KR20080067813A - Apparatus and method for providing location information of a mobile terminal in gps null area - Google Patents

Abstract

A location information service device in a GPS(Global Positioning System) shadow area and a method therefor are provided to calculate a location of a mobile terminal based on GPS signal information recorded right before a user of the terminal entering a shadow area, thereby offering more exact location information in a GPS shadow area. A mobile terminal receives GPS signal information to periodically record the information(S10). A location inquiry request for the terminal is received within a GPS shadow area(S20). The terminal decides whether PN(Pseudo Noise) identical with PN of the current location of the terminal exists when the terminal enters the GPS shadow area(S30-S50). If so, a PDE(Position Determination Entity) extracts location coordinates values from GPS signal information recorded right before entrance of the shadow area(S60,S70). The PDE transmits the extracted values to a side which demands location inquiry.

Description

Apparatus and Method for Providing Location Information of a Mobile Terminal in GPS Null Area}

1 is a diagram schematically illustrating a mobile communication system capable of performing a method for providing location information according to the present invention.

2 is a block diagram of an internal configuration of a mobile terminal capable of performing a method for providing location information according to the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing location information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area, and more particularly, in providing location information of a mobile terminal in a GPS shadow area, instead of a conventional base station-based location information providing method, a mobile terminal in a shadow area. When the user of the mobile terminal does not leave the same cell area as a result of the checking, the mobile terminal is configured to accurately provide the current location information of the mobile terminal by using the GPS reception signal recorded just before entering the shadow area. An apparatus and method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area are provided.

Among the service methods for providing the location information of the mobile terminal, there are a base station-based network method and a GPS method based on satellite signals. In the base station-based network method, the mobile terminal receives the virtual noise (PN) of one or more base stations, and the time required for the PNs transmitted from each base station to reach the mobile terminal and the arrival angle information to the mobile terminal. Estimate the current position of the mobile terminal using the.

The base station-based positioning method has an advantage that, compared with the GPS method, the user terminal does not need to have a module (GPS module) for receiving satellite signals in order to measure the location, but it is a small number over a wide range. In the outlying areas where only base stations are installed, the error range of the measured position may occur from several hundred to several thousand meters.

On the other hand, in the GPS method based on satellite signals, since the current position of the mobile terminal is calculated based on the signal received from the satellite, regardless of the base station density area, a relatively accurate error range of about 10 to 50 meters You can get location information.

However, the GPS method has a disadvantage in that the mobile terminal cannot provide location information of the mobile terminal when the mobile terminal enters an area difficult to receive satellite signals, for example, inside a building or underground.

In order to compensate for the shortcomings of the GPS method, a technology for providing location information of a mobile terminal based on data sent from a base station when a location measurement through a GPS module is not possible, such as in a building or in a basement, has been introduced.

However, as described above, since the location information through the base station-based network method has a larger error range than the GPS method, there is a limit in providing accurate location information of the mobile terminal in the GPS shadow area.

Therefore, there is a demand for a technology capable of providing more accurate location information even in a GPS shadow area where reception of satellite signals is difficult.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides more accurate location information than the existing base station-based location information when the user of the mobile terminal does not leave the same cell area in the shadow area when providing the location information of the mobile terminal in the GPS shadow area. The purpose is to provide. Still other objects of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of providing location information in a GPS shadow area, the method comprising: receiving and periodically recording GPS signal information by a mobile terminal; Receiving a location lookup request for the mobile terminal in a GPS shadow area; Determining, by the mobile terminal, whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal in the PN list in the cell region when the GPS shadow area enters; If there is a PN coinciding with the PN of the current position of the mobile terminal in the PN list, the position coordinate device extracts the position coordinate value from the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry in a position determination entity (PDE). step; And transmitting, by the positioning apparatus, the extracted position coordinate value to the requesting side of the position lookup.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area through a server connected to a mobile terminal and a positioning device (PDE) by a network, comprising: providing PN list information in each GPS shadow area; ; Receiving a transmission request signal of PN list information of a specific GPS shadow area from the mobile terminal; Transmitting the requested PN list to the mobile terminal; Receiving a location lookup request of the mobile terminal; Requesting the mobile terminal to enter the specific GPS shadow area to transmit the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the specific GPS shadow area; Receiving GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the specific GPS shadow area from the mobile terminal; And transmitting the received GPS signal information to the positioning device.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area through a mobile terminal connected to an external server and a positioning device (PDE) network, receiving and recording GPS signal information periodically step; Receiving a location lookup request in a GPS shadow area from the external server; Receiving PN list information in a cell area when entering the GPS shadow area from the external server; Determining whether there is a PN that matches the PN at the current location among the received PN list; And if the PN coincides with the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal in the received PN list, transmitting the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the GPS shadow area to the external server. Can be.

According to another aspect of the present invention, an apparatus for providing location information in a GPS shadow area receives a GPS signal and records the received GPS signal in an internal memory at a predetermined period. A mobile terminal for determining whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location among the PN lists of the PN list, and transmitting GPS signal information recorded immediately before entry to the shadow area when there is a matching PN; A server providing the PN list to the mobile terminal entering the shaded area and notifying the mobile terminal that the location lookup request has been made; And a positioning device configured to receive GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shaded area from the mobile terminal and extract a position coordinate value.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a mobile terminal includes: a GPS receiver for receiving a GPS signal; An internal memory for recording the received GPS signal at predetermined intervals; And a control unit having an application program for providing location information, wherein the application program receives a PN list in a cell area when entering the shadow area from an external server when the mobile terminal enters a GPS shadow area. If there is a location lookup request in the shadow area, it is determined whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location in the PN list. If the matching PN exists, the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shadow area is determined. Can be configured to extract from the internal memory.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a view schematically showing a system for providing location information according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the mobile terminal 100 includes a mobile terminal 100, a server 200, and a position determination entity (PDE) 300. The functions of each component will be described in detail as follows. .

An internal configuration of the mobile terminal 100 is shown in FIG. As shown, a GPS receiver 20 for receiving a GPS satellite signal, an RF processor 10 for receiving a base station signal, a memory 40 for recording the GPS satellite signal at predetermined intervals, and location information It includes a control unit 30 is provided with an application program for providing.

The application program is stored as an initial menu when the mobile terminal 100 is manufactured, or the mobile terminal 100 is downloaded and installed by accessing a server 200 providing the application program, or a recording medium in which the application program is stored. By connecting to the mobile terminal 100 can be stored.

The application program may be driven in a standby mode on the wireless Internet platform (eg, WIPI or Brew) of the mobile terminal 100 at all times, detects the PN of the current position of the mobile terminal 100, and sets a preset period (eg, It can be configured to perform the function of recording the GPS signal information received through the GPS receiving module to the memory 40 every 5 seconds). In this case, the setting period may be configured to be changed in the server 200 communicating with the mobile terminal 100 through a network.

In addition, the application program may be configured to request and receive a PN list for the shadow area from the server 200 when a location lookup request is requested for the mobile terminal 100 entering the GPS shadow area. Alternatively, when the mobile terminal 100 enters the GPS shadow area, the application program requests the server 200 for the PN list for the cell area at the time of entering the shadow area even before the request for location lookup is made, and the requested PN list is requested. When receiving the can be configured to store in the memory 40 of the mobile terminal 100.

As an embodiment, the location lookup request for the mobile terminal 100 informs the location lookup request from the LBS server (Location Based Service server) to the positioning device 300, and the positioning device 300 calculates the location. For this purpose, the IS-801 message may be configured to transmit and receive to and from the mobile terminal 100, and thus the mobile terminal 100 may receive a location lookup request through the positioning device 300.

In addition, as an embodiment, the PN list stored in the mobile terminal 100 is the PN list for each major building, for example, apartment buildings (about 128,000 buildings), malls, department stores, government offices, etc., which are distributed nationwide. It may be a PN list corresponding to a shaded area in which the mobile terminal 100 enters. In this case, the PN list information for the main building uses the PN list information stored in an in-building quality measurement management device (not shown) currently operating in the mobile communication industry, and the in-building quality. Measurement management device can be linked. In the present specification, the in-building quality measurement management device may be interpreted as a kind of database that stores PN list information for each building scattered throughout the country.

The application program determines whether there is a PN that matches the PN detected at the current location of the mobile terminal 100 in the received PN list, and enters the GPS shadow area if the PN coincides with the determination result. The GPS signal information received immediately before and recorded in the memory 40 may be configured to be transmitted to the server 200 or the positioning device 300. When the server 200 receives the GPS signal information, it transmits the GPS signal information to the positioning device 300.

In this case, if the change of the software of the positioning device 300 is minimized and the information protection side is taken into consideration, the mobile terminal 100 transmits the GPS signal information directly to the positioning device 300 rather than directly through the server 200. Configure to send.

On the other hand, if there is no PN that matches the PN of the current position in the PN list, the application program may be configured to perform a position measurement according to the base station PN received at the current position of the mobile terminal 100. have. That is, in this case, the RF processor receives the PN signal of the base station currently received by the mobile terminal 100 without using the GPS signal information, and measures the current position of the mobile terminal 100 based on this.

The server 200 communicates with the mobile terminal 100 through a wireless network. The server 200 stores one or more pieces of PN information detectable in each shaded area (for example, inside a building or an underground space), and then stores the PN information in a cell area when entering the corresponding shaded area from the mobile terminal 100 entering the corresponding shaded area. If there is a request for transmission of the corresponding PN information, the PN information list corresponding to the cell area at the time of entry into the corresponding shadow area is searched and transmitted to the mobile terminal 100 that has requested the transmission.

As described above, the server 200 may be configured to receive and store PN list information corresponding to the shadow area from the in-building quality measurement management apparatus in association with the in-building quality measurement management apparatus (not shown).

In addition, the server 200 may set a period in which the GPS signal information received by the mobile terminal 100 is recorded in the memory 40. When there is a location lookup request, the server 200 requests the mobile terminal 100 to transmit the GPS signal information recorded just before entering the shaded area. For example, the request may be made in the form of a text message for triggering the application program running on the mobile terminal 100.

Upon receiving the GPS signal information from the mobile terminal 100 according to the request, the server 200 transmits the received signal information to the positioning device 300 to extract the position coordinates according to the signal information. .

The positioning device 300 may be configured to be connected to the server 200 through a wired or wireless network, respectively, through a wireless network with the mobile terminal 100 to perform a function of determining a location of the mobile terminal 100. Can be.

When the positioning device 300 receives the GPS signal information recorded by the mobile terminal 100 immediately before entering the shaded area from the server 200, the positioning device 300 extracts the corresponding position coordinates.

A process of providing location information in the system environment of FIG. 1 is illustrated in FIG. 3. Referring to Figure 3 describes a process for providing location information according to the present invention.

First, the mobile terminal 100 records the GPS signal received from the satellite at predetermined intervals (S10). For example, when the mobile terminal 100 is set to record every 5 seconds, the mobile terminal 100 newly records the GPS signal received from the satellite into the internal memory 40 in units of 5 seconds. In this case, the mobile terminal 100 records a predetermined capacity in the internal memory 40. By allocating, it may be configured to store a predetermined amount of GPS signal information recorded before being newly recorded.

When the mobile terminal 100 enters the GPS shadow area while periodically recording the GPS signal information, the mobile terminal 100 cannot receive the GPS signal, and thus the GPS received immediately before entering the shadow area. The signal information remains recorded in the memory 40 of the mobile terminal 100.

As such, when the mobile terminal 100 receives a location lookup request for the mobile terminal 100 in the state of entering the GPS shadow area (S20), the mobile terminal 100 in the cell area at the time of entering the GPS shadow area. In the PN list, it is determined whether there is a PN that matches the PN detected at the current location (S30 to S50).

Specifically, first, when there is a location lookup request for the mobile terminal 100, the mobile terminal 100 requests a PN list corresponding to the cell area when entering the shadow area to the external server 200 connected through the network. (S30).

The external server 200 retrieves the PN list requested by the mobile terminal 100 from the database (eg, the in-building quality measurement management device) storing the PN list for each building and transmits the PN list to the mobile terminal 100. (S40).

The PN list is an information list including one or more base station PN information detected in each cell region of the GPS shadow area. For example, two or more base station PN signals may be detected in a building, in which case two or more base station PN signals detected in the building form one PN list.

The mobile terminal 100 receiving the PN list from the external server 200 determines whether there is a PN in the PN list that matches the PN detected at the current location (S50).

If the mobile terminal 100 does not leave the cell area when entering the GPS shadow area (eg, does not leave the building), there will be a PN that matches the PN detected at the current position among the PNs included in the PN list. .

In this case, since there is less deviation between the position according to the GPS signal recorded immediately before the GPS shadow area entry and the current position of the mobile terminal 100, the position coordinate value is extracted from the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry. Replace the current location information.

Specifically, first, if there is a PN that matches the PN detected at the current location among the PNs included in the PN list, the mobile terminal 100 stores the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shadow area. Extracted from 40 and transmitted to the server (200) (S60).

When the positioning device 300 receives the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry through the server 200, the position coordinate value of the mobile terminal 100 is extracted (S70) and transmitted to the requesting side. do.

On the other hand, if the mobile terminal 100 is out of the cell area when entering the GPS shadow area (for example, moving on the subway), PN matching the PN detected at the current position among the PNs included in the PN list This may not exist.

As such, if there is no PN that matches the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal 100 in the PN list, the location measurement is performed according to the base station PN received at the current location of the mobile terminal 100, and the base station PN The measured position value is transmitted according to the request for the position query (S80).

While specific embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described, the technical spirit of the present invention is not limited to the accompanying drawings and the above description, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and variations of this form will be regarded as belonging to the claims of the present invention without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

As described above, the apparatus and method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area according to the present invention, when providing the location information of the mobile terminal in the GPS shadow area, the user of the mobile terminal does not leave the same cell area in the shadow area In this case, the position of the mobile terminal is calculated based on the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shadow area, and thus, more precise location information is provided than the existing base station-based location information in the GPS shadow area with limited moving range, such as in a building. can do.

Claims (13)

Receiving and periodically recording, by the mobile terminal, the GPS signal information; Receiving a location lookup request for the mobile terminal in a GPS shadow area; Determining, by the mobile terminal, whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal in the PN list in the cell region when the GPS shadow area enters; Extracting a position coordinate value from the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry, if there is a PN in the PN list that matches the PN of the current position of the mobile terminal; And And transmitting, by the positioning apparatus, the extracted position coordinate values to the requesting side of the position lookup. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal, Requesting, by the mobile terminal, an external server for a PN list in a cell area when entering the shadow area; Transmitting, by the external server, the PN list requested by the mobile terminal to the mobile terminal; And And determining, by the mobile terminal, whether there is a PN that matches the currently detected PN in the received PN list. The method of claim 1, further comprising: performing a location measurement according to a base station PN received at a current location of the mobile terminal when there is no PN that matches the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal in the PN list; And And transmitting the position value measured according to the base station PN to the requesting side of the position lookup. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting the position coordinate value from the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry is performed. Extracting, by the mobile terminal, the GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry from an internal memory and transmitting the extracted GPS signal information to an external server; And And a position determining device extracting position coordinate values by receiving GPS signal information recorded immediately before the entry from the external server. In the method for providing location information in the GPS shadow area through a server connected to the mobile terminal and the positioning device (PDE), Providing PN list information in each GPS shadow area; Receiving a transmission request signal of PN list information of a specific GPS shadow area from the mobile terminal; Transmitting the requested PN list to the mobile terminal; Receiving a location lookup request of the mobile terminal; Requesting the mobile terminal to enter the specific GPS shadow area to transmit the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the specific GPS shadow area; Receiving GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the specific GPS shadow area from the mobile terminal; And And transmitting the received GPS signal information to the positioning device. A method for providing location information in a GPS shadow area through a mobile terminal connected to an external server and a positioning device (PDE) in a network, Receiving and periodically recording GPS signal information; Receiving a location lookup request in a GPS shadow area from the external server; Receiving PN list information in a cell area when the GPS shadow area enters from the external server; Determining whether there is a PN that matches the PN at the current location among the received PN list; And And if the PN coincides with the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal in the received PN list, transmitting the GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the GPS shadow area to the external server. How to provide location information in the GPS shadow area. The method of claim 6, wherein if the PN corresponding to the PN of the current location of the mobile terminal does not exist in the received PN list, the location measurement is performed according to the base station PN received at the current location of the mobile terminal. step; And And transmitting the location value measured according to the base station PN to the external server that has requested the location lookup. Receives a GPS signal and records it in the internal memory every preset period, and if a location lookup request is requested in the GPS shadow area, it is determined whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location among the PN lists in the cell area when entering the shadow area. A mobile terminal for transmitting GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shaded area if there is a matching PN; A server providing the PN list to the mobile terminal entering the shaded area and notifying the mobile terminal that the location lookup request has been made; And And a positioning device for receiving GPS signal information recorded immediately before entering the shaded area from the mobile terminal and extracting a position coordinate value. A GPS receiver for receiving a GPS signal; An internal memory for recording the received GPS signal at predetermined intervals; And a control unit having an application program for providing location information, wherein the application program receives a PN list in a cell area when entering the shadow area from an external server when the mobile terminal enters a GPS shadow area. If there is a location lookup request in the shadowed area, it is determined whether there is a PN that matches the PN of the current location in the PN list. And extract from the internal memory. 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the application program is configured to perform location measurement according to the base station PN received at the current location of the mobile terminal if there is no PN matching the PN of the current location in the PN list. Mobile terminal characterized in that. 10. The mobile terminal of claim 9, wherein the application program is configured to run on a wireless internet platform of the mobile terminal so that the mobile terminal can communicate with the server via wireless internet. An external server connected to the mobile terminal according to claim 9 via a wired or wireless network to provide the application program to the mobile terminal. A computer-readable recording medium on which an application program according to claim 9 is recorded.

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