U.S. patent number 8,275,397 [Application Number 11/624,998] was granted by the patent office on 2012-09-25 for gps based friend location and identification system and method.
Invention is credited to Charles D. Huston.
United States Patent |
8,275,397 |
Huston |
September 25, 2012 |
GPS based friend location and identification system and method
Abstract
A system and method for observing a personal networking event
which shares the position of a number of friendly participants with
other participants within a group. In one form, the position of
unknown participants meeting certain criteria is also displayed to
a user or one or more friendly participants. The views are
selectable by friendly participants on, for example, a GPS equipped
cell phone, to include a view from the participant's position,
zoom, pan, and tilt views, or views from another friendly location
or from another geographic location, giving increased situational
awareness and identification of participants. Other information can
be shared among friendly participants, including social
information, status and directions.
Inventors: |
Huston; Charles D. (Austin,
TX) |
Family
ID: |
46327092 |
Appl.
No.: |
11/624,998 |
Filed: |
January 19, 2007 |
Prior Publication Data
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Document
Identifier |
Publication Date |
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US 20070117576 A1 |
May 24, 2007 |
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Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
Issue Date |
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11456715 |
Jul 11, 2006 |
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11456723 |
Jul 11, 2006 |
7518501 |
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60699205 |
Jul 14, 2005 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
455/461;
455/456.5; 455/456.3; 709/219; 455/456.6; 345/633; 455/456.2;
455/456.1; 455/456.4 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04L
67/18 (20130101); H04L 67/36 (20130101); A63F
13/216 (20140902); G06Q 50/01 (20130101); G01S
19/42 (20130101); G01S 5/0027 (20130101); G01S
5/0009 (20130101); H04L 67/04 (20130101); A63F
13/65 (20140902); A63F 13/332 (20140902); A63F
13/795 (20140902); A63B 24/0021 (20130101); A63B
71/0605 (20130101); G02B 27/017 (20130101); A63F
2300/406 (20130101); A63B 2024/0025 (20130101); A63B
2220/836 (20130101); A63F 2300/8017 (20130101); A63B
2225/50 (20130101); A63F 2300/69 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
H04W
4/00 (20090101) |
Field of
Search: |
;455/456.1-456.6
;340/539.13 ;709/219 ;345/633 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Foreign Patent Documents
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1113669 |
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Jul 2001 |
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EP |
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1262213 |
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Dec 2002 |
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EP |
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2005055506 |
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Dec 2003 |
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KR |
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01/05476 |
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Jan 2001 |
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WO |
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01/36061 |
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May 2001 |
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WO |
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Other References
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cited by other .
Final Office Action mailed Jun. 13, 2011 for U.S. Appl. No.
12/146,907. cited by other.
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Primary Examiner: Mehrpour; Melody
Assistant Examiner: Zhang; Edward
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Huston; Charles D. Daffer McDaniel,
LLP
Parent Case Text
PRIORITY CLAIM
This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.120 to
U.S. application Ser. Nos. 11/456,715 and 11/456,723 filed Jul. 11,
2006, and which claim priority to U.S. Provisional Application No.
60/699,205 filed Jul. 14, 2005.
Claims
What is claimed:
1. A system for identifying a friendly participant in real time in
a personal networking situation comprising: said friendly
participant having a GPS receiver for determining said friendly
participant's position and a participant radio for transmitting
said friendly participant position in real time; a server for
receiving said friendly participant position from said participant
radio and for storing participant information including position
information and social information; a radio coupled to said server
for transmitting said friendly participant position; and a portable
device accompanying a respective user, the portable device
including a GPS for determining the user's position and a radio for
receiving a friendly participant position from the radio coupled to
said server, the receipt of said friendly participant position
being based at least in part on (i) a user choice of information
and (ii) said participant information, a graphics display
selectable by the user to display multiple views of the personal
networking situation, wherein at least one of the user views
selectable on the display is the perspective view from the user's
position to said friendly participant position, and wherein
augmented reality identifies the position of said friendly
participant.
2. The system of claim 1, including one or more friendly
participants where participant information comprises position
information, social information, or both, and where position
information and social information are selectively published, where
each participant chooses the information to publish.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein said user and said friendly
participant possess handheld devices comprising cell phones which
include a GPS receiver for determining the cell phone position and
a mechanism to selectively publish said position and identity to a
particular group connected to a cellular network.
4. The system of claim 1, including a number of friendly
participants each having a handheld device wherein said number of
handheld devices each include a GPS receiver and a processor for
transmitting said participant positions, said server having a
processor for comparing said user position with said friendly
participants' positions, and said graphics display identifies said
friendly participant positions from said user's position.
5. The system of claim 1, wherein said augmented reality is an
augmented reality overlay and said user's view from the user's
position uses said augmented reality overlay to identify said
friendly participant.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein multiple views from different
viewpoints are selectable and one of said user's different views is
an overhead view of the personal networking area of interest.
7. The system of claim 1, wherein one of said user's different
views is an enlarged zoom view.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics display is
selectable by the user to display appended information of a
participant.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein said social information includes
a group identity and a participant position is received by said
user based at least in part on said user's choice of group
identity.
10. A method for observing a personal networking situation in real
time comprising: a) determining a first position of a participant
at said situation in real time; b) transmitting the determined
first position of said participant; c) equipping a user with a
device having a graphics display and a GPS for determining a user
location; d) receiving the determined first position at the user's
device; e) selectively receiving social information of one or more
participants at the user's device based at least in part on
participant social information; f) viewing on the graphics display
of the user's device an indication of the first participant
position at said situation using augmented reality, and one point
of view is a perspective view from said user GPS location to said
first participant position; and g) repeating steps (a), (b), and
(d) for a second position of said participant; and h) viewing on
the graphics display of the user's device an indication of the
second position at said situation using augmented reality and one
point of view is from said user GPS location to said second
position.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein said device includes a GPS
receiver for determining said user's location at the situation and
said one point of view is from said user's location, and said
graphics display comprises an augmented reality overlay.
12. The method of claim 10, including multiple points of view,
wherein one of said points of view is an overhead view of said
situation.
13. The method of claim 10, wherein said participant position
determining step comprises equipping said one or more participants
with a GPS equipped cell phone.
14. The method of claim 10, wherein said one or more participant
positions are transmitted to a server, wherein said user's device
communicates and authenticates with said server, and wherein said
server communicates said one or more participant positions to the
user's authenticated device.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein said user's device
authenticates with said server and said device is remote from said
situation, and said one or more participant positions are
communicated over a network to said user's device.
16. A method of viewing a personal networking situation in real
time by a user comprising: selecting a first position by said user;
wirelessly receiving multiple GPS positions of a friendly
participant in real time as the participant moves at said personal
networking situation by said user; displaying the networking
situation where at least a portion is a graphic rendered in real
time, including: rendering an augmented reality indication in real
time of said friendly participant positions at said personal
networking situation, with the friendly participant identified and
the positions of said identified friendly participant displayed;
using said user selected first position as the viewpoint for
viewing the augmented reality indication of said identified
friendly participant from said user selected first position to said
friendly participant positions, wherein said viewpoint is a
perspective view and not an overhead plan view of said situation;
and selectively changing the viewpoint of said indication from said
user selected first position to a user selected second
position.
17. The method of claim 16, including rendering appended
information of said participant.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein changing the view point of said
indication comprises rotating the indication in a vertical axis to
a tilt view.
19. The method of claim 16, including depicting unknown
participants meeting defined criteria comprising destination.
20. The method of claim 16, wherein changing the view point of said
indication comprises changing the view point to the location of
another participant.
21. The method of claim 16, wherein said indication is a graphical
rendering of one or more friendly participant positions in said
perspective view.
22. The method of claim 16, wherein said indication is an augmented
reality overlay on a 3D graphic rendering of said situation.
23. The method of claim 16, wherein said second position is a
viewpoint of an overhead plan view of said situation.
24. The method of claim 10, said transmitting step including each
participant selectively publishing said position to one or more
users.
25. The system of claim 1, wherein said social information includes
destination, cash available, time available, meeting or
introduction desires, partner status, group, culture or music
affinity.
26. The method of claim 10, wherein said social information
comprises group identity and receipt of a participant position
indicates the participant is a member of a group.
27. The method of claim 10, including multiple selectable points of
view wherein one selectable point of view is from a participant
position.
Description
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to locater systems and methods, in
particular, to an individual system and method which depicts other
people and objects. In a preferred form, the user can change the
depiction including viewing and identifying friends or people with
common interests from a number of angles, locations, and
magnitudes.
2. Description of Related Art
GPS systems have been used in sports by participants in contests
where position, location and distance to features are important.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,364,093 describes a GPS system and
method for allowing a golfer to tell distance to a hole or other
feature, and permits the course to track and manage golfers on the
course. NASCAR with Sportsline has developed a GPS system mounted
to cars for TV viewers to monitor a race.
GPS Systems have been used in a threat environment by the military
in a variety of applications such as navigation aids and guidance
systems for ordnance. GPS Systems have also been used for training
scenarios. In both the military and civilian social networking
applications, GPS Systems have been used for tracking people or
objects.
GPS systems are becoming much more accurate, inexpensive and
robust. GPS antennas and engines are fairly inexpensive and
accurate with WAAS to less than 2 meters. Accuracy is improving,
especially with the increase in the number of advanced satellites
and frequencies available. In a local area, the accuracy can be
improved to centimeters, depending on the accuracy required,
latency constraints, processing and bandwidth available, etc.
Further, communication links are becoming very inexpensive and high
bandwidth. For example, WiFi (802.11g) has modems with network
signals approaching a 1 mile range, cost less than $5, with
bandwidth of 54M bit/sec. Wi-max (802.16) has network signals
approaching 30 miles with data rates as high as 70M bit/sec, but is
more relevant to fixed installations Future versions of WiFi or
other radio technology might be less than $1 with 10-100.times.
bandwidths within a few years (as used herein WiFi refers to
current and future versions of wireless local area networks (WLAN)
based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications).
What has not been done in the sports arena is an integrated GPS
system for spectators to more fully enjoy a sport. For example, at
a NASCAR race, a spectator's location limits his view of the race
and is his own unique perspective. While watching a race, the
spectator might listen to a radio or watch a portable TV, but the
perspective is the announcer's or TV angle. Such divergent
perspectives--announcer versus personal--can be confusing. Further,
a 3.sup.rd turn spectator might be most interested in the cars he
can see--the ones near the 3.sup.rd turn. Other sports would
benefit from a system that allows a spectator to more fully
integrate the contest information with his viewing perspective. In
addition to auto racing, football, yachting, horse racing, golf,
hockey or any motor sport are candidates for the system and method
hereof, especially as size and weight of GPS and radios
accompanying a participant decreases.
What is lacking in personal networking applications, including
social and business situations, is an integrated GPS system for an
individual user to gain situational awareness and to easily
identify friends or others of interest. That is, while a personal
networking participant might possess a GPS enabled cell phone that
transmits his position, this information does the individual little
good. Such a personal networking participant might have an overhead
view of a map showing the position of other friends in the general
vicinity, but leaves it up to the participant to find and identify
them.
A particular problem in the area of personal networking is
identifying a person of interest in a confusing environment, such
as a crowd. For example, a cell phone having a GPS might be enabled
to identify that a friend is near, but the user cannot locate the
friend because of the crowd or environment, e.g. a crowded street
or concert. Users also have difficulty relating how a small mark
identifying a friend on a map correlates to their position or their
view of the situation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,744,403 describes a GPS system for tracking
objects, such as cars, at a sporting event. See also, U.S. Pat. No.
6,195,090. High data rate packet transmission is known, such as
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,894,994; 6,909,738; 6,885,652; 6,917,644;
6,801,516. Examples of user interfaces, such as PDA's, cell phones,
headsets, and the like are U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,053,780; 6,879,443 and
6,115,177. Examples of social networking devices and applications
using GPS include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,039,435; 7,035,647; 6,912,398;
7,136,747 and application Ser. Nos. 20060154687; 20040203595;
20060242234; and 20030236120. All references cited herein are
incorporated by reference.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention contemplates a GPS system that provides
situational information and identifies people or objects relevant
to a user's perspective or location and preferably is selectable to
view the situation from another location. Preferably, the
participants in a group are GPS equipped and communicate their GPS
position (and other sensor or status information) with a server at
a central location. For example, a circle or group of friends might
be identified and each participant in the group accompanied by a
GPS enabled cell phone. The cell phones preferably communicate
locations through the cellular network to other authorized
participants or unknown users meeting defined criteria. The user
has a portable viewing device that accepts the user's position and
selectively renders a view of the situation, other group
participants, and optionally unknowns meeting defined criteria
(and/or other information) from the user's perspective or location
or selectively from another location. That is, the user can
selectively view and identify other group participants and unknowns
users meeting defined criteria from different locations, views, and
magnification. Even remote users can use a device with a network
information feed to identify group participants.
As an analogy, in a NASCAR race, the cars are all equipped with a
GPS engine and a communication link to a central server. Each
spectator has a portable device that has a GPS engine, as well as a
communication link to the central server. The portable device logs
in with the central server, optionally authenticating and telling
the server the spectator's location at the track. During the race,
the positions of the cars are broadcast to the spectators. In one
mode, the portable device displays information most relevant to the
spectator's location. For example, the position and vital
information of the cars nearest the spectator. In another mode, the
portable device has the processing power to take the positions of
the cars and the location of the spectator and render a depiction
of the cars in real time on the track. The spectator can select the
view. For example, the spectator might select "finish line,"
"overhead," "car 3 driver's view," or "my view."
A spectator at the 3.sup.rd turn with "my view" selected can see
the perspective of the rendering on the portable device to match
his own visual observation--i.e. his location including elevation.
This adds to a much greater enjoyment of the situation because
visual data is added to the display which matches his visual
observation. Importantly, the spectator can not only switch views,
but can also tilt or pan the perspective or observation point or
zoom. That is, from "my view" the spectator might rotate a toggle
up incrementally up (or down) from the horizontal view from the
spectator's location of the car positions to a vertical view of the
situation. Preferably, the toggle would also allow left/right pan
functions at any time.
Similarly, in a personal networking situation, the user and each
friendly participant within a group has a portable device that has
a GPS engine (e.g. GPS equipped cell phones), as well as a
communication link to the central server. The portable device logs
in with the central server, optionally authenticating and telling
the server the user's location. The group can be determined ahead
of time, or can be dynamic according to predetermined criteria. In
a simple form, a user can simply identify a circle of friends as
participants in the group (sometimes referred to as "friendlies"
herein). During the networking situation, the positions of the user
and friendly participants, as well as the estimated positions of
the unknowns are communicated to the user. In one mode, the
portable device displays information most relevant to the user's
location. For example, the position and vital information of the
friendlies nearest the user can be displayed and the positions and
any other information on the unknowns within a certain range of the
user can be displayed. In another mode, the portable device has the
processing power to take the positions of the friendlies and
unknowns and the location of the user and render a depiction and
identification of the participants in real time. The user can
select the view. For example, the user might select "meeting spot
view," "overhead map view," "friendly #3 view," or "my view."
In addition to the view of the unknowns meeting certain criteria or
friendlies the user can selectively view appended important
information. For example, in one mode the user might select no
information, in a second mode, the user might select unknown
identification only, while in another mode, the user might select
identification plus movement of unknowns, plus "social information"
of one or more selected friendlies or unknowns. Such "social
information" might be destination, cash available, time available,
meeting or introduction desires, partner status, group, culture or
music affinity, etc. Preferably, the user could go from a view mode
to other modes, such as a display of the current information of the
friendlies and/or unknowns in tabular form, a view from a
particular location (an image or streaming video), remote sensor
video or other sensor data, etc. Preferably, the portable device
would include a radio (any type of communication link such as GPRS
or Wi-Fi) to relay audio or data for monitoring friendly to
friendly communications or radio broadcasts (e.g. group "walkie
talkie" functions). In a preferred form, the portable device is a
GPS equipped cell phone and can be used to communicate with a
central server (e.g., command center) and other devices, for
example, text commands.
Unknowns meeting certain criteria might be selectively displayed.
For example, the criteria could be based on the social information,
e.g. displaying all unknowns meeting criteria "white male seeking
Tolstoy loving cowgirl." A user can optionally elect whether the
user wants to be included as an unknown for other people having
such devices and under what circumstances the user will be depicted
as an unknown with certain interests. That is, a user can elect to
not participate, participate only with selected friends or publish
widely selected criteria to all participants. For example, the
published criteria might be "destination--Stones Concert" or
"seeking male Tango partners for Club Crud."
In "my view," for example, the portable device might selectively
display only information to the user for unknowns or friendlies
within a certain range. Alternatively, the user might want to
follow a particular friendly or unknown continuously, e.g. follow
friend named Jill, with selectable views (overheard, zoom, head).
In any of these modes, the user could zoom, pan or tilt as
described above, freeze, slow motion, replay, etc.
While the preferred embodiment is described in the context of a
social networking situation such as that shown in FIGS. 8-10, it is
easily seen how the system and method of the present invention is
applicable to a wide variety of personal networking situations,
such as tracking or finding children in a crowd or meeting a
businessman for lunch. For example, a logistics function (in a
crowd) might use the portable device while accompanying a group on
a trip. Information on the position of unknowns or friendlies can
be supplied from a variety of sources--such as optical or infrared
triangulation from a number of users to acquire the position data.
Once the position information of each participant (unknown or
friendly) is gathered or approximated, the information is
distributed to the user based on the user's and participant's
desires. As may be surmised from the NASCAR analogy above, the user
might determine the angle or view of the graphic rendering, the
tilt, pan or zoom of the graphic depiction, the format of the
presentation, i.e. graphic of the region of action or a tabular
summary of all participants or one participant, statistics for
another user, etc.
A prime advantage of the applicability of the present invention to
personal networking situations is the ability to determine the
position of and identify all participants. For example, with
current E911 technology a cell phone can be fitted with a GPS
device and is accurate within 50 meters permitting users to only
know a friend is in the vicinity. The present invention
contemplates a portable device accurate with WAAS and with location
solving algorithms to less than 5 meters and with processing at a
central server to submeter accuracy even in urban canyons or
indoors. While the preferred embodiment contemplates obtaining
participant location information via GPS, other types of location
determination sensors are possible, such as proximity sensors,
radar or radio triangulation.
While the portable device of the preferred embodiment is a cell
phone with GPS, other types of gaming devices, PDA, and personal
devices with radio (GPRS or Wi-Fi) may equally be used and adapted
to personal networking situations. Further, although the preferred
embodiment contemplates broadcasting participant location
information to authorized users and graphics rendering performed on
the handheld devices, the rendering load of the data might be
distributed. I.e. some of the graphics pipeline for the rendering
could be accomplished at the server before transmission. However,
rendering technology is rapidly advancing and becoming increasingly
realistic with advances in game technology and as the processing
power of the portable device increases and the rendering technology
develops, it is anticipated that most of the graphics rendering can
be performed at the portable device.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the network;
FIG. 2 is a depiction of the portable device of a preferred
embodiment;
FIG. 3 is a perspective of an alternative embodiment of the
portable device, resembling a PDA or a cell phone;
FIG. 4 is a perspective of a portable device where the
functionality is built into glasses or goggles worn by the
user;
FIG. 5 is a side view of the glasses of FIG. 4;
FIG. 6 is a side view of the glasses of FIG. 4 from the other
side;
FIG. 7 is a block diagram of the functionality of the glasses of
FIG. 4;
FIG. 8 is a diagram of a screen short from the portable device
showing an overhead view of all participants, friendlies and
unknowns, in a region of interest;
FIG. 9 is a diagram of a screen shot from the portable device
showing an enlarged, overhead view of a particular set of
participants from FIG. 8; and
FIG. 10 is a diagram of a screen shot from the portable device
showing the participants of FIG. 9, but from a lateral view and
depicting information on the nearest friends.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
In FIG. 1, a depiction of the network 40 is shown. The friendlies
10 communicate with a radio base station 42 preferably using a cell
phone network although other radios could be used (encrypted or
secured if desired). The server 44 stores the position data of each
friendly 10 communicated to the base station 42, and other
pertinent data such as social information, etc. Ideally, the server
44 can also digitally store the voice communications of interest
and images of various scenes of possible interest, i.e., other
friendlies. Of course, the server 44 can store direction and
messages as well for delivery to friendlies 10. The server 44 can
also be used for authentication of portable devices 20 and enable
selectable requests from friendlies (i.e. social information
requests).
In some applications, the participants might broadcast location
information directly to other friendlies, i.e. without an
intervening server e.g. Wi-Fi if so equipped. The radio 46 is used
to communicate on a broadcast or relay basis to other social
networking participants 48--here using a GSM tri-band or Wi-Fi, the
GPS position information of the friendlies 10 or requests
(encrypted or secured if desired). The devices 20 in the hands of
the other social networking participants 48 processes the position
information to render the views illustrated for example in FIGS.
8-10. In FIG. 1, unknowns meeting a first criteria are depicted as
61, while unknowns meeting a second criteria are identified as 62.
The first criteria might be all those whose destination is the
UT/Oklahoma football game while the second criteria is all
red-headed females taller than 5'6''. Such criteria can be
arbitrary and encompass practically any attribute of the user or
social information.
In the preferred embodiment friendly participants will carry a GPS
enabled cell phone device 20 which permits tracking of many, if not
all, of the friendlies. Unknowns will typically be detected and
tracked using GPS enabled cell phones as well. Each participant
will preferably determine their level of participation, both what
information they want to publish and receive. For example, a
participant might choose to publish and receive location
information only confined to a predetermined group of friends or an
individual. A participant might choose to publish location
information and personal social data to all users within a
geographic area or to those of a particular group (e.g. group
defined as "destination--Stones concert.") A participant might
choose to receive location and data from any participants within a
defined group and publish information to the network only to those
"seeking dance partners." The combinations are manifold based on
identity and social information.
A number of different sensors and technologies can be used for
tracking or augmenting the GPS information. This might be
particularly useful indoors or in urban canyons. For example, Wi-Fi
(which includes Wi-Max) and Ultrawide band based timing can be used
for tracking locations. Additionally, ElectroOptical/Infrared
(EO/IR) and radar surveillance sensor technologies and systems have
been deployed for detection, classification, and tracking of
personnel, vehicles, objects and materials such as explosives,
drugs, and contraband hidden on persons, and in baggage, vehicles,
and shipping containers, using EO/IR and Radar technologies and
systems. Such systems include passive and active visible and
infrared imagers, passive and active millimeter wave imagers (i.e.
holographic radar, real aperture radar, synthetic aperture radar),
acoustic imagers and x-ray imagers related technologies (i.e.,
active radar, ESM bistatic radar, etc.), infrared and low-light
systems, and algorithms to process individual and multiple sensor
data. The following patents relate to different types of sensors
and technologies for detection, classification, and tracking of
personnel. U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,046,187; 6,987,560; 6,922,145;
6,856,272; 6,754,368; 6,437,727; and 6,061,014 (herein incorporated
by reference). In one mode, the friendlies can mark unknown or foes
(signed by EO, optical, or acoustic) which gives an angle to the
server 44. From a number of angles the server can compute
approximate location by triangulation.
While the preferred embodiment contemplates most processing
occurring at device 20, different amounts of preprocessing of the
position data can be processed at the server 44. For example, the
participant information can be differentially corrected at the
server (using e.g. either WAAS or a local area differential
correction) or even information post-processed with carrier phase
differential to achieve centimeter accuracy. Further, it is
anticipated that most of the graphics rendering can be accomplished
at the portable device 20, but an engineering choice would be to
preprocesses some of the location and rendering information at the
server 44 prior to broadcast. The information sent to a portable
device 20 might include any of the social information and in
addition, photographs and personal information and attributes
linked from other social networking data repositories.
FIG. 2 is a front elevation of one form of a portable device 20
carried by the spectators. The depiction is of a gaming device
manufactured and sold by Gizmondo, Inc., but other such devices
having similar functionality can be substituted. The device 20
includes an LCD screen 22, and an 8 way directional pad 24. Face
buttons 26 are near the screen, while triggers 28 are on top of the
device 20 as shown. Functional buttons 30 and speaker 32 complete
the functional items in the view of FIG. 2. Not shown are the SD
card slot, USB or power ports, or a camera. The Gizmondo was
powered by a 400 MHz ARM9 processor and has a 2.8 inch
320.times.240 pixels TFT screen and an NVIDIA 128 bit GeForce 3D
4500 GPU featuring a programmable pixel shader, hardware transform
engine, and 1280 KB of embedded memory.
While the device 20 of FIG. 2 uses an ARM 9 processor and Sirf GPS
chipset, substitutions can be readily made (e.g. uBlox GPS
chipset). The preferred primary communications radio is GPS
tri-band for GPRS but other communication links are easily used.
GPRS is a connectivity solution based on Internet Protocols that
supports a wide range of enterprise and consumer applications. With
throughput rates of up to 40 kbit/s, users have a similar access
speed to a dial-up modem, but with the convenience of being able to
connect from anywhere. A WiFi communications link can alternatively
be used, and encrypted if desired, e.g. using Wired Equivalent
Privacy or WEP. Sony, Nintendo, and Playstation all make or intend
to make premium game consoles with embedded WiFi. Of course, WiFi
outdoors has range issues (although this can be several kilometers
with improved antennas and line of sight, particularly at the older
900 MHz bandwidths) and power issues which might make WiFi
unsuitable for some applications, although the Wi Max version of
WiFi may solve many of these problems.
FIG. 3 depicts a preferred form of the portable device 120 carried
by the users--namely a cell phone. The portable device 120 of FIG.
3 includes a GPS/antenna 134, communications antenna and radio 136,
a display 122, and a directional pad 124. Other alternatives for a
portable device are possible. For example, the portable device 220
of FIG. 4 is in the configuration of glasses or goggles and
includes a GPS and patch antenna 232, microprocessor 234, radio
236. Controls, such as the directional pad 224, are on the side
frames (opposite side shown in FIG. 6). Batteries are stored in
compartment 242. The displays are transparent LCD's as at 244 and,
in particular, are LCD's left 246 and right 248 illustrated in FIG.
7. Examples of such a device are the MyVue headset made by
MicroOptical Corp. of Westwood, Mass. (see, U.S. Pat. No.
6,879,443). In addition to the Gizmondo type device of FIG. 2, in
the near term gaming consoles with GPS and a radio are the best
alternatives, such as made by Sony PSP or N Gage OD. However, PDA
and cell phone form factors will be viable long term as portable
devices, such as Mio A701, HP iPaQ, and Siemens.
In a particularly preferred form, the cell phone 120 of FIG. 3 may
include Bluetooth communication capability. The user would wear
glasses similar to those depicted in FIG. 4 with Bluetooth
capability. In this manner, the glasses would be simple devices for
displaying the desired information received from the cell phone
120. That is, the cell phone 120 provides the location and
computational capability with the glasses simply providing an
additional augmented reality capability to cue to a friendly or
unknown.
As used herein, GPS is meant to include all of the current and
future positioning systems that include satellites, such as the
U.S. Navistar, GLONASS, Galileo, EGNOS, WAAS, MSAS, etc. The
accuracy of the positions, particularly of the participants, can be
improved using known techniques, often called differential
techniques, such as WAAS (wide area), LAAS (local area),
Carrier-Phase Enhancement (CPGPS), Wide Area GPS Enhancement
(WAGE), or Relative Kinematic Positioning (RKP). Of course, the
positional degree of accuracy is driven by the requirements of the
application. In the NASCAR example, two meter accuracy provided by
WAAS would probably be acceptable. In personal networking as
contemplated herein, 5 meter accuracy is believed sufficient in
most situations and can be achieved through combinations of antenna
and receiver design, differential correction using WAAS or LAAS or
processing corrections at the central server. For example if the
antenna and receiver design of the GPS enabled cell phone yields 15
meter accuracy, WAAS correction might bring the accuracy to 5
meters and processing at the server might yield additional
improvements to 2 meters. Such central server corrections can be
applied in near real time using local area corrections using
standard techniques such as vector corrections or pseudorange
corrections.
Discussing FIGS. 8-10 in conjunction, FIG. 8 depicts friendlies
10/11, unknowns 61 and 62, and user 19 operating in an area of
interest 12. In FIG. 9, the user 19 is at the base of a ridge and
FIG. 10 is a rendering from the perspective of user 19. In FIG. 9,
the user 19 has tilted upwardly his view so that he has an oblique
angle view of friends 10 of FIG. 8. FIG. 8 is of a view of the same
area 12 at the same moment in time as FIGS. 9-10, but the view is
"zoomed" outwardly changing the scale and allowing to see more of
the participants in area 12. FIG. 10 shows an augmented reality
view where even if friends 10 cannot be seen visually (e.g., night,
weather, crowds, terrain, distance, buildings, etc), their location
is depicted. Range, ID, and other cueing information is also
depicted in FIG. 10. While the display of area 12 in FIGS. 8-10 is
in real time, the user 19 could alternatively obtain from the
server a "SimulCam" using technology such as available from
Dartfish where each unknown or foe is superimposed at a certain
time into a time progression over a previous position to show
movement.
Graphics
The graphics generated on the screen 22 can be 2D graphics, such as
geometric models (also called vector graphics) or digital images
(also called raster graphics). In 2D graphics, these components can
be modified and manipulated by two-dimensional geometric
transformations such as translation, rotation, scaling. In object
oriented graphics, the image is described indirectly by an object
endowed with a self-rendering method--a procedure which assigns
colors to the image pixels by an arbitrary algorithm. Complex
models can be built by combining simpler objects, in the paradigms
of object-oriented programming. Modern computer graphics card
displays almost overwhelmingly use raster techniques, dividing the
screen into a rectangular grid of pixels, due to the relatively low
cost of raster-based video hardware as compared with vector graphic
hardware. Most graphic hardware has internal support for blitting
operations and sprite drawing.
Preferably, however, the graphics generated on screen 22 are 3D.
OpenGL and Direct3D are two popular APIs for the generation of
real-time imagery in 3D. (Real-time means that image generation
occurs in `real time`, or `on the fly`) Many modern graphics cards
provide some degree of hardware acceleration based on these APIs,
frequently enabling the display of complex 3D graphics in
real-time. However, it's not necessary to employ any one of these
to actually create 3D imagery. The graphics pipeline is advancing
dramatically, mainly driven by gaming applications.
3D graphics have become so popular, particularly in computer games,
that specialized APIs (application programmer interfaces) have been
created to ease the processes in all stages of computer graphics
generation. These APIs have also proved vital to computer graphics
hardware manufacturers, as they provide a way for programmers to
access the hardware in an abstract way, while still taking
advantage of the special hardware of this-or-that graphics
card.
These APIs for 3D computer graphics are particularly popular:
OpenGL and the OpenGL Shading Language OpenGL ES 3D API for
embedded devices Direct3D (a subset of DirectX) RenderMan
RenderWare Glide API TruDimension LC Glasses and 3D monitor API
There are also higher-level 3D scene-graph APIs which provide
additional functionality on top of the lower-level rendering API.
Such libraries under active development include: QSDK Quesa Java 3D
JSR 184 (M3G) NVidia Scene Graph OpenSceneGraph OpenSG OGRE
Irrlicht Hoops3D
Photo-realistic image quality is often the desired outcome, and to
this end several different, and often specialized, rendering
methods have been developed. These range from the distinctly
non-realistic wireframe rendering through polygon-based rendering,
to more advanced techniques such as: scanline rendering, ray
tracing, or radiosity. The rendering process is computationally
expensive, given the complex variety of physical processes being
simulated. Computer processing power has increased rapidly over the
years, allowing for a progressively higher degree of realistic
rendering. Film studios that produce computer-generated animations
typically make use of a render farm to generate images in a timely
manner. However, falling hardware costs mean that it is entirely
possible to create small amounts of 3D animation on a small
processor, such as in the device 20.
While full 3D rendering is not possible with the device 20
described herein, advances in processing and rendering capability
will enable greater use of 3D graphics in the future. In 3D
computer graphics, the terms graphics pipeline or rendering
pipeline most commonly refer to the current state of the art method
of rasterization-based rendering as supported by commodity graphics
hardware. The graphics pipeline typically accepts some
representation of a 3D scene as an input and results in a 2D raster
image as output.
Requests
Special requests from user 19 or friendlies 10/11 can be made to
the server 44, such as for images of a particular scene or audio of
a particular friendly 10/11, social status, support requests, etc.
This function is shown as at 50, 52 in FIG. 1.
While the preferred embodiment has been described in the context of
a user in physical proximity to other group participants, the use
of the portable devices 20 at remote locations is equally feasible
and indeed the device 20 need not be portable in alternative
embodiments. For example, the device 20 can be a TV set top box
while watching an event on TV. Further, the device could be a
networked computer watching streaming video with the participant
location and other information streaming over a communication link
(e.g. the internet).
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