TODAY’S PATENT – WIRELESS 911 EMERGENCY LOCATION

This invention was jointly invented by James M. Dunn, Edith Helen Stern and was assigned to Sybase 365 LLC. It was patented by the USPTO bearing the patent grant number. US5873040A registered on 16^th February 1999.

This invention offers a realistic method for approximating the locations of mobile units, which may be applied to public emergency calls and other urgent situations involving almost all users of such devices and is not dependent on the users themselves providing information about their where abouts. The process of locating a wireless mobile unit participating in a call for public emergency help (e.g., a “911” call). It makes full use of already-existing telecommunications infrastructures. If the user of the mobile unit requesting assistance is unable to assist in finding his/her position, the shared computer analyses the signal strength measurements at the base stations to determine a small area for which it would be practical to perform a search. The calculated area and database are used to provide the emergency assistance centre fielding the call with an in-depth map of the calculated area that highlights specific features such as terrain, buildings, signs, etc, with which the caller’s location could be either precisely fixed or at least narrowed to a mapped area.