BASE STATION POSITIONING METHOD AND APPARATUS

FIELD

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a positioning technology, and more particularly, to a base station positioning method and apparatus.

BACKGROUND

Currently, a radio positioning and navigation technology has been widely applied in the business services, in which the mature positioning technology includes: Global Positioning System (GPS), Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) positioning, base station positioning and Bluetooth or infrared positioning. These technologies have been widely used in people's daily life.

The so-called base station positioning means that a mobile terminal detects a downlink pilot signal sent by a base station to obtain a time difference between arrivals of different downlink pilot signals sent by the same base station, and then estimates its own position by using a triangle algorithm according to the time differences in combination with the position of the base station. In general, in order to ensure the positioning accuracy, for one position estimation, a plurality of base stations (three or more base stations) are used at the same time for performing a joint positioning.

Generally, only a few special terminals (typically, internal engineering testing machines of a terminal manufacturer) can obtain the signals from the plurality of base stations at the same time. However, the common terminal in the market can only scan the base station whose signal is the strongest at the same time, and thus can only complete the base station positioning according to one base station. In a specific positioning method, the mobile terminal is positioned to the base station whose signal is the strongest. Thus, if there is a long distance between respective base stations, the above positioning method has a poor positioning accuracy.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present invention seek to solve at least one of the problems existing in the related art to at least some extent.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a base station positioning method and apparatus, which improves a conventional positioning method based on single base station and satisfies people's increasing requirements of personalized and accurate base station positioning.

Embodiments of a first aspect of the present invention provide a base station positioning method, including: determining a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment; determining at least one assistant base station from a historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which a scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined space range with respect to the first base station; and positioning the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

Embodiments of a second aspect of the present invention provide a base station positioning apparatus, including: a current base station determining module, configured to determine a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment; an assistant base station determining module, configured to determine at least one assistant base station from a historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which a scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined space range with respect to the first base station; and a positioning module, configured to position the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

With the base station positioning method and apparatus according to embodiments of the present invention, after the first base station currently scanned by the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is obtained, instead of positioning the mobile terminal according to the first base station solely, the at least one assistant base station is determined according to the historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which the scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined space range with respect to the first base station, and then the mobile terminal is positioned according to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station. With above technical means, when the mobile terminal is moving in the predetermined time range and in the predetermined space range, the mobile terminal can be positioned by using a plurality of surrounding base stations and the currently scanned base station, which increases the positioning basis and improves the positioning accuracy.

Additional aspects and advantages of embodiments of present invention will be given in part in the following descriptions, become apparent in part from the following descriptions, or be learned from the practice of the embodiments of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other aspects and advantages of embodiments of the present invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following descriptions made with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

• Fig. 1 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
• Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a second embodiment of the present invention;
• Fig. 3 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a third embodiment of the present invention;
• Fig. 4 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention; and
• Fig. 5 is a block diagram of a base station positioning apparatus according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In order to make objectives, technical solutions and advantages of the present more apparent, embodiments of the present invention will be further described in details with reference to drawings in the following. It should be noted that the embodiments described herein are only intended to interpret the present invention, but not to limit the present invention. It should also be noted that the drawings only show a partial content related to the present invention, instead of all the content, for simple descriptions. Before discussing the embodiments in more details, it should be noted that some embodiments are described as processing or methods which are illustrated in flow charts. Although the flow chart illustrates respective operations (or steps) into sequential processing, many operations therein may be executed in parallel, concurrently or simultaneously. In addition, sequences of respective operations may be rearranged. When the operations are finished, the processing may be terminated, or also may include additional steps which are not included in the drawings. The processing may be corresponding to a method, a function, a regulation, a subroutine and so on.

Embodiment 1

Fig. 1 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The positioning method according to this embodiment may be executed by a base station positioning apparatus, which may be realized by hardware and/or software and is generally integrated in a client (for example, a navigation application or a positioning application, such as XX map or XX positioning) configured to provide a base station positioning service for being used in cooperation with a base station positioning server.

The positioning method according to this embodiment includes following steps.

In step 110, a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment is determined.

As described above (in the background), only a few special terminals can obtain signals from a plurality of surrounding base stations at the same time. However, a common terminal in the market can only obtain the signal from one base station, i.e., the signal from the base station which is currently accessed by the terminal (or, the signal from the base station that has the strongest sending signal power in an environment where the terminal is) at the same time.

In this embodiment, the currently scanned base station includes the base station which has the strongest sending signal power and is scanned (or, accessed) by the mobile terminal currently.

Generally, after the mobile terminal accesses one base station, the base station can be determined solely according to a base station identity code (BSIC) included in the signal sent by the base station.

In step 120, at least one assistant base station is determined from a historical base station list of the mobile terminal.

In this embodiment, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal before the current scanning moment (i.e., scanned by the mobile terminal historically) are stored in the historical base station list. The historical base station list may only store the base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically, or may not only store the base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically but also store scanning moments corresponding to the historically scanned base stations, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In the existing positioning method based on a single base station, the mobile terminal is positioned to the single base station which is scanned thereby, thus resulting in a poor positioning accuracy. In this embodiment, considering that although the mobile terminal can only scan one base station at the same time, the base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically are stored in the historical base station list of the mobile terminal, if base stations each having a scanning moment in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment and having a position in a predetermined space range with respect to the currently scanned base station are chosen, it means that other base stations in the environment of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment are obtained. If these base stations obtained are used as the assistant base stations for positioning the mobile terminal in combination with the currently scanned base station, the positioning accuracy can be increased greatly as compared with the positioning method based on single base station.

Correspondingly, in this embodiment, the at least one assistant base station includes the base station stored in the historical base station list, whose scanning moment is in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and which is in the predetermined space range with respect to the first base station.

In this embodiment, the currently scanned base station and the base stations stored in the historical base station list may be sent to the base station positioning server, such that the assistant base stations may be determined in the assistance of the base station positioning server. Alternatively, the assistant base stations may be determined by the client directly according to base station characteristics or storing rules of the base stations stored in the historical base station list, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In step 130, the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

Generally, locations of respective base stations are stored in the base station positioning server. Thus, by sending identification information (typically, BSIC information) of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station to the base station positioning server, the client can obtain the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

In this embodiment, positioning the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment according to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station includes following steps.

The mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned according to a region surrounded by the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station. For example, a geometric gravity center of the region surrounded is determined as the location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment.

Alternatively, the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned according to longitude and latitude coordinates of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station. For example, average values of respective longitude and latitude coordinates are determined directly as the location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment, or weighted average values of respective longitude and latitude coordinates are determined as the location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment, in which the weighted average values are obtained by adding a weight to the longitude and latitude corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the assistant base stations.

With the embodiment of the present invention, after the first base station currently scanned by the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is obtained, instead of positioning the mobile terminal according to the first base station solely, the at least one assistant base station is determined according to the historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which the scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined space range with respect to the first base station, and then the mobile terminal is positioned according to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station. With above technical means, when the mobile terminal is moving in the predetermined time range and in the predetermined space range, the mobile terminal can be positioned by using a plurality of surrounding base stations and the currently scanned base station, which increases the positioning basis and improves the positioning accuracy.

Base on the above embodiment, if there is no base station satisfying corresponding requirements in the historical base station list, the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned only according to the currently scanned base station.

Embodiment 2

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a second embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is an optimization based on the above embodiment. In this embodiment, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically and scanning moments of the historically scanned base stations are stored in the historical base station list.

Determining the at least one assistant base station from the historical base station list of the mobile terminal is optimized as follows.

The historical base station list is searched to find first candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment. At least one historical record of the first base station is obtained from the first candidate base stations, and base stations between the at least one historical record of the first base station and a current record of the first base station in the historical base station list are determined as second candidate base stations. The at least one assistant base station is determined according to the second candidate base stations.

Correspondingly, the method according to the present embodiment includes following steps.

In step 210, a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment is determined.

In step 220, a historical base station list is searched to find first candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment.

In this embodiment, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically and scanning moments of the historically scanned base stations are stored in the historical base station list. Typically, respective base stations are stored in the historical base station list in a following manner:

• (t_1, cl_1)→(t_2, cl_2)→ ...-> (t_i, cl_i) →...→(t_n, cl_n),

in which, t_i represents the scanning moment, cl_i represents the base station scanned at the scanning moment t_i, and t_i < t_(i+1), i.e., the base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically are stored in the historical base station list sequentially according to the scanning moments thereof.

Since the assistant base station should satisfy a requirement that the scanning moment of the assistant base station is in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, in this embodiment, the historical base station list is searched to firstly find the first candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment.

Typically, assuming that the current scanning moment is denoted as T, then a time difference Δt may be provided (the time difference Δt may be preset according to actual conditions, for example, may be preset as 10 minutes, 20 minutes or 30 minutes), and thus the predetermined time range may be determined as T-Δt∼T, such that the historical base station list can be searched to find the historically scanned base stations in the predetermined time range T-Δt∼T as the first candidate base stations.

In step 230, one base station record is obtained from the first candidate base stations according to the scanning moment sequence.

For example, the current scanning moment T is 11:20, the time difference Δt is 30 minutes, the corresponding predetermined time range is 10:50∼11:20, and the first candidate base stations found from the historical base station list are arranged in a following manner according to the time sequence:

• (10:55, base station A)→(11:00, base station B)→(11:05, base station B)→(11:10, base station D)→(11:15, base station A).

One base station record is obtained by searching the first candidate base stations in a reverse sequence (in a direction towards (10:55, base station A)) from (11:15, base station A).

Since the assistant base station should satisfy another requirement that the assistant base station is in the predetermined space range with respect to the first base station, in this embodiment, one condition is considered, in which, the first candidate base stations (i.e., base stations scanned by the mobile terminal in the predetermined time range) includes at least one historical record of the first base station. That is, the first base station has appeared in the historical base station list ever, which means that the mobile terminal moves in a small space range. Thus, the at least one assistant base station (the base station adjacent to or near the first base station) may be determined according to base stations between the at least one historical record of the first base station and a current record of the first base station in the historical base station list.

In a preferred implementation of the embodiment, the at least one assistant base station is determined according to the base stations between the at least one historical record of the first base station obtained in reverse order according to the time sequence and the current record of the first base station in the historical base station list, in which there is at least one record of another base station different from the first base station between the above two records.

In step 240, it is determined that whether the obtained base station record is the same with the current record of the first base station, if yes, step 230 is executed; if no, step 250 is executed.

In this embodiment, another condition should also be considered, in which, a user stays at the first base station or moves slowly near the first base station. In this case, in a period of time before the current scanning moment, each base station record stored in the historical base station list is the same with the current record of the first base station. If the at least one assistant base station is directly determined according to the base stations between the at least one historical record of the first base station obtained in reverse order according to the time sequence and the current record of the first base station in the historical base station list, the at least one assistant base station will not include any other base station adjacent to or near the first base station. Thus, when the at least one assistant base station is determined, another requirement should be satisfied, i.e., there is at least one record of another base station different from the first base station between the at least one historical record of the first base station in the historical base station list and the current record of the first base station.

In step 250, a base station corresponding to the obtained base station record is identified as a second base station, and step 260 is executed.

In step 260, another base station record is obtained by searching the first candidate base station in reverse order according to the time sequence, starting from the second base station, and step 270 is executed.

In step 270, it is determined whether the other obtained base station record is the same with the current record of the first base station, if yes, step 280 is executed; if no, step 260 is executed.

In step 280, base stations between the other obtained base station record and the current record of the first base station in the historical base station list are determined as second candidate base stations.

In step 290, at least one assistant base station is determined according to the second candidate base stations.

In this embodiment, the second candidate base stations may be determined as assistant base stations directly, or a certain data processing may be performed on the second candidate base stations for determining the assistant base stations, which is not limited in this embodiment.

In an example, considering that there may be a certain number of repeated base stations in the second candidate base stations (for example, the user stays at or move slowly near a certain base station), the repeated base stations may be removed from the second candidate base stations so as to generate the at least one assistant base station.

In another example, considering that there may be one or more base stations same with the first base station in the second candidate base stations (for example, at a scanning moment before and adjacent to the current scanning moment, the base station stored in the historical base station list is the same with the first base station), the base station same with the first base station may be excluded from the second candidate base stations so as to generate the at least one assistant base station.

In a preferred implementation of the embodiment, in order to further improve the positioning accuracy, determining the at least one assistant base station according to the second candidate base stations may include: removing the repeated base stations from the second candidate base stations and excluding the first base station, so as to determine the at least one assistant base station.

In step 2100, the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

In a specific example, the current scanning moment is 11:20, the first base station is base station A, the predetermined time range is 10:50∼11:20, and the first candidate base stations are arranged in the historical base station list according to the time sequence in the following manner:

• (10:55, base station A)→(11:00, base station B)→(11:05, base station B)→(11:10, base station D)→(11:15, base station A).

A process of determining the at least one assistant base station includes following steps:

1. (1) one base station record (i.e., base station A corresponding to (11:15, base station A)) is obtained by searching the first candidate base stations in reverse order, the obtained base station record is the same with the current record of the currently scanned base station (i.e., base station A), then another base station record (i.e., base station D corresponding to (11:10, base station D)) is obtained by further searching the first candidate base stations in reverse order, and since this base station record is different from the current record of the currently scanned base station, the base station D is determined as the second base station;
2. (2) one base station record (i.e., base station B corresponding to (11:05, base station B)) is obtained by searching the first candidate base stations in reverse order according to the time sequence, starting from the second base station (11:10, base station D) (not including the second base station), the obtained base station record is different from the current record of the first base station, then a next base station record (i.e., base station A corresponding to (10:55, base station A)) is obtained by further searching the first candidate base stations in reverse order, and once the base station record is the same with the current record of the currently scanned base station, the searching is stopped;
3. (3) the base stations between (10:55, base station A) and the current record of the first base station (i.e., (11:20, base station A)) are determined as the second candidate base stations, i.e., (11:00, base station B)→(11:05, base station B)→(11:10, base station D)→(11:15, base station A);
4. (4) the repeated base stations are removed from the second candidate base stations and the first base station is excluded from the second candidate base stations, so as to determine the at least one assistant base station, that is, the assistant base stations finally determined include: base station B and base station D.

With the positioning method according to this embodiment, firstly, the historical base station list is searched to find the first candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment; then, at least one historical record of the currently scanned base station is obtained from first candidate base stations, and the base stations between the at least one historical record of the currently scanned base station and the current record of the currently scanned base station in the historical base station list are determined as second candidate base stations, in which at least one record of another base station exists between the at least one historical record of the currently scanned base station and the current record of the currently scanned base station; finally, the assistant base stations are determined according to the second candidate base stations. Thus, the assistant base stations can be determined only according to correlation characteristics of the base stations stored in the historical base station list of the mobile terminal, without uploading the historical base station list to the base station positioning server, which improves the positioning accuracy as compared with the positioning method based on single base station and reduces data transmission flow.

Based on above embodiments, determining the assistant base stations according to the second candidate base stations may include following steps:

• removing repeated base stations from the second candidate base stations and excluding the first base station, so as to generate target base stations;
• determining d number of the target base stations; and
• determining the target base stations as the assistant base stations if the number of the target base stations is less than a predetermined threshold.

This configuration is based on such an extreme condition, in which the user makes a long-distance reciprocating motion in a short time (such as going to supermarket for shopping by car and/or bus and returning by car and/or bus). In this case, the second candidate base stations obtained with the positioning method according to this embodiment must include one or more base stations far away from the currently scanned base station, and if these base stations far away from the currently scanned base station are used as the assistant base stations, the positioning accuracy will be decreased. In order to avoid the above problem, in a preferred implementation of the embodiment, the repeated base stations are removed firstly from the second candidate base stations and the first base station is excluded, so as to generate the target base stations, and then the number of the target base stations is determined. If the number of the target base stations is less than the predetermined threshold (such as 3, 4 or 5), the target base stations are determined as the assistant base stations; if the number of the target base stations is larger than the predetermined threshold, it is determined that the target base stations include the base stations far away from the currently scanned base station, and thus the mobile terminal is positioned only according to the currently scanned base station. In this way, the positioning method may be applied widely and a positioning error is reduced.

Embodiment 3

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a third embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is an optimization based on the above embodiments. In this embodiment, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically and scanning moments of the historically scanned base stations are stored in the historical base station list.

Determining at least one assistant base station from the historical base station list of the mobile terminal is optimized as follows.

The historical base station list is searched to find candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment. The currently scanned base station and the candidate base stations are sent to a server, such that the server determines the at least one assistant base station according to locations of the currently scanned base station and the candidate base stations. The at least one assistant base station returned by the server is received.

Correspondingly, the positioning method according to this embodiment includes following steps.

In step 310, a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment is determined.

In step 320, a historical base station list is searched to find candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment.

In step 330, the first base station and the candidate base stations are sent to a server.

In this embodiment, the client sends the currently scanned base station and the candidate base stations to the base station positioning server, such that the server determines one or more base stations (which are in the predetermined space range (such as 10 meters, 20 meters or 30 meters) with respect to the currently scanned base station) in the base stations as the at least one assistant base station, according to locations of respective base stations pre-stored therein.

In step 340, at least one assistant base station returned by the server is received.

In step 350, the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is positioned according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

With the positioning method according to this embodiment, the currently scanned base station and the base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment are sent to the server, and the at least one assistant base station is received from the server, thus improving the positioning accuracy as compared with the positioning method based on single base station, while reducing a data processing pressure of the mobile terminal.

Embodiment 4

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of a base station positioning method according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is an optimization based on the above embodiments. In this embodiment, positioning the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment according to locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station is optimized as follows.

A longitude and a latitude corresponding to each of the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station are obtained. Average values of longitudes and latitudes corresponding to the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station are calculated, and used a location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment.

Correspondingly, the positioning method according to this embodiment includes following steps.

In step 410, a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment is determined.

In step 420, at least one assistant base station is determined from a historical base station list of the mobile terminal.

In step 430, longitude and latitude information corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station is obtained.

In this embodiment, the client sends identification information of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station to the base station positioning server, so as to obtain the longitude and latitude information corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

For example, the longitude and latitude information corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station, which is obtained by the client via the base station positioning server, may be respectively denoted as: (x_1, y_1), (x_2, y_2),···, (x_i, y_i),···, (x_k, y_k), in which, x_i represents a longitude corresponding to the location of the base station, y_i represents a latitude corresponding to the location of the base station, and k represents a total number of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

In step 440, average values of longitudes and latitudes corresponding to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station are calculated, so as to determine a location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment.

Following the above example, in this embodiment, longitude and latitude information (x, y) of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment may be calculated by a following formula: $$\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{x}& =\left(\mathrm{x\_}\mathrm{1}+\mathrm{x\_}\mathrm{2}+\dots +\mathrm{x\_k}\right)/\mathrm{k}\hfill \\ \mathrm{y}& =\left(\mathrm{y\_}\mathrm{1}+\mathrm{y\_}\mathrm{2}+\dots +\mathrm{y\_k}\right)/\mathrm{k}\hfill \end{array}\mathrm{.}$$

With the positioning method according to this embodiment, the longitude and latitude information corresponding to each of the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station is obtained, and the average values of longitudes and latitudes corresponding to the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station are calculated, so as to determine the location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment. In this way, the mobile terminal can be positioned by using a plurality of surrounding base stations together with the currently scanned base station, which increases the positioning basis and improves the positioning accuracy as compared with the positioning method based on single base station.

Based on the above embodiments, before calculating the average values of longitudes and latitudes corresponding to the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station to determine the location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment, the positioning method preferably further includes: adding a weight value to the longitude and latitude corresponding to each of the locations of the currently scanned base station and the at least one assistant base station according to the current scanning moment and scanning moment corresponding to the at least one assistant base station.

For example, a following weight value adding strategy may be set, such that the closer the scanning moment of the base station is to the current scanning moment, the larger the weight value added to the longitude and latitude corresponding to the location of the base station is. Such a configuration is based on a fact that, the closer the scanning moment is to the current scanning moment, the closer the base station scanned at the scanning moment is to the currently scanned base station in theory, and thus a larger weight value should be added to the longitude and latitude corresponding to the location of the base station when calculating the location of the mobile terminal. This configuration has an advantage of further improving the positioning accuracy of the base station positioning method.

Embodiment 5

Fig. 5 is a block diagram of a base station positioning apparatus according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Fig. 5, the positioning apparatus includes a current base station determining module 51, an assistant base station determining module 52 and a positioning module 53.

The current base station determining module 51 is configured to determine a first base station currently scanned by a mobile terminal at a current scanning moment.

The assistant base station determining module 52 is configured to determine at least one assistant base station from a historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which a scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in a predetermined space range with respect to the first base station.

The positioning module 53 is configured to position the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment according to locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

With the positioning apparatus according to this embodiment, after the first base station currently scanned by the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment is obtained, instead of positioning the mobile terminal according to the first base station solely, the at least one assistant base station is determined according to the historical base station list of the mobile terminal, in which the scanning moment of each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment, and each of the at least one assistant base station is in the predetermined space range with respect to the first base station, and then the mobile terminal is positioned according to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station. With above technical means, when the mobile terminal is moving in the predetermined time range and in the predetermined space range, the mobile terminal can be positioned by using a plurality of surrounding base stations and the currently scanned base station, which increases the positioning basis and improves the positioning accuracy as compared with the positioning method based on single base station.

Based on the above embodiments, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically and scanning moments of the historically scanned base stations are stored in the historical base station list.

The assistant base station determining module includes a first candidate base station determining unit, a second candidate base station determining unit and an assistant base station determining unit.

The first candidate base station searching unit is configured to search the historical base station list to find first candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment.

The second candidate base station determining unit is configured to obtain at least one historical record of the first base station from the first candidate base stations, and to determine base stations between the at least one historical record of the first base station and a current record of the first base station in the historical base station list as second candidate base stations, in which at least one record of a base station different from the first base station exists between the at least one historical record of the first base station and the current record of the first base station.

The assistant base station determining unit is configured to determine the at least one assistant base station according to the second candidate base stations.

Based on the above embodiments, the assistant base station determining unit may be configured to remove repeated base stations from the second candidate base stations and exclude the first base station, so as to determine the at least one assistant base station.

Based on the above embodiments, the assistant base station determining unit may be configured to: remove repeated base stations from the second candidate base stations and exclude the first base station, so as to generate target base stations; determine a number of the target base stations; and determine the target base stations as the assistant base stations if the number of the target base stations is less than a predetermined threshold.

Based on the above embodiments, base stations scanned by the mobile terminal historically and scanning moments of the historically scanned base stations are stored in the historical base station list.

The assistant base station determining module is configured to: search the historical base station list to find candidate base stations whose scanning moments are in the predetermined time range with respect to the current scanning moment; send the first base station and the candidate base stations to a server, such that the server determines the at least one assistant base station according to locations of the first base station and the candidate base stations; and receive the at least one assistant base station returned by the server.

Based on the above embodiments, the positioning module may specifically include an obtaining unit and a calculating unit.

The obtaining unit is configured to obtain a longitude and a latitude corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station.

The calculating unit is configured to calculate average values of longitudes and latitudes corresponding to the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station, so as to determine a location of the mobile terminal at the current scanning moment.

Based on the above embodiments, the positioning module may further include an adding unit.

The adding unit is configured to add a weight value to the longitude and latitude corresponding to each of the locations of the first base station and the at least one assistant base station according to the current scanning moment and scanning moment corresponding to the at least one assistant base station, before calculating the average values.

The positioning apparatus according to the embodiments of the present invention may be used to execute the positioning method provided by any embodiment of the present invention, and provided with corresponding modules, thus realizing same beneficial effects.

Apparently, those skilled in the related art should understand that above respective modules and steps in the present invention may be executed by the client described above. Optionally, the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by computer-executable programs, such that these programs may be stored in a memory and executed by a processor. These programs may be stored in computer-readable memory mediums, such as read-only memories, magnetic disks or CD, etc. Or, these modules may be made as respective integrated circuit modules respectively, or some of modules or steps may be integrated into a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the present invention is not limited to combinations of any special hardware and software.

Although explanatory embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the above embodiments cannot be construed to limit the present invention, and changes, alternatives, and modifications can be made in the embodiments without departing from spirit, principles and scope of the present invention.