JP2005147753A - Relative position information providing device, relative position information providing method, relative position information providing program, and program for user terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To precisely provide service providing spots found in the vicinity of a user, by a simple method, while dispensing with the absolute position information on a reference point, such as radio base stations. <P>SOLUTION: This relative-position information providing system 10 is equipped with a user terminal 1 carried by the user, service-providing point installed terminals (hereinafter, to be referred to as installed terminals) 2i installed at a plurality of access points for radio LAN connection service, a relative position information providing device 3 for providing a vicinity service providing point to the user terminal 1, and a computer network 6 enabling intercommunication among the user terminal 1, the installed terminals 2i, and the providing device 3. Based on the electric field intensity from a plurality of radio base stations 4 for PHS acquired severally by the user terminal 1 and the installed terminals 2i, relative distances are defined between the user terminal 1 and the installed terminals 2i, and the relative distances are used to provide a vicinity service providing point. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention measures a relative positional relationship between a desired service point and a user, and provides a relative positional information providing apparatus, a relative positional information providing method, and a relative positional information providing information to the user regarding the relative positional relationship. The present invention relates to a program for providing location information and a program for a user terminal.

  As a positioning method of the location information (for example, absolute location information such as latitude and longitude) indicating where the user (user terminal) is, for example, a standard such as a radio base station where the absolute location information is known There is a method of positioning the position information of the user based on the position information of the point and the wireless electric field intensity at the positioning point where the user is located. In this method, management of reference point position information is indispensable for service providers who provide position information.

The prior art document information related to this application includes the following.
Akio Yasuda, “Current Status and Prospects of GPS”, The Journal of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, The Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineers, December 1999, Vol.82, No12, p1207-1215 Shirokura Shigehiro, “Use GPS Mobile Phones for Three Single Positioning Methods”, NIKKEI ELECTRONICS, Nikkei BP, July 21, 2003, p30-31

  However, the user does not always seek his / her absolute position information, and sometimes finds only a relative positional relationship. For example, if you want to connect a personal computer owned by a user on the go to the Internet, it is enough if you know the access point of the wireless LAN connection service that you are familiar with, even if you do not know your exact location information. . For such service provision, the above-described conventional location information provision service has a problem that it is excessive resource management and is not optimal in terms of cost.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described circumstances, and does not require absolute position information of a reference point such as a radio base station, and a service providing point in the vicinity of a user can be accurately located by a simple method. It is an object to provide a relative position information providing apparatus, a relative position information providing method, a relative position information providing program, and a program for a user terminal that can be provided.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention according to claim 1 is a relative position information providing apparatus for providing a user with a service point for providing a desired service in the vicinity of the user. Storage means for acquiring and storing electric field intensity vectors each having electric field intensity from a station as vector elements with respect to the point where the user exists and the plurality of service points, and the stored electric field intensity vector of the user Calculating means for calculating a vector inner product of each of the electric field intensity vectors of the plurality of service points, and the service point when the calculated vector inner product is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value in the vicinity of the user. The gist of the invention is to include an extraction unit that extracts a service point and a display unit that displays information about the extracted service point.

  Here, the service point includes a dynamic service such as a third party other than the user in addition to a static service providing point that is fixedly installed. The above definition also applies to the following inventions.

  The present invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that, in the invention according to claim 1, the display means displays the service point on a map.

  The present invention according to claim 3 is a relative position information providing method for providing a user with a service point for providing a desired service in the vicinity of the user, wherein each of the electric field strengths from a plurality of radio base stations is provided. A storage step of acquiring and storing an electric field strength vector as a vector element for a point where the user exists and a plurality of the service points, a stored electric field strength vector of the user, and a plurality of the service points A calculation step for calculating a vector inner product of each of the electric field intensity vectors, and an extraction step for extracting the service point when the calculated vector inner product is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold as a service point near the user. And a display step for displaying information on the extracted service points.

  The present invention according to claim 4 is a relative position information providing program for providing a user with a service point for providing a desired service in the vicinity of the user, wherein each of the electric field strengths from a plurality of radio base stations is provided. A storage step of acquiring and storing an electric field strength vector as a vector element for a point where the user exists and a plurality of the service points, a stored electric field strength vector of the user, and a plurality of the service points A calculation step for calculating a vector inner product of each of the electric field intensity vectors, and an extraction step for extracting the service point when the calculated vector inner product is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold as a service point near the user. And a display step of displaying information on the extracted service points. The gist of the door.

  The present invention according to claim 5 is a program for a user terminal that displays a service point that provides a desired service in the vicinity of a user, and a plurality of radio base stations at the point where the user terminal exists The user terminal exists in an electric field intensity acquisition step for acquiring an electric field intensity vector having each electric field intensity from a vector element and a service providing apparatus storing the electric field intensity vectors at a plurality of the service points. Transmitting the electric field strength vector at the point, calculating a vector inner product of the electric field strength vector of the user and each electric field strength vector of the plurality of service points, and the calculated vector inner product value is a predetermined threshold value The service that extracts the service point at the time as described above as a service point near the user From the provider, and summarized in that to execute the steps of receiving information about services point near the user, and displaying information related to the service point that has received, to the user terminal.

  According to the present invention, the electric field strengths at the service providing point and the point where the user is present are measured, and the relative distance between the two points is calculated, so that the absolute position information of the reference point is not required and it is accurately obtained. A service providing point in the vicinity of the user can be provided.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a relative position information providing system 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. A relative position information providing system 10 shown in FIG. 1 includes a user terminal 1 carried by a user, a service providing point installation terminal (hereinafter referred to as an installation terminal) 2i installed at a plurality of access points of a wireless LAN connection service. (I = a, b,..., N), a relative position information providing device 3 that provides a nearby service providing point to the user terminal 1, and the user terminal 1 and the installation terminal 2i and the relative position information providing device 3 Based on electric field strengths from a plurality of radio base stations 4 of PHS (Personal Handy-phone System) acquired by each of the user terminal 1 and the installation terminal 2i. A relative distance between the user terminal 1 and the installation terminal 2i is defined, and a nearby service providing point is provided based on the relative distance.

  More specifically, the user terminal 1 includes a PHS card 11 that receives radio waves from a plurality of radio base stations 4, a radio base station currently supplemented from the PHS card 11, and an electric field strength acquisition unit 12 that acquires the electric field strength. The information transmission / reception module 13 that transmits the acquired electric field strength to the relative position information providing apparatus 3 as presence information, the communication module 14 that communicates with the computer network 6 such as the Internet network, and the relative position information providing apparatus 3 are provided. In addition, a result display unit 15 that displays relative position information is provided.

  Here, the information (hereinafter referred to as field strength information) a acquired by the field strength acquisition unit 12 and transmitted from the information transmitting / receiving module 13 to the relative position information providing device 3 is as shown in FIG. In addition, CS_ID of identification information for uniquely determining the radio base station 4 is associated with the value of the electric field strength (the blank portion in FIG. 2A is the electric field strength value 0). In addition, this electric field strength information is defined as a vector (hereinafter, referred to as an electric field strength vector) having each CS_ID as each dimension of the vector space and an electric field strength value as an element, as will be described later. In addition, when the acquired electric field strength information a is transmitted to the relative position information providing device 3, an identifier uniquely indicating the user terminal 1 is attached to the electric field strength information a and transmitted.

  In addition, the result display unit 15 specifically displays information such as the name and address of a nearby service providing point, as shown in FIG. When the user wants to see the map, clicking on the address displays a map in which the service point is marked as shown in FIG. 4B. In this method, the map data registered in advance is searched based on the address information of the service point, mapped on the map, and displayed.

  The installation terminal 2i includes a PHS card 21 that receives radio waves from a plurality of radio base stations 4, a radio base station that is currently supplemented from the PHS card 21, an electric field strength acquisition unit 22 that acquires the electric field strength, and an acquired electric field strength. Is transmitted to the relative position information providing apparatus 3 as presence information, and a communication module 24 for communicating with a computer network 6 such as the Internet network is provided.

  Here, the electric field intensity acquisition unit 12 acquires electric field intensity information Ai (i = a, b,..., N) acquired by the electric field intensity acquisition unit 22 and transmitted by the information transmission module 23 to the relative position information providing device 3. It has the same configuration as the acquired electric field information a, and is data in which CS_ID and the value of the electric field strength are associated with each other as shown in FIG. 2B (the blank portion in FIG. Intensity value 0). When the acquired electric field strength information Ai is transmitted to the relative position information providing device 3, an identifier uniquely indicating the installation terminal 2i is attached to the electric field strength information Ai and transmitted.

  When the relative position information providing device 3 receives the information registration DB 31 storing the field strength information Ai from the plurality of installation terminals 2 i and the field strength information a from the user terminal 1, the field strength information registered in the information registration DB 31. A configuration including a search module 32 for acquiring Ai and searching for an installation terminal 2i in the vicinity of the user terminal 1 according to a proximity search algorithm, and a map information creation module 33 for creating a search result in the search module 32 as map information; It has become.

  Here, as shown in FIG. 2C, the information registration DB 31 stores data in which a plurality of CS_IDs and their electric field strength values are associated with each other for each service providing point (installed terminal 2i). Yes. The data stored in the information registration DB 31 is also a collection of the above-described electric field intensity vectors Ai.

  The neighborhood search algorithm calculates a vector inner product between the electric field strength vector a and each electric field strength vector Ai, and defines the value of the vector inner product as a relative distance between the user terminal 1 and each installed terminal 2i. When the vector inner product value is larger than a predetermined threshold (for example, larger than 0), it is determined that the installation terminal 2i that has acquired the electric field strength vector Ai is in the vicinity of the user terminal 1. The service providing point of the installation terminal 2i is presented to the user by a predetermined method. This is based on the idea that when the terminals are in the vicinity, both terminals supplement radio waves from the radio base station 4 with the same CS_ID, so that the larger the vector inner product value is, the closer the terminals are. . 2A and 2B, the value of the vector inner product of the vector a and the vector Ai is 2421 (= 39 × 39 + 30 × 30).

  The user terminal 1, the installation terminal 2i, and the relative position information providing device 3 described above include a central processing unit (CPU) having at least a calculation function and a control function, a RAM having a function for storing programs and data, and the like. It is composed of an electronic device having a main storage device (memory). Each of the devices may include an auxiliary storage device such as a hard disk in addition to the main storage device.

  A program for executing various processes according to the present embodiment is stored in the main storage device or the hard disk described above. The program can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as a hard disk, a flexible disk, a CD-ROM, an MO, or a DVD-ROM, or can be distributed via a communication network.

  The relative position information providing system 10 according to the present embodiment realizes a presence service according to RFC (Request For Comment) 2778 and 2779, and the electric field strength acquisition units 12 and 22 are presence user agents. (PUA) and information transmission / reception modules 13 and 14 correspond to presence agents (PA), and relative position information providing device 3 corresponds to a presence server (PS). Therefore, when there is a change in the electric field intensity information (presence information) acquired by the electric field intensity acquisition units 12 and 22, the changed electric field intensity information is notified to the relative position information providing device 3.

  Next, the operation of the relative position information providing system 10 according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Here, FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram showing an overview of the processing of the relative position information providing system 10 as a whole when the service providing point does not move.

  First, an operation in which the plurality of installation terminals 2i transmit the electric field strength information Ai to the relative position information providing device 3 will be described. This is because when the field strength acquisition unit 22 of the installation terminal 2 i receives the field strength from the plurality of radio base stations 4, the field strength is transferred to the information transmission / reception module 23, and the information transmission / reception module 23 assigns an identifier to the field strength. The attached electric field strength information Ai is transmitted to the relative position information providing device 3 (steps S10, S20, S30, S40).

  Next, the relative position information providing apparatus 3 that has received the electric field strength information Ai registers the electric field strength information Ai in the information registration DB 31 (step S50). In this way, the respective electric field strengths received by the respective installation terminals 2i installed at a plurality of service providing locations are registered and managed in the information registration DB 31.

  Next, a search request operation from the user will be described. When the user wants to receive the relative position information providing service, first, the function of the electric field strength acquisition unit 12 of the user terminal 1 carried by the user is used to obtain the electric field strength from the plurality of radio base stations 4. Obtain (step S110). Then, the electric field strength acquisition unit 12 transfers the electric field strength to the information transmission / reception module 13, and the information transmission / reception module 13 transmits the electric field strength information a in which the identifier is attached to the electric field strength to the relative position information providing device 3 ( Steps S120, S130, S140).

  Next, the relative position information providing apparatus 3 that has received the electric field strength information a instructs the search module 32 to search using the CS_ID of the electric field strength information a as a search key, and uses the data registered in the information registration DB 31 as a search condition. The matched data is searched (steps S150 and S160). Specifically, this is not because all the electric field information Ai is acquired in order to expedite the search process, and when the same vector component (CS_ID is the same) of the electric field intensity vectors a and Ai is not 0, the electric field information The intensity vector Ai is acquired.

  The search module 32 that has received the searched electric field strength vector Ai calculates the vector inner product of the electric field strength vector a and each electric field strength vector Ai. If the value of the vector inner product is larger than a predetermined threshold value, A message that generates a service providing point having the intensity vector Ai in the vicinity of the user terminal 1 is generated (steps S170 and S180). The message is generated in a list format or a map format according to an instruction from the user. Further, in the case of a list format, it may be sorted and displayed from a service providing point that is closer.

  Next, the search module 32 transmits the generated message to the user terminal 1, and the user terminal 1 displays the search result via the information receiving module 13 and the display unit 15 (steps S190 and S200). Thereby, the user can find a service providing point in the vicinity of the user, that is, an access point of the wireless LAN connection service.

  Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the electric field strength at the service providing point and the point where the user is present is measured, and the relative distance between the two points is calculated. Therefore, the absolute position information of the reference point such as the radio base station is obtained. A service providing point in the vicinity of the user can be provided accurately without the need.

  Thereby, the user can find the service providing point easily and quickly. Further, the service provider can easily and widely introduce the service using a general radio base station without providing a new reference point for this service.

  While the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, various modifications and changes can be made to the embodiments of the present invention without departing from the spirit of the present invention. For example, in the above embodiment, the relative positional relationship between the user terminal 1 and the installation terminal 2 i is measured, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the relative positional relationship between the user terminals 1. May be measured. This can be applied to a service for searching for users having the same purpose in the vicinity of the user, and means that the service providing point may be dynamic instead of static.

  Further, the present invention is not limited to the system configuration of the above embodiment, and other system configurations may be used. For example, in the above embodiment, the relative position information providing device 3 measures and provides the relative position information. However, the user terminal 1 is equipped with the function of the relative position information providing device 3 and uses it. The person terminal 1 may measure and provide the relative position information. This constructs the relative position information providing system 10 as a client-side system, not as a client-server type system.

  Further, in the above embodiment, the relative position information is measured based on the electric field strength by the radio wave using PHS. However, the present invention can be applied to other than PHS, such as a mobile phone, a wireless LAN, etc. It can be applied to any service that uses radio.

It is a schematic block diagram of the relative position information provision system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is an example of the electric field strength information acquired in the relative position information providing system according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is a sequence diagram explaining operation | movement of the relative position information provision system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is an example of the screen displayed on the user terminal of the relative position information provision system which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 User terminal 2i Service provision point installation terminal 3 Relative position information provision apparatus 4 Wireless base station 6 Computer network 10 Relative position information provision system 11, 21 PHS card 12, 22 Electric field strength acquisition part 13, 23 Information transmission / reception module 14 , 24 Communication module 15 Result display section 31 Information registration DB
32 Search module 32 Map information creation module

Claims (5)

A relative position information providing device that provides a user with a service point that provides a desired service in the vicinity of the user,
Storage means for acquiring and storing electric field intensity vectors each having electric field intensity from a plurality of radio base stations as vector elements for the point where the user exists and the plurality of service points;
Calculating means for calculating a vector inner product of the stored electric field strength vector of the user and each electric field strength vector of the plurality of service points;
Extraction means for extracting the service point when the calculated vector inner product value is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold as a service point near the user;
Display means for displaying information about the extracted service points;
A relative position information providing apparatus characterized by comprising:   The relative position information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit displays the service point on a map. A relative location information providing method for providing a user with a service point for providing a desired service in the vicinity of the user,
A storage step of acquiring and storing an electric field strength vector having electric field strengths from a plurality of radio base stations as vector elements with respect to the point where the user exists and the plurality of service points;
A calculation step of calculating a vector inner product of the stored electric field intensity vector of the user and each electric field intensity vector of the plurality of service points;
An extraction step of extracting the service point when the calculated vector dot product is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold as a service point near the user;
A display step for displaying information about the extracted service points;
A method for providing relative position information, comprising: A relative position information providing program for providing a user with a service point for providing a desired service in the vicinity of the user,
A storage step of acquiring and storing an electric field strength vector having electric field strengths from a plurality of radio base stations as vector elements with respect to the point where the user exists and the plurality of service points;
A calculation step of calculating a vector inner product of the stored electric field intensity vector of the user and each electric field intensity vector of the plurality of service points;
An extraction step of extracting the service point when the calculated vector dot product is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold as a service point near the user;
A display step for displaying information about the extracted service points;
A program for providing relative position information that causes a computer to execute. A program for a user terminal that displays a service point that provides a desired service in the vicinity of the user,
An electric field strength acquisition step of acquiring an electric field strength vector having each electric field strength from a plurality of radio base stations as a vector element at a point where the user terminal exists;
Transmitting the electric field strength vector at a point where the user terminal exists to a service providing apparatus storing the electric field strength vectors at a plurality of service points;
A vector inner product of the electric field strength vector of the user and each of the electric field strength vectors of the plurality of service points is calculated, and the service point when the calculated vector inner product value is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold is determined as the user. Receiving information on the service points in the vicinity of the user from the service providing device that extracts the service points in the vicinity;
Displaying information about the received service point;
Is executed by the user terminal.

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