Abstract: A method and location determination module is provided for determining a location of one of a plurality of units using neighbor lists. Each unit is communicatively coupled to at least some of the other plurality of units, where at least some of the plurality of units are reference units, whose locations are known. The units communicate with other nearby units within communication range, to establish neighbor lists. A unit to be located then identifies an aggregate value corresponding to the number of occurrences of the reference units in the neighbor list of the unit to be located and the neighbor lists of each of a group of associated units. The location of the unit to be located is then determined, based upon the known locations of the reference units and the number of identified occurrences of the reference units in the corresponding neighbor lists.

Abstract: A method and system is provided for determining a location for each of a plurality of units, which is selected from one of multiple sets of locations, which are each estimated based upon different initial location estimates. The selected set of locations includes the set which has the minimum error value, where the error value is based on the aggregate of the differences between the range determined from the estimated locations and the measured range. By using different sets of initial location estimates, there is a greater chance that at least one of the sets of initial location estimates will avoid any local minimums and produce a more accurate estimate of unit locations.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for locating a remote unit (or node) is provided herein. During operation, location-finding equipment (106) will determine a gross location of non-located nodes (104) by determining distances of the nodes (104) to reference nodes (105). Additionally an error estimate in the location for each node is determined. A first subset of nodes having relatively lower error estimates are “promoted” to reference nodes, and a second subset of nodes having higher error estimates are again located based on a distance to the newly-promoted reference nodes.

Abstract: A method is provided for estimating relative location information for wireless devices. Individual estimates are obtained from two or more alternative means that determining the relative location, such as range information, of first and second wireless devices with respect to each other (710, 720, 910, 920). At least one of these estimates involves an estimate of relative location between one of the first and second devices and a third device. These estimates are combined to provide a new estimate that is statistically more accurate than any one of the individual estimates (740, 940).

Abstract: An efficient coordinator device election process (600) that reduces the total power consumed during network initialization is provided. An initialization message propagates throughout a cluster of nodes. The initialization message contains a timing variable (604). Each node generates a random number (608) in response to receiving the initialization message. Each node sends a request for coordinator status to its neighboring nodes when its random number matches the timing variable (612). If the status request is detected (614) by the neighboring nodes, then the neighboring nodes become slave devices to the sender node (i.e. the coordinator device).

Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding signals using code position modulation (CPM) in a communication system. The encoding method includes storing an N-chip pseudo-random noise sequence, such as an m-sequence, in a circular shift register and circularly shifting it to obtain a shifted m-sequence. The shifted m-sequence is compared to an m-bit symbol corresponding to the k bit information value. If the shifted m-sequence and the m-symbol match, the shifted m-sequence is output as the N-chip CPM sequence. Alternatively, the m-symbol is used as an initial condition for a pseudo-noise sequence generator. The corresponding decoder stores an N-chip m-sequence in a circular shift register and a correlates shifted version of the m-sequence with a received N-chip CPM sequence. When a peak in the correlation value is detected, an m-bit field is retrieved from the circular shift register and mapped back to a k-bit information value.

Abstract: A method is provided for estimating relative location information for wireless devices. Individual estimates are obtained from two or more alternative means that determining the relative location, such as range information, of first and second wireless devices with respect to each other (710, 720, 910, 920). At least one of these estimates involves an estimate of relative location between one of the first and second devices and a third device. These estimates are combined to provide a new estimate that is statistically more accurate than any one of the individual estimates (740, 940).

Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding signals using code position modulation (CPM) in a communication system. The encoding method includes storing an N-chip pseudo-random noise sequence, such as an m-sequence, in a circular shift register and circularly shifting it to obtain a shifted m-sequence. The shifted m-sequence is compared to an m-bit symbol corresponding to the k bit information value. If the shifted m-sequence and the m-symbol match, the shifted m-sequence is output as the N-chip CPM sequence. Alternatively, the m-symbol is used as an initial condition for a pseudo-noise sequence generator. The corresponding decoder stores an N-chip m-sequence in a circular shift register and a correlates shifted version of the m-sequence with a received N-chip CPM sequence. When a peak in the correlation value is detected, an m-bit field is retrieved from the circular shift register and mapped back to a k-bit information value.

Abstract: A system and method for orthogonal modulation of signals in communication systems. In the transmitter, differentially coded symbols are used to select time-shifted code sequences. The timing, or code position, of a code sequence is determined at the receiver by comparison to the previous code from the same channel, thus eliminating the need for dual-channel transmission and eliminating error due to differences in path propagation time. A fixed preamble code is also used to synchronize the receiver.

Abstract: A system and method for orthogonal modulation of signals in communication systems. In the transmitter, differentially coded symbols are used to select time-shifted code sequences. The timing, or code position, of a code sequence is determined at the receiver by comparison to the previous code from the same channel, thus eliminating the need for dual-channel transmission and eliminating error due to differences in path propagation time. A fixed preamble code is also used to synchronize the receiver.