A first transceiver can position itself by forming an ad hoc network of transceivers which assist the first transceiver in acquiring its position. A dedicated infrastructure such as GPS satellites is not required. The first transceiver, once it has acquired its position, can be involved in a network by another transceiver to assist in the positioning of that transceiver. The acquisition of the position may involve factors such as the trustworthiness of the transceivers in the network and/or the positions of transceivers with which the first transceiver cannot directly communicate.
A wireless communication system that detects a position of a node using an appropriate position detection method. The invention is based upon a wireless communication system provided with a plurality of nodes that mutually communicate and a server that detects a position of the node using communication between the nodes and is characterized in that the node has a battery for supplying power, measures the status of the battery, notifies the server of the measured status of the battery, the server determines a position detection method of the node based upon the status notified by the node of the battery and calculates a position of the node by the determined position detection method.
The present invention is related to an apparatus and method for determining the location of a communication device within a wireless network in order to provide a geolocation functionality to the communication device participating under an access protocol of a wireless local-area network (WLAN) infrastructure such as IEEE 0.802.11 or Hiperlan. The apparatus comprises at least two transponder units for communicating with the communication device when the communication device is situated in a coverage area of the wireless network and a processing unit for deriving the location of the communication device within the coverage area in dependence on information received from the transponder units.
