling flow 200.

At block 514, the first network entity transmits a second response to the second network entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and that the positioning request was triggered. For example, the second response may be a user location report, and block 514 may correspond to part of phase 11 in signaling flow 200.

The first network entity may then receive a positioning report from the target user equipment to report the detection of the event and optionally provide a positioning estimate, e.g., at stage 14 in signaling flow 200. The first network entity may then obtain a location estimate for the target user equipment (e.g., from E-SMLC 133 as at stages 15-17 in signaling flow 200). The first network entity may also transmit a positioning report to the second network entity and include any obtained positioning estimates.

The first network entity may then receive a positioning report from the target user equipment when the target user equipment does not detect any positioning reporting event during the maximum reporting interval, e.g., as described for stages 12-14 of signaling flow 200. The first network entity may then transmit the positioning report to the second network entity. The location report may indicate (e.g., to an LCS client, such as LCS client 160 and/or the second network entity) that the periodic and triggered location is still valid in the target user equipment.

In an aspect, the first response transmitted at block 504 may include an indication of an expected time interval or a maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable, e.g., if the target user equipment is currently unreachable from the first network entity. For example, the expected or maximum time interval may indicate to an external client (e.g., LCS client 160) how long the external client should expect to wait until the period and trigger location request is indicated as activated in the target user equipment at block 514. In an aspect, the first response transmitted at block 504 may also or alternatively include the last known location of the target user equipment, e.g., if available at the first network entity.

Fig. 6 shows a process flow 600 illustrating another method of performing a periodic and triggered location service for a target user equipment, such as UE102, at a first entity. The first entity performing the process flow 600 may be an LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160 in system architecture 100) or a GMLC, such as an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152), an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), or a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132).

Process flow 600 may begin at block 602, where a first entity receives a periodic and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment (e.g., UE 102) from a second entity. The second entity may be a GMLC, LCS client, or user. For example, if the first entity is an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152) or an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), the second entity may be an LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160), and block 602 may correspond to phase 1 in signaling flow 200. If the first entity is an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142) or a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132), the second entity may be an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152) or an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), respectively, in each case, and block 602 may correspond to part of phase 2 in signaling flow 200. If the first entity is an LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160), the second entity may be a user of the LCS client.

At block 604, the first entity transmits the periodic and triggered positioning requests for the target user equipment received at block 602 to the third entity. If the first entity is an LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160), the third entity may be a GMLC, such as an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152) or an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), and block 604 may then correspond to stage 1 in the signaling flow 200. If the first entity is an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152) or an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), the third entity may be an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142) or a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132), respectively, in each case, and block 604 may correspond to part of phase 2 in signaling flow 200. If the first entity is a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132), the third entity may be an MME (e.g., MME 131), an MF, or an LMF, and block 604 may correspond to stage 3 in the signaling flow 200.

At block 606, the first entity receives a first response from the third entity indicating that the period and trigger the positioning request has been received and accepted by the serving network entity for the target user equipment. For example, the first response may confirm the ability and intent to support the request, but may not confirm activation of the positioning report in the target user equipment, or the target user equipment is necessarily able to support the request. The serving network entity may be an MME (e.g., MME131 in signaling flow 200), an AMF, or an LMF. Block 606 may correspond to stage 7 in signaling flow 200 if the first entity is an LCS client (e.g., LCS client 160). Block 606 may correspond to stage 6 in signaling flow 200 if the first entity is an R-GMLC, e.g., R-GMLC 152. If the first entity is an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), block 606 may correspond to stage 5 in the signaling flow 200. Block 606 may correspond to stage 4 in signaling flow 200 if the first entity is a V-GMLC, e.g., V-GMLC 132.

At block 608, the first entity transmits the first response to the second entity. For example, if the first entity is an R-GMLC (e.g., R-GMLC 152), block 608 may correspond to stage 7 in signaling flow 200. If the first entity is an H-GMLC (e.g., H-GMLC 142), block 608 may correspond to stage 6 in the signaling flow 200. If the first entity is a V-GMLC (e.g., V-GMLC 132), block 608 may correspond to stage 5 in signaling flow 200.

At block 610, the first entity receives a second response from the third entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and that the positioning request is triggered. For example, the second response may confirm that the event report has started in the target user equipment. Block 610 may correspond to part of stage 11 in signaling flow 200.

At block 612, the first entity transmits a second response to the second entity. For example, block 612 may correspond to part of phase 11 in signaling flow 200.

As discussed above, the target user equipment may be accessed from the serving network entity using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT. The periodic and triggered positioning requests received at block 602 may include a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, as described for phase 1 of signaling flow 200. The type of location reporting event may further include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting, as described for phase 1 of signaling flow 200.

As discussed above, after a delay in which the target user equipment cannot arrive from the serving network entity, a second response may be received from the third entity at block 610, where the serving network entity waits for the target user equipment to become reachable, e.g., as described for stage 8 of signaling flow 200.

The first entity may then receive a positioning report from the third entity to report detection of the event by the target user equipment, which may include a positioning estimate, e.g., at stage 19, 21, 23, or 24 in signaling flow 200. The first entity may then forward the positioning report to the second entity and include any positioning estimates.

The first network entity may also or alternatively subsequently receive a positioning report from a third entity when the target user equipment does not detect any positioning reporting event during the maximum reporting interval, e.g., as described for stages 12-14 of the signaling flow 200. The first entity may then transmit the positioning report to the second network entity. If the first entity does not receive any positioning reports from the third entity within an interval exceeding the maximum reporting interval, the first entity may transmit an error report to the second entity indicating that the period and triggering the positioning request may no longer be valid in the target user equipment. The first entity may also cancel the cycle and trigger the positioning request procedure by sending a cancellation message to the second entity and/or the third entity, e.g., as described in signaling flows 300 and 400.

Fig. 7 shows a process flow 700 illustrating a method of initiating and performing a periodic and triggered positioning request at a user equipment (e.g., UE 102). For example, the user equipment may support NB-IoT radio access, LTE radio access, and/or NR radio access.

Process flow 700 may begin at block 702, where a user equipment receives a periodic and triggered positioning request from a first network entity. The periodic and triggered positioning requests may include a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval. In an aspect, the type of location reporting event may include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or a motion event reporting. Block 702 may correspond to stage 9 in signaling flow 200.

At block 704, the user equipment returns a response to the first network entity indicating the acceptance period and triggering the positioning request. Block 704 may correspond to stage 10 in the signaling flow 200.

At block 706, the user equipment monitors for a location reporting event to determine whether a location reporting event has occurred. In an aspect, monitoring the positioning reporting event at block 706 to determine whether the positioning reporting event occurred may include monitoring the positioning reporting event at an interval that is no greater than the maximum event sampling interval received at block 702. Block 706 may correspond to stage 12 in the signaling flow 200.

At block 708, the user equipment transmits a location report to the second network entity when the location reporting event occurs or when no location reporting event occurs during the maximum reporting interval. Block 708 may correspond to block 440 in signaling flow 200.

In an aspect, a periodic and triggered positioning request is received at block 702 and a positioning report is transmitted at block 708 using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT.

In an aspect, the first network entity and the second network entity are each a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF). In an aspect, the first network entity is the same as the second network entity. In another aspect, the first network entity is different from the second network entity. In this further aspect, the first network entity and the second network entity may belong to different networks.

In an aspect, transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity at block 708 comprises: transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity when the positioning report event occurs after an interval at least equal to a minimum reporting interval since transmission of a previous positioning report.

Fig. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation of UE 102. UE102 may include a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) transceiver 802 to wirelessly communicate with a cellular transceiver, such as eNB122 (as shown in fig. 1). The UE102 may also include a WLAN transceiver 804 to wirelessly communicate with the local transceiver. UE102 may further include an SPS receiver 808 for receiving SPS signals and data from SPS system 110 (as shown in fig. 1). The UE102 may include one or more antennas 806 that may be used with the WWAN transceiver 802, the WLAN transceiver 804, and/or the SPS receiver 808. The UE102 may include one or more sensors 810, such as a camera, accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, magnetometer, barometer, and so forth. The UE102 may further include a user interface 812, which may include, for example, a display, a keypad, or other input device, such as a virtual keypad on a display, through which a user may connect with the UE 102.

The UE102 further includes one or more processors 814 and memory 820, which may be coupled with bus 816. One or more processors 814 and other components of UE102 may similarly be coupled together with a bus 816, separate buses, or may be directly connected together, or a combination of the foregoing. The memory 820 may contain executable code or software instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors 814, cause the one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the ends disclosed herein.

As illustrated in fig. 8, the memory 820 includes one or more components or modules that, when implemented by the one or more processors 814, perform methods as described herein. Although the components or modules are illustrated as software in the memory 820 that is executable by the one or more processors 814, it is to be understood that the components or modules may be dedicated hardware in the processor or external to the processor. As illustrated, memory 820 may include an acknowledgement unit 822, which when implemented by the one or more processors 814, causes the one or more processors 814 to transmit an acknowledgement by the WWAN transceiver 802 that the periodicity and triggered positioning request have been activated in the UE102 after the periodicity and triggered positioning request have been received.

Memory 820 may further include a location measurement unit 824, which when implemented by one or more processors 814, causes the one or more processors 814 to obtain location measurements, e.g., using one or more of WWAN transceiver 802, WLAN transceiver 804, and/or SPS receiver 808. For example, the location measurements may include at least one of a cell ID, a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), a round trip signal propagation time (RTT), an RSTD, or a pseudorange measurement.

The memory 820 may further include a location session unit 826 that, when implemented by the one or more processors 814, causes the one or more processors 814 to participate in a location session with a location server (e.g., E-SMLC 133), e.g., according to a requirement from the location server or indicated by the UE102, once the UE102 enters a connected state with a wireless network.

The memory 820 may further include a cycle/trigger unit 828. When implemented by the one or more processors 814, the period/trigger unit 828 may cause the one or more processors 814 to monitor period and/or trigger event parameters received, for example, in period and trigger positioning requests. The trigger event parameters may include, for example, a maximum event sampling interval, a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and one or more positioning triggers. For example, the positioning trigger may include at least one of leaving the target area, entering the target area, remaining within the target area, or a threshold linear distance for a motion event. The periodicity/trigger unit 828 may periodically evaluate one or more positioning triggers at an interval equal to or less than the maximum event sampling interval, and may also track the maximum reporting interval. When implemented by the one or more processors 814, the period/trigger unit 828 may cause the one or more processors 814 to re-enter the connected state with the wireless network and send a report to the wireless network (e.g., to an MME, AMF, or LMF in the wireless network) to report the event when a trigger condition occurs, when a periodic reporting interval expires, or when a maximum reporting interval expires.

The methods described herein may be implemented by various means depending on the application. For example, these methods may be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the one or more processors may be implemented within one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro-controllers, microprocessors, electronic devices, other electronic units designed to perform the functions described herein, or a combination thereof.

For implementations involving firmware and/or software, the methods may be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the individual functions described herein. Any machine-readable medium tangibly embodying instructions may be used in implementing the methodologies described herein. For example, software codes may be stored in a memory and executed by one or more processor units, causing the processor units to operate as special purpose computers programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. The memory may be implemented within the processor unit or external to the processor unit. As used herein, the term "memory" refers to any type of long term, short term, volatile, nonvolatile, or other memory and is not to be limited to any particular type of memory or number of memories, or type of media upon which memory is stored.

If implemented in firmware and/or software, the functions may be stored as one or more instructions or code on a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Examples include computer-readable media encoded with a data structure and computer-readable media encoded with a computer program. Computer-readable media includes physical computer storage media. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage, semiconductor memory or other storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer; magnetic disks and optical disks as used herein include: compact Discs (CDs), laser discs, optical discs, Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs), floppy discs, and blu-ray discs where discs usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

Thus, a user equipment for performing periodic and triggered positioning may include means for receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request from a first network entity, the periodic and triggered positioning request including a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, which may be, for example, a WWAN transceiver 802 and one or more processors 814. The type of location reporting event may include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or a motion event reporting. The means for returning a response indicating that the periodicity and the triggered positioning request was accepted to the first network entity may be, for example, the WWAN transceiver 802 and an acknowledgement unit 822, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 814. The means for monitoring positioning reporting events to determine whether a positioning reporting event occurs may be, for example, a period/trigger unit 828 that may be implemented by the one or more processors 814. The location reporting event may be monitored at an interval no greater than the maximum event sampling interval. Means for sending a location report to the second network entity when a location reporting event occurs or when no location reporting event occurs during a maximum reporting interval may be, for example, WWAN transceiver 802 and periodicity/trigger unit 828, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 814. The positioning report may be sent to the second network entity after a positioning report event occurs after an interval at least equal to a minimum reporting interval since transmission of a previous positioning report. A periodic and triggered positioning request may be received and a positioning report may be transmitted using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT. The first network entity and the second network entity may each be a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF). For example, the first network entity may be the same as the second network entity or different from the second network entity. Furthermore, the first network entity and the second network entity may belong to different networks. The type of location reporting event may include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or a motion event reporting.

In addition to being stored on a computer-readable storage medium, the instructions and/or data may also be provided as signals on a transmission medium included in the communication apparatus. For example, a communication apparatus may include a transceiver having signals indicative of instructions and data. The instructions and data are stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, such as the memory 820, and are configured to cause the one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. That is, the communications apparatus includes transmission media having signals indicative of information used to perform the disclosed functions. First, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a first portion of information to perform the disclosed functions, and second, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a second portion of information to perform the disclosed functions.

Figure 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation of a network entity 900, such as MME131, E-SMLC 133, V-GMLC 132, H-GMLC142, R-GMLC152, eNB122, or AMF or LMF. For example, the network entity 900 includes hardware components such as an external interface 902, which may be a wired and/or wireless interface capable of connecting to the UE102 and/or to other network entities and/or LCS clients. Network node 900 includes one or more processors 904 and memory 910, which may be coupled with bus 906. The memory 910 may contain executable code or software instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors 904, cause the one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the ends disclosed herein.

As illustrated in fig. 9, the memory 910 includes one or more components or modules that, when implemented by the one or more processors 904, perform a method as described herein. While the components or modules are illustrated as software in the memory 910 that is executable by the one or more processors 904, it is to be understood that the components or modules may be dedicated hardware in the processor or external to the processor. As illustrated, memory 910 may include a response unit 912, which when implemented by the one or more processors 904, causes the one or more processors 904 to provide a first response to the LCS client or another network entity indicating that a serving network entity for the target UE (e.g., MME, AMF or LMF) has accepted the request for the period and triggered the location report and that the serving network entity is ready to initiate a procedure in the target UE. When implemented by the one or more processors 904, the response unit 912 causes the one or more processors 904 to monitor for a response from the target UE or from another network entity indicating that a period has been activated in the target UE and triggering a location request, which may be returned shortly after the first response for the target UE or may be returned hours or days after the first response for the target UE, and causes the external interface 902 to provide a second response to the LCS client or another network entity indicating that the target UE will begin returning the period and triggering a location report.

The memory 910 may include a periodicity/trigger unit 914 that, when implemented by the one or more processors 904, causes the one or more processors 904 to communicate with a target UE or another network entity, e.g., via the external interface 902, to request periodicity and trigger a positioning session, or to receive a request for a positioning session. The periodicity/trigger unit 914 may define a maximum event sampling interval, a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and/or one or more positioning trigger events or periodic reporting periods, and may cause the external interface 902 to provide the period and trigger parameters to the target UE or location parameters of another network entity in the period and trigger positioning request after receiving a request for the period and trigger positioning report from an LCS client or another network entity (e.g., a GMLC). The periodicity/trigger unit 914 may cause the external interface 902 to provide periodicity and trigger positioning parameters to the target UE after waiting for the target UE to become reachable and connect to the wireless network.

The memory 910 may also include a maximum reporting interval unit 916, which when implemented by the one or more processors 904, causes the one or more processors 904 to monitor for a location report from the target UE within the maximum reporting interval (e.g., received directly from the target UE or received via another network element such as an MME, AMF, LMF, or GMLC). If a positioning report is received, the maximum reporting interval unit 916 may confirm that the positioning report is still valid in the UE 102. On the other hand, if no location report is received after the maximum reporting interval, the maximum reporting interval unit 916 may determine that the period and trigger location request is no longer valid in the target UE and may cause the external interface 902 to provide an LCS client or network (e.g., GMLC) with an indication that the location report is terminated in the UE102 and/or may cause a cancellation period and trigger location.

The methods described herein may be implemented by various means depending on the application. For example, these methods may be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the one or more processors may be implemented within one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro-controllers, microprocessors, electronic devices, other electronic units designed to perform the functions described herein, or a combination thereof.

For implementations involving firmware and/or software, the methods may be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the individual functions described herein. Any machine-readable medium tangibly embodying instructions may be used in implementing the methodologies described herein. For example, software codes may be stored in a memory and executed by one or more processor units, causing the processor units to operate as special purpose computers programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. The memory may be implemented within the processor unit or external to the processor unit. As used herein, the term "memory" refers to any type of long term, short term, volatile, nonvolatile, or other memory and is not to be limited to any particular type of memory or number of memories, or type of media upon which memory is stored.

If implemented in firmware and/or software, the functions may be stored as one or more instructions or code on a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Examples include computer-readable media encoded with a data structure and computer-readable media encoded with a computer program. Computer-readable media includes physical computer storage media. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage, semiconductor memory or other storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer; magnetic disks and optical disks as used herein include: compact Discs (CDs), laser discs, optical discs, Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs), floppy discs, and blu-ray discs where discs usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

In addition to being stored on a computer-readable storage medium, the instructions and/or data may also be provided as signals on a transmission medium included in the communication apparatus. For example, a communication apparatus may include a transceiver having signals indicative of instructions and data. The instructions and data are stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium (e.g., memory 820 or 910) and configured to cause one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. That is, the communications apparatus includes transmission media having signals indicative of information used to perform the disclosed functions. First, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a first portion of information to perform the disclosed functions, and second, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a second portion of information to perform the disclosed functions.

Thus, a first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment may include means for receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for a target user equipment from a second network entity, which may be, for example, an external interface 902 and one or more processors 904. The first network entity may be a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF). The second network entity may be a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC). The first network entity may include means for sending a first response to the second network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted, which may be, for example, the external interface 902 and a response unit 912, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 904. The first response may comprise an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable. The first response may include the last known location of the target user equipment. Means for waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state with the wireless network may be, for example, a response unit 912, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 904, if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state. The means for establishing a signaling connection with the target user equipment may be, for example, the external interface 902. The signaling connection may be established using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT. The means for transmitting periodic and triggering positioning requests to the target user equipment may be, for example, the external interface 902 and a periodicity/trigger unit 914 that may be implemented by the one or more processors 904. The means for receiving an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the period has been accepted and that the positioning request is triggered may be, for example, an external interface 902 and a response unit 912, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 904. The means for sending the second response to the second network entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and triggering the positioning request may be, for example, the external interface 902 and a response unit 912, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 904. The period of transmission to the target user equipment and the triggering of the positioning request may include a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval. The type of location reporting event may include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or a motion event reporting. The periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment may comprise a maximum reporting interval, and the first network entity may further include means for receiving a positioning report from the target user equipment when the target user equipment does not detect any positioning reporting event during the maximum reporting interval, which may be, for example, the external interface 902 and the response unit 912 implementable by the one or more processors 904, and means for transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity, which may be, for example, the external interface 902 and the response unit 912 implementable by the one or more processors 904.

Fig. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware implementation of an external (LCS) client 160. For example, client 160 includes hardware components such as external interface 1002, which may be a wired or wireless interface capable of connecting to a network entity, such as R-GMLC 152. The client 160 includes one or more processors 1004 and memory 1010, which may be coupled with a bus 1006. The memory 1010 may contain executable code or software instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors 1004, cause the one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the ends disclosed herein.

As illustrated in fig. 10, the memory 1010 includes one or more components or modules that, when implemented by the one or more processors 1004, implement methods as described herein. While the components or modules are illustrated as software in the memory 1010 that is executable by the one or more processors 1004, it is to be understood that the components or modules may be dedicated hardware in the processors or outside of the processors. As illustrated, the memory 1010 may include a periodicity/trigger unit 1012 that, when implemented by the one or more processors 1004, causes the one or more processors 1004 to communicate with a target UE, e.g., via the external interface 1002, to request periodicity and trigger location services with a target user equipment. The periodicity/trigger unit 1012 may define a maximum event sampling interval, a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and one or more positioning event triggers or periodic reporting periods and cause the external interface 1002 to provide the period and trigger positioning parameters in a periodic and trigger positioning request sent to a network entity such as the R-GMLC.

The memory 1010 may also include a receive reporting unit 1014, which when implemented by the one or more processors 1004, causes the one or more processors 1004 to receive a first response from a network entity (e.g., R-GMLC) indicating that an LCS client request for a period and triggering a location report has been accepted by the network and that the network (e.g., MME, AMF, or LMF) is ready to initiate a procedure in a target UE. When implemented by the one or more processors 1004, the reception reporting unit 1014 causes the one or more processors 1004 to also receive, from the network entity, a second response indicating that the period has been activated in the target UE and that the positioning request was triggered, which may be returned shortly after the first response for the normal UE, or possibly hours or days after the first response for the IoT UE. When implemented by the one or more processors 1004, the reception reporting unit 1014 may further cause the one or more processors 1004 to cause transmission of the first response and the second response to a network entity (e.g., a location services (LCS) client or a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC) or a user of the LCS client 160). When implemented by the one or more processors 1004, the receive report unit 1014 may further cause the one or more processors 1004 to receive a location report for a target user equipment from a network and to transmit the location report to a network entity or a user of the LCS client 160.

The memory 1010 may also include a maximum reporting interval unit 1016, which, when implemented by the one or more processors 1004, causes the one or more processors 1004 to monitor for location reports from the target UE for a period and a maximum reporting interval that triggers a location request. If a positioning report is received, the maximum reporting interval unit 1016 may confirm that the positioning report is still valid in the target UE. On the other hand, if no positioning report is received after the maximum reporting interval, the maximum reporting interval unit 1016 may determine that the period and trigger positioning request is no longer valid in the target UE. The maximum reporting interval unit 1016 may also be configured to receive an indication from a network entity (e.g., R-GMLC) that the period and trigger positioning request are no longer valid in the target UE.

The methods described herein may be implemented by various means depending on the application. For example, these methods may be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the one or more processors may be implemented within one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), processors, controllers, micro-controllers, microprocessors, electronic devices, other electronic units designed to perform the functions described herein, or a combination thereof.

For implementations involving firmware and/or software, the methods may be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the individual functions described herein. Any machine-readable medium tangibly embodying instructions may be used in implementing the methodologies described herein. For example, software codes may be stored in a memory and executed by one or more processor units, causing the processor units to operate as special purpose computers programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. The memory may be implemented within the processor unit or external to the processor unit. As used herein, the term "memory" refers to any type of long term, short term, volatile, nonvolatile, or other memory and is not to be limited to any particular type of memory or number of memories, or type of media upon which memory is stored.

If implemented in firmware and/or software, the functions may be stored as one or more instructions or code on a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Examples include computer-readable media encoded with a data structure and computer-readable media encoded with a computer program. Computer-readable media includes physical computer storage media. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage, semiconductor memory or other storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to store desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed by a computer; magnetic disks and optical disks as used herein include: compact Discs (CDs), laser discs, optical discs, Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs), floppy discs, and blu-ray discs where discs usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

In addition to being stored on a computer-readable storage medium, the instructions and/or data may also be provided as signals on a transmission medium included in the communication apparatus. For example, a communication apparatus may include a transceiver having signals indicative of instructions and data. The instructions and data are stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium (e.g., memory 820 or 1004) and configured to cause one or more processors to operate as a special purpose computer programmed to perform the algorithms disclosed herein. That is, the communications apparatus includes transmission media having signals indicative of information used to perform the disclosed functions. First, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a first portion of information to perform the disclosed functions, and second, the transmission medium included in the communication apparatus may contain a second portion of information to perform the disclosed functions.

Thus, a first entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning on a target user equipment may include means for receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment from a second entity, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the period/trigger unit 1012, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The first entity may be a location services (LCS) client or a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC). The second entity may be a location services (LCS) client or a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC) or a user of an LCS client. The means for transmitting periodic and triggered positioning requests for the target user equipment to the third entity may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and a periodicity/trigger unit 1012 that may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The third entity may be a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC), a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF). The periodic and triggered location requests transmitted to the target user equipment may include a type of location reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, wherein the type of location reporting event may include at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting. The means for receiving the first response from the third entity indicating that the period and triggering the positioning request has been received and accepted by the serving network entity of the target user equipment may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the reception reporting unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The means for transmitting the first response to the second entity may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the receive report unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The means for receiving the second response from the third entity indicating that the period has been activated in the target user equipment and triggering the positioning request may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the receive reporting unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The means for transmitting the second response to the second entity may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the receive report unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The first entity may further include means for receiving a positioning report from a third entity to report detection of an event by a target user equipment, the positioning report including a position estimate of the target user, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the reception reporting unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004, and means for transmitting the positioning report including the position estimate of the target user to the second entity, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the reception reporting unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The first entity may further include means for receiving a positioning report from a third entity when the target user equipment does not detect a triggering event during a maximum reporting interval, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the reception reporting unit 1014 that may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004, and means for transmitting the positioning report to the second entity, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the reception reporting unit 1014 that may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The first entity may further comprise means for indicating to the second entity that the period is no longer valid in the target user equipment after no positioning report has been received from the third entity within an interval longer than the maximum reporting interval, and triggering an error report that the positioning request is no longer valid in the target user equipment, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the maximum reporting interval unit 1014, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004. The first entity may further include means for transmitting a cancellation message to at least one of the second entity and the third entity after not receiving any positioning reports from the third entity within an interval longer than the maximum reporting interval, which may be, for example, the external interface 1002 and the maximum reporting interval unit 1016, which may be implemented by the one or more processors 1004.

Reference throughout this specification to "one example," "an example," "certain examples," or "exemplary implementation" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the feature and/or example may be included in at least one feature and/or example of claimed subject matter. Thus, the appearances of the phrases "in one example," "in an example," "in some examples," or other similar phrases in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same feature, example, and/or limitation. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in one or more examples and/or features.

Some portions of the detailed description contained herein are presented in terms of algorithms or symbolic representations of operations on binary digital signals stored within a memory of a particular apparatus or special purpose computing device or platform. In the context of this particular specification, the term specific apparatus or the like includes a general purpose computer if it is programmed to perform particular operations according to instructions from program software. Algorithmic descriptions or symbolic representations are examples of techniques used by those of ordinary skill in the signal processing or related arts to convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, considered to be a self-consistent sequence of operations or similar signal processing leading to a desired result. In this context, operations or processing involve physical manipulation of physical quantities. Typically, though not necessarily, such quantities may take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to such signals as bits, data, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, numerals or the like. It should be understood, however, that all of these or similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels. Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the discussion herein, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as "processing," "computing," "calculating," "determining," or the like, refer to the action and processes of a specific apparatus, such as a special purpose computer, special purpose computing apparatus, or similar special purpose electronic computing device. In the context of this specification, therefore, a special purpose computer or a similar special purpose electronic computing device is capable of manipulating or transforming signals, typically represented as physical electronic or magnetic quantities within memories, registers, or other information storage devices, transmission devices, or display devices of the special purpose computer or similar special purpose electronic computing device.

In the previous detailed description, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of claimed subject matter. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that claimed subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, methods and apparatus that would be known by one of ordinary skill have not been described in detail so as not to obscure claimed subject matter.

As used herein, the terms "and," "or" and/or "may include a variety of meanings that are also intended to depend, at least in part, on the context in which such terms are used. Generally, "or" if used in association with a list (e.g., A, B or C) is intended to mean A, B and C (used herein in an inclusive sense), as well as A, B or C (used herein in an exclusive sense). In addition, the term "one or more" as used herein may be used to describe any feature, structure, or characteristic in the singular or may be used to describe a plurality or some other combination of features, structures, or characteristics. It should be noted, however, that this is merely an illustrative example and claimed subject matter is not limited to this example.

While there has been illustrated and described what are presently considered to be example features, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various other modifications may be made, and equivalents may be substituted, without departing from claimed subject matter. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation to the teachings of claimed subject matter without departing from the central concept described herein.

Therefore, it is intended that claimed subject matter not be limited to the particular examples disclosed, but that such claimed subject matter may also include all aspects falling within the scope of the appended claims, and equivalents thereof.

Claims (33)

1. A method of performing periodic and triggered positioning of a target user equipment at a first network entity, comprising:

receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment from a second network entity;

transmitting a first response to the second network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted;

waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state with a wireless network;

establishing a signaling connection with the target user equipment;

transmitting the periodic and triggered positioning requests to the target user equipment;

receiving an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the period and triggering a positioning request have been accepted; and

transmitting a second response to the second network entity indicating that the periodicity has been activated in the target user equipment and that a positioning request is triggered.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the signaling connection is established using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF).

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the second network entity is a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests communicated to the target user equipment comprise a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the type of location reporting event comprises at least one of entering into an area, exiting from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests communicated to the target user equipment comprise the maximum reporting interval, and further comprising:

receiving a positioning report from the target user equipment when a positioning reporting event is not detected by the target user equipment during the maximum reporting interval; and

transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first response comprises an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first response comprises a last known location of the target user equipment.

10. A first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment, comprising:

an external interface configured to communicate with a second network entity and the target user equipment; and

at least one processor configured to receive a periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment from the second network entity through the external interface, transmitting a first response to the second network entity over the external interface indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted, waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state with a wireless network, establishing a signaling connection with the target user equipment through the external interface, transmitting the periodic and triggered positioning request to the target user equipment through the external interface, receiving confirmation from the target user equipment through the external interface that the period and triggering a positioning request have been received, and transmitting a second response to the second network entity indicating that the periodicity has been activated in the target user equipment and that a positioning request is triggered.

11. The first network entity of claim 10, wherein the signaling connection is established using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT.

12. The first network entity of claim 10, wherein the first network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF).

13. The first network entity of claim 10, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment comprise a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval, and wherein the type of positioning reporting event comprises at least one of entering into an area, leaving from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting.

14. The first network entity of claim 13, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment comprise the maximum reporting interval, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

receiving a positioning report from the target user equipment when a positioning reporting event is not detected by the target user equipment during the maximum reporting interval; and

transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity through the external interface.

15. The first network entity of claim 1, wherein the first response comprises an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable or a last known location of the target user equipment.

16. A first network entity for performing periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment, comprising:

means for receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment from a second network entity;

means for transmitting a first response to the second network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted;

means for waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state with a wireless network;

means for establishing a signaling connection with the target user equipment;

means for transmitting the periodic and triggering positioning requests to the target user equipment;

means for receiving an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the period has been accepted and that a positioning request is triggered; and

means for transmitting a second response to the second network entity indicating that the periodicity has been activated in the target user equipment and that a positioning request is triggered.

17. The first network entity of claim 16, wherein the signaling connection is established using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT.

18. The first network entity of claim 16, wherein the first network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF).

19. The first network entity of claim 18, wherein the second network entity is a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC).

20. The first network entity of claim 16, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests communicated to the target user equipment comprise a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval.

21. The first network entity of claim 20, wherein the type of location reporting event comprises at least one of entering into an area, exiting from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting.

22. The first network entity of claim 20, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment comprise the maximum reporting interval, and further comprising:

means for receiving a positioning report from the target user equipment when a positioning reporting event is not detected by the target user equipment during the maximum reporting interval; and

means for transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity.

23. The first network entity of claim 16, wherein the first response comprises an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable.

24. The first network entity of claim 16, wherein the first response comprises a last known location of the target user equipment.

25. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising program code stored thereon, the program code operable to configure at least one processor in a first network entity to perform periodic and triggered positioning for a target user equipment, the program code comprising instructions to:

receiving a periodic and triggered positioning request for the target user equipment from a second network entity;

transmitting a first response to the second network entity indicating that the periodic and triggered positioning request has been received and accepted;

waiting for the target user equipment to be in a reachable state if the target user equipment is not currently in a reachable state with a wireless network;

establishing a signaling connection with the target user equipment;

transmitting the periodic and triggered positioning requests to the target user equipment;

receiving an acknowledgement from the target user equipment indicating that the period and triggering a positioning request have been accepted; and

transmitting a second response to the second network entity indicating that the periodicity has been activated in the target user equipment and that a positioning request is triggered.

26. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein the signaling connection is established using a narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) Radio Access Type (RAT), a Long Term Evolution (LTE) RAT, or a New Radio (NR) RAT.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein the first network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME), an access and mobility management function (AMF), or a Location Management Function (LMF).

28. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the second network entity is a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC).

29. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment comprise a type of positioning reporting event and at least one of a maximum reporting interval, a minimum reporting interval, and a maximum event sampling interval.

30. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 29, wherein the type of location reporting event comprises at least one of entering into an area, exiting from an area, within an area, periodic reporting, or motion event reporting.

31. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 29, wherein the periodic and triggered positioning requests transmitted to the target user equipment comprise the maximum reporting interval, and the program code further comprises instructions for:

receiving a positioning report from the target user equipment when a positioning reporting event is not detected by the target user equipment during the maximum reporting interval; and

transmitting the positioning report to the second network entity.

32. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein the first response includes an indication of an expected or maximum time interval until the target user equipment next becomes reachable.

33. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein the first response comprises a last known location of the target user equipment.

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