KR102185062B1 - Real time locating system and transmitter for the same - Google Patents

Abstract

A position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention receives first atmospheric pressure information and a blink signal from a transmitter, and provides atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information and arrival time information upon receiving the blink signal. A plurality of receivers; And a calculator configured to calculate location information of the transmitter based on the atmospheric pressure information and the arrival time information provided by each of the plurality of receivers.

Description

Position estimation system and transmitter therefor {REAL TIME LOCATING SYSTEM AND TRANSMITTER FOR THE SAME}

The present invention relates to a position estimation system and a transmitter therefor.

The location estimation system (RTLS, REAL TIME LOCATING SYSTEM) is a system that provides location information by estimating the location of an object or person in real time using wireless communication technology, such as logistics management, access control, and indoor navigation. The field of application is wide.

Such a position estimation system is generally implemented based on RSSI (Received Signal Strength Intensity) or TODA (Time Difference of Alive) technology.

The position estimation method using RSSI uses the signal strength of a received transmitter, and calculates the distance the signal has traveled based on the power loss or path loss of the signal. The implementation method is simple but has a disadvantage of low accuracy.

In addition, the position estimation method using TDOA is a method that calculates the distance the signal travels based on the difference in time the signal from the transmitter arrives at the receiver. There is a problem that the estimated position still has an error in the conditional position.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a position estimation system capable of accurately estimating a position based on atmospheric pressure information in addition to arrival time information of a signal transmitted by a transmitter, and a transmitter therefor.

A position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention receives first atmospheric pressure information and a blink signal from a transmitter, and provides atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information and arrival time information upon receiving the blink signal. A plurality of receivers; And a calculator that calculates the location of the transmitter based on the atmospheric pressure information and the arrival time information provided by each of the plurality of receivers.

In addition, the transmitter applicable to the position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an atmospheric pressure sensor that detects atmospheric pressure, and the first atmospheric pressure information detected by the atmospheric pressure sensor and predetermined The blink signal of may be transmitted to the plurality of receivers at predetermined time intervals.

A location estimation system and a transmitter for the same according to an embodiment of the present invention can accurately estimate a location based on air pressure information in addition to arrival time information.

1 is a block diagram of a position estimation system and a transmitter therefor according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a diagram schematically illustrating a position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a diagram for explaining an operation of a position estimation system and a transmitter therefor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

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

However, the embodiments of the present invention may be modified into various other forms, and the scope of the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described below. In addition, embodiments of the present invention are provided in order to more completely explain the present invention to those with average knowledge in the art. It is to be understood that the various embodiments of the present invention are different from each other, but need not be mutually exclusive.

In addition, "including" a certain component means that other components may be further included rather than excluding other components unless otherwise specified.

1 is a block diagram of a position estimation system and a transmitter therefor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention may include a plurality of receivers 210 to 240 and a calculator 300 communicating with the transmitter 100. In FIG. 1, it is shown that four receivers of the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 are included, but the number of receivers may be changed according to design, and the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 ) And the following description does not limit the scope of the present invention.

The transmitter 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an atmospheric pressure sensor 110 for detecting atmospheric pressure, and receives the detected first atmospheric pressure information and a blink signal from the first receiver 210 to the fourth receiver ( 240). The blink signal may be transmitted at a certain time period so that the position of the transmitter 100 may be estimated at a certain time period.

In addition, the blink signal is one of a UWB (Ultra Wide Band) signal, a Wi-Fi (Wireless-Fidelity, IEEE 802.11b standard) signal, a BLE (Bluetooth low energy) signal, a Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4 standard) signal. Can be.

Meanwhile, the transmitter 100 may be a tag (TAG) type communication terminal mounted on an object or a portable wireless communication device.

The first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 receive first atmospheric pressure information and a blink signal from the transmitter 100, atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information, and arrival time information upon receiving the blink signal Can provide.

In addition, at least one of the plurality of receivers 210 includes an atmospheric pressure sensor 211 that detects atmospheric pressure and generates second atmospheric pressure information, and atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information and the second atmospheric pressure information, and The arrival time information may be provided.

The calculator 300 may calculate the location information of the transmitter 100 based on air pressure information and arrival time information provided by each of the plurality of receivers 210 to 240. For example, the calculator 300 may calculate height information based on atmospheric pressure information, estimate distance information by inverting a difference in arrival time based on arrival time information, and calculate location information using a triangulation method. .

On the other hand, when the atmospheric pressure information includes the second atmospheric pressure information in addition to the first atmospheric pressure information, the calculator 300 provides the height information of the receiver 210 providing the second atmospheric pressure information and the transmitter 100 together with the second atmospheric pressure information. Since height information can be calculated based on the first atmospheric pressure information of ), more accurate height information can be obtained.

Here, the height information of the receiver 210 providing the second atmospheric pressure information may be provided from the receiver 210 providing the second atmospheric pressure information or may be set in advance.

In addition, the calculator 300 may calculate location information based on height information calculated based on atmospheric pressure information. That is, the calculator 300 may calculate the location information based on the height information and the distance information by placing a high priority on the height information based on the atmospheric pressure information.

The operator 300 according to an embodiment of the present invention is a personal computer, a server computer, a handheld or laptop device, a mobile device (mobile phone, PDA, etc.), a multiprocessor system, any of the above-described systems or It may be a distributed computing environment including devices, but is not limited thereto.

The calculator 300 may include a height determination unit 310, a distance determination unit 320, and a location determination unit 330.

The height determination unit 310 may calculate height information based on the atmospheric pressure information, and the distance determination unit 320 may calculate distance information based on the arrival time information. The location determination unit 330 may calculate location information based on the height information and distance information to output location information. For example, the location information may be 3-axis (X, Y, Z) coordinates of the location information.

The term'~ unit' used in the embodiments of the present invention may refer to software or hardware components such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or ASIC, and'~ unit' is in an addressable storage medium. It may be configured to be configured to be or may be configured to reproduce one or more processors. Thus, as an example,'~ unit' refers to components such as software components, object-oriented software components, class components, and task components, processes, functions, properties, and procedures. , Subroutines, segments of program code, drivers, firmware, microcode, circuits, data, databases, data structures, tables, arrays, and variables.

2 is a diagram schematically illustrating a position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, actual positions L1 to L5 of the transmitter 100 (FIG. 1) transmitting a blink signal, and first receivers 210 to fourth receivers 240 installed in a predetermined space can be identified.

In Table 1 below, an error between the position information of each of L1 to L5 and the actual position calculated based on the arrival time information received by the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 can be checked.

Receiver position X coordinate error Y coordinate error Z coordinate error Position error XY coordinate error Number of samples (times) L1 0.13 0.12 0.57 0.61 0.18 1934 L2 0.48 0.08 0.87 1.01 0.49 635 L3 0.38 0.39 2.01 2.11 0.57 1299 L4 0.34 0.13 1.53 1.61 0.39 1767 L5 1.16 3.38 12.21 12.75 3.59 1359

Here, L1 to L3 are positions having a condition of line of sight (LOS), L4 is a position having a condition of partial LOS, and L5 is a position of non-line of sight (NLOS). It is a position with conditions.

Here, the line of sight condition is a condition in which there is no obstacle in the propagation path between the transmitter and the receiver performing communication, and the condition of the non-line of sight is a condition in which there is an obstacle in the propagation path between the transmitter and the receiver performing communication.

In general, since the position estimation by the blink signal transmitted from a position having a non-line of sight condition is measured to have a larger coordinate error, the first receiver 210 to the fourth receiver 240 are placed in the upper part of the space to avoid obstacles. Install.

In this case, as can be seen in Table 1, the Z coordinate of the estimated location information has a larger error than the X and Y coordinates.

The position estimation system according to an embodiment of the present invention can have high accuracy because it can calculate Z coordinates (height information) based on atmospheric pressure information.

3 is a view for explaining the operation of a position estimation system and a transmitter for the same according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As described above with reference to FIG. 1, the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 may receive barometric pressure information and a blink signal from the transmitter 100.

In addition, one of the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 may be a master receiver that periodically transmits a synchronization signal to a plurality of other receivers for synchronization. That is, the first receiver 210 periodically transmits a synchronization signal to the second receiver 220 to the third receiver 240, and synchronizes the first receiver 210 to the fourth receiver 240 by the synchronization signal. ) May provide synchronized arrival time information. For example, the synchronization signal may include clock calibration packets (CCP).

The first to fourth receivers 210 to 240 may directly provide each barometric pressure information and arrival time information to the calculator 300, or a router 400 for collecting the barometric pressure information and the arrival time information, air pressure information and arrival time information may be provided to the calculator 300 through a router). For example, the router may be an Ethernet hub, and the first receiver 210 to the fourth receiver 240 and the router may transmit and receive backhaul signals through wired or wireless communication. have. The backhaul signal may include a control command for the operator 300 to control the first to fourth receivers 210 to 240.

Finally, the calculator 300 may calculate the location information of the transmitter 100 based on the provided atmospheric pressure information and arrival time information.

Since the server computer 300 receives location information from the operator terminal 40 and transmits monitoring information to the operator terminal 40 close to the power facility, the operator holding the operator terminal 40 recognizes the monitoring information. can do. Specifically, the operator may recognize energized or non-energized information of the base material 10 of the power facility, information that determines an abnormal state of the power facility, and information on whether or not the self-powered sensor module 100 has a failure.

The present invention described above is not limited by the above-described embodiments and the accompanying drawings, but is limited by the claims to be described later, and the configuration of the present invention is varied within the scope not departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. It can be easily understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the present invention can be changed and modified.

100: transmitter for position estimation system
210, 220, 230, 240: multiple receivers
300: operator
400: router

Claims (10)

A plurality of receivers receiving first atmospheric pressure information and a blink signal from a transmitter, and providing atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information, and arrival time information upon receiving the blink signal; And
A calculator for calculating the location information of the transmitter based on the atmospheric pressure information and the arrival time information provided by each of a plurality of receivers,
At least one of the plurality of receivers includes an atmospheric pressure sensor that detects atmospheric pressure to generate second atmospheric pressure information, and provides atmospheric pressure information including the first atmospheric pressure information and second atmospheric pressure information, and the arrival time information Estimation system.
The method of claim 1,
The plurality of receivers include at least one master receiver,
The at least one master receiver periodically transmits a predetermined synchronization signal to other receivers to synchronize the other receivers with the at least one master receiver.
delete The method of claim 1, wherein the operator
A position estimation system for calculating position information based on height information calculated based on the atmospheric pressure information.
The method of claim 1, wherein the operator
A height determination unit that calculates height information based on the atmospheric pressure information;
A distance determination unit that calculates distance information based on the arrival time information; And
A location determination unit that calculates location information based on the height information and distance information
Position estimation system comprising a.
The method of claim 1,
The operator is a position estimation system for outputting position information in 3-axis coordinates.
The method of claim 1,
A location estimation system further comprising a router that collects the atmospheric pressure information and the arrival time information and provides it to a calculator
According to claim 1
The blink signal is a position estimation system, characterized in that one of UWB (Ultra Wide Band) signal, Wi-Fi (Wireless-Fidelity) signal, BLE (Bluetooth low energy) signal, Zigbee (Zigbee) signal.
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