Flexible monitoring of location and motion
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6181253
Method and apparatus for monitoring the present location of a person (“confinee”) who is to be confined to a designated site, which site can have a diameter as small as a few meters or as large as several kilometers. The present location of the confinee is checked at selected time intervals with time periods ranging from one second to thousands of seconds, as desired. The confinee wears a location-determining (“LD”) unit that receives electromagnetic signals that…
Variable accumulation correlators
Granted: January 16, 2001
Patent Number:
6175848
This invention provides apparatus and methods for obtaining information for aligning a reference signal with a received signal for global positioning satellite receivers which employs at least one correlator for correlating the received signal with the reference signal to generate an accumulated result; the correlator having a comparator to compare the received signal with the reference signal and an accumulator which is either selectively enabled/disabled to prevent overflow errors or…
Communication and navigation system incorporating position determination
Granted: January 2, 2001
Patent Number:
6169955
A method and apparatus for providing navigation and information services. A mobile unit which includes a microphone and a speaker is used to communicate between a user and a service location. The service location includes a computer and data storage which includes data on geography, roads, road conditions, traffic and other data which may be of use to a user. The mobile unit includes a receiver and position determination processing circuitry for location determination. A user may obtain…
Clandestine missing vehicle location reporting using cellular channels
Granted: December 26, 2000
Patent Number:
6166626
Apparatus and method for a location determination and reporting (LDR) system for clandestinely determining and reporting a missing vehicle present location. The vehicle is equipped with a handheld cellular phone unit and controller that are accepted and held by a cellular phone cradle that can include electrical poster and/or a location determination (LD) unit to determines the LD unit present location. The cellular phone unit can operate on one cellular channel or on two distinct…
Time-tagging electronic distance measurement instrument measurements to serve as legal evidence of calibration
Granted: December 19, 2000
Patent Number:
6163294
A combined satellite positioning and electro-optical total station system including a satellite navigation receiver and a reference oscillator with a reference frequency output that can be related to precision time standards obtained from orbiting navigation-satellite transmissions. Such time standards are output by the satellite navigation receiver and are highly precise. An electronic distance meter (EDM) is included and has an EDM-transmitter for launching an out-bound signal to a…
Radio navigation emulating GPS system
Granted: December 19, 2000
Patent Number:
6163753
The present invention provides a radio navigation emulating GPS device. In one embodiment, the radio navigation emulating GPS device receives an identifier associated with a conventional radio navaid. The present radio navigation emulating GPS device then retrieves latitude and longitude information corresponding to the received conventional radio navaid from a database. A satellite based position information system generates position information for the aircraft on which the present…
Compensation for line bias variation
Granted: December 19, 2000
Patent Number:
6163754
Method and apparatus for estimating a line bias for a signal received from a common signal source at each of two or more GPS signal receivers. Single difference solutions are obtained for angular orientation of an antenna array and for antenna location, using a two-thread or two-procedure process for determining and updating line bias variation within each of a sequence of time intervals.
Range pole with integrated power system
Granted: December 5, 2000
Patent Number:
6155869
A range pole and in-line detachable battery module assembly including a range pole (10) with an elongated tubular range pole shell (102) which has a female cap assembly (108) and a male cap assembly (26) at opposite ends. A detachable battery module (12) includes a tubular battery-module shell (24) which has a male cap (26) at one end that is adapted to mate with female cap assembly 108. A detachable tip (14) includes a ribbed aluminum tip body (150) having external ribs (152) formed in…
Communication system having automatic addressing
Granted: December 5, 2000
Patent Number:
6157818
A communication system, method, and multiple master and slave transceivers having automatic addressing and collision avoidance. A master transceiver is programmed with its address by a user through a host. After being turned on, a slave transceiver acquires its address as the address of the first message it receives from a master transceiver. The master and the slave transceivers then communicate in each direction and ignore other messages by using that address until the slave…
Method and apparatus for processing multipath reflection effects in timing systems
Granted: November 28, 2000
Patent Number:
6154173
A method and apparatus for processing multipath reflection effects in timing systems is disclosed in which a determination is made of whether a received signal is a reflected signal. A detector provides from an input signal a pair of signals representative of whether the input signal contained right-hand circularly polarized and left-hand circularly polarized components. The representative signals are separately processed in synchronized logic circuits to determine relative power levels.…
Enhanced attitude determination system using satellite navigation receiver with antenna multiplexing
Granted: November 28, 2000
Patent Number:
6154170
The position, velocity, time (PVT) and attitude (ATT) measurement system including a Master GPS antenna and a plurality of Slave GPS antennas is disclosed. The system comprises a hardware PVT channel and a hardware ATT channel. After the Master GPS antenna is selected, the hardware PVT channel stays locked on the Master antenna during the measurement time thus optimizing the accuracy of the PVT data. The PVT channel performs the tracking of the visible GPS satellites and generates the…
GPS receiver having fast resolution of carrier phase ambiguity
Granted: November 21, 2000
Patent Number:
6150978
A carrier ambiguity detector for resolving a 1/2cycle carrier phase ambiguity in an incoming GPS signal before the arrival of the next preamble by detecting a match or an inverted match between an internally stored expected data message and the incoming data in the remaining subframe before the arrival of the next preamble. The carrier ambiguity detector of the present invention includes a buffer for buffering incoming data, a data memory for storing time-tagged expected data, a data…
Vehicle theft system including a handheld computing device
Granted: November 14, 2000
Patent Number:
6147598
A method and apparatus for providing a vehicle theft alarm using a handheld computing device. A handheld computing device is disclosed that includes an image capture device, a location determination system and a communication device. The handheld computing device can be used for capturing images and transmitting images to other locations via the communication device. The handheld computing device also includes a position determining system for determining position of the vehicle. The…
Automated differential correction processing of field data in a global positional system
Granted: November 7, 2000
Patent Number:
6144335
A system and method for automated differential correction processing of field data in a global positioning system (GPS). In one embodiment, the present invention retrieves GPS field data collected by one or more GPS receivers from a storage device, and then automatically selects the most appropriate differential correction scheme to generate a solution without user intervention. More specifically, the present invention executes a code-based correction scheme to generate a code-based…
Tilt prediction for total station
Granted: October 31, 2000
Patent Number:
6138367
A tilt predictor incorporated into a total station to predict the degree of tilt of the rotational alidade portion of a total station corresponding to the rotational orientation of the rotational alidade portion. In one embodiment, the present invention defines the plane of rotation for the rotational alidade portion with the rotational alidade portion disposed in a first rotational orientation. The rotational alidade portion is then rotated to the desired rotational orientation. This…
Method and apparatus for navigation guidance
Granted: October 31, 2000
Patent Number:
6140957
A position identification system, that employs satellite navigational or similar positioning technology is provided. In one embodiment, the position identification system includes a receiver for receiving position signals from a positioning system; an orientation device that is configured to rotate about at least one axis; a pointing element coupled to the orientation device to provide indication of a direction to a desired position; and a processor that is coupled to the receiver to…
Automated vehicle monitoring system
Granted: October 31, 2000
Patent Number:
6141610
A method and apparatus that allows for monitoring the operation and usage of a vehicle. A data logger is installed in a vehicle to be monitored. The data logger couples to the vehicle's electronic system and monitors data relating to usage and condition of the vehicle. In one embodiment, the data logger includes a position determining system for determining whether the vehicle has traveled outside of a predetermined area and accelerometers for determining whether the vehicle has been…
Code multipath analyzer using weighted or modified correlations
Granted: October 10, 2000
Patent Number:
6130908
The apparatus and the method for analyzing the code multipath satellite disturbance are disclosed. The apparatus includes the tracking channel and the analyzing circuit. The tracking channel can include the weighted or modified weighting functions to decrease the level of the multipath reference signal. The analyzing circuit can include a plurality of additional correlator circuits used to build the filter function that is utilized to analyze the incoming code multipath disturbance.
Mobile personal navigator
Granted: October 3, 2000
Patent Number:
6127945
A personal navigation device and method for providing location information. In one embodiment, the present invention is comprised of a portable hand-held unit. The portable unit contains a communication system adapted to receive data at and transmit data from the portable unit. The portable unit also contains a position determining system which determines the geographic location of the portable unit. The position determining system is connected to the communication system. A graphic…
On-the-fly RTK positioning system with single frequency receiver
Granted: October 3, 2000
Patent Number:
6127968
A system for single frequency on-the-fly (OTF) real-time kinematic (RTK) centimeter level position determination using the satellite positioning system (SATPS) is disclosed. The system includes a storage buffer used for storing data. The stored data and the current data are used by an ambiguity search algorithm for the improved integer ambiguity resolution.
