DESC:Form 2
The Patent Act 1970
(39 of 1970)
AND
Patent Rules 2003
Complete Specification
(Sec 10 and Rule 13)

Title Methods and System for Compressing a GPS String
Applicant(s) Vogo Automotive Pvt. Ltd.
Nationality India
Address #483, 17th Cross, 27th Main Road, Sector 2, HSR Layout,
Bengaluru-560102, Karnataka, India.

The following specification particularly describes the invention and the manner in which it is to be performed.

DESCRIPTION
FIELD OF INVENTION
[0001] Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to data processing and a communication system, and more specifically to methods and system for compressing a GPS string to attain reduced data size and increased rate of data transfer.
RELATED ART
[0002] Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based radio positioning and navigation system providing real-time position or location of a GPS receiver in the world. A GPS receiver calculates its position by precisely timing the signals sent by four or more GPS satellites. It has a wide variety of applications in the industry for example, vehicular tracking and monitoring, digital video processing, recording and transmission.
[0003] Automatic vehicle tracking system is one of the major applications that uses GPS data for transmitting vehicle location information in real-time. The automatic vehicle tracking system identifies incorporate a hardware device i.e., a GPS module comprising a GPS receiver and a remote tracking server to receive and store the GPS data. The GPS module keeps on sending GPS strings with plurality of information such as time, date, latitude, longitude, active or inactive and the like at regular intervals to the remote server.
[0004] However, the GPS string comprises a lot of information in which all the information is not necessary for a certain type of applications. As the real-time tracking involves transmission of plurality of GPS strings at regular intervals, this encompasses a lot of data with both desired as well as undesired information which takes lot of time for transmission. This has a direct impact on the rate of data transfer to the remote server and causes delay in real-time tracking or monitoring of a vehicle or the GPS module incorporated in a system. Further, it increases network bandwidth and load on remote server due to larger data size.
[0005] Hence, an efficient and customized GPS data transmission system is required to reduce the data size and increase the rate of transfer by reducing network bandwidth and load on the remote server.
SUMMARY
[0006] According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a method of compressing a GPS string comprising retrieving (402) a GPS string from a GPS module (206), extracting (404) time, latitude and longitude data from the GPS string, separating (406) the extracted data into three different modules, determining (408) delta values of the extracted latitude and longitude with a reference latitude and longitude, converting (410) the delta values into binary values, eliminating (412) milliseconds data from the extracted time and converting the hours, minutes and seconds in the extracted time to a binary value, concatenating (414) the binary values obtained from the extracted time, latitude and longitudinal data, and obtaining (416) GPS string with reduced data size in binary format, wherein the reduced data size of the GPS string enables the transmission of data to a remote server at regular intervals without any interruptions
[0007] Several aspects are described below, with reference to diagrams. It should be understood that numerous specific details, relationships, and methods are set forth to provide a full understanding of the present disclosure. One who skilled in the relevant art, however, will readily recognize that the present disclosure can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, etc. In other instances, well-known structures or operations are not shown in detail to avoid obscuring the features of the present disclosure.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[0008] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the transmission of data from a GPS satellite to a remote server in an example.
[0009] FIG. 2A is a diagram illustrating an environment in which various aspects of the present disclosure are seen.
[0010] FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating a GPS compressor in an embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0011] FIG. 3A and 3B are the diagrams illustrating a reference latitude and longitude for a selected region in another embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0012] FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating the steps involved in compressing the GPS data using the GPS compressor of the present disclosure.
[0013] FIG. 4B is a diagram illustrating the identification of reference latitude and longitude for a desired area in the selected region in another embodiment of the present disclosure.
[0014] FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the steps involved in compressing GPS data and increasing the rate of data transfer to a remote server in another embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EXAMPLES
[0015] The present disclosure is using US Global Positioning System (GPS), and refers to any global navigation satellite system (GNSS) based on satellites provided by many countries. The technology herein disclosed is applicable to use in any of the GNSS system, including GPS.
[0016] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the transmission of data from a GPS satellite to a remote server in an example. As shown there, a GPS transmission system 101 comprises a GPS satellite 102, a GPS module 106, a communication channel 108, a remote server 110 and a database 112. The GPS module 106 receives a signal 104 comprising at least one GPS string from the GPS satellite 102 at regular intervals. In an example, the GPS module 106 may receive signals from plurality of the GPS satellites comprising plurality of GPS strings to determine accurate location based on the distance of broadcasting and receiving range of the signals. The GPS string from the GPS module 106 is then transmitted to the remote server 110 over a wired or wireless network in the communication channel 108. The remote server 110 collects and stores the information received from the GPS module 106 which may be further processed as per the requirement. In another example, the GPS string comprising the information such as time, latitude, longitude, speed and the like are stored in the database 112 through the communication channel 108. In an example, the communication channel 108 comprises either a wired or a wireless communication channel to transmit data to and from the GPS module 106 to the remote server 110 and the database 112. However, the data size gets increased and takes longer than usual time for transmission of data over a poor network in the communication channel 108 due to the additional and undesired information present in the GPS string. Hence, the present disclosure provides an efficient and easy transmission of data with reduce data size and increased rate of transfer.
[0017] FIG. 2A is a diagram illustrating an environment in which various aspects of the present disclosure are seen. As shown there, a GPS transmission system 201 of the present disclosure comprises a GPS satellite 202, a GPS module 206, a GPS compressor 214, a communication channel 208, a remote server 210 and a database 212. The GPS satellite 202 orbits the Earth and enables us to determine the geographical location by using a ground receiver. The GPS module 206 comprises the ground receiver that receives a broadcasting signal 204 from the GPS satellite 202 and transmits the same to the GPS compressor 214. The broadcasting signal 204 comprises a GPS string that carries a lot of information such as time, speed, active/inactive, latitude, longitude, and the like. The GPS compressor 214 processes the signal 204 and then compresses the GPS string which reduces the data size as desired. The compressed data from the GPS compressor 214 is then fed to the remote server 210 over the communication channel 208. Also, the compressed data from the GPS compressor is stored in the database 212 for using it in future applications. The remote server stores the compressed data from the GPS compressor 214 and decodes the information for retrieving and displaying original information received by the GPS module.
[0018] FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating a GPS compressor in an embodiment of the present disclosure. The GPS compressor 214 comprises an I/O unit 220, a memory 222, a three-level compressor 224, a power management unit 226, a communication system 228 and a processor 250.
[0019] The I/O system 220 enables an exchange of information, data or commands to and from the GPS compressor 214 with external systems, modules and servers. The I/O system 220 comprises, but is not limited to, a keyboard/pad, touch screen, USB ports, wireless ports, smart card interface, mouse and/or other control devices.
[0020] The memory unit 222 is configured to store data and instructions (e.g., one or more programs) for execution by the processor 250. The memory unit 222 provides a direct interface with other components in the GPS compressor 214 through the processor 250. The memory unit 222 comprises, but is not limited to, different types of Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), external memory disks, removable disks, flash, caches and data cards.
[0021] The three-level compressor 224 is configured to compress the GPS string received from the GPS module to a three-level stage compression. In an embodiment, the GPS string as is received from the GPS module 206 is compressed and the data size may be reduced up to three levels as per the requirement. In another embodiment, user may select any of the three levels in the GPS compressor either manually or automatically by the processor which is operated based on pre-programmed instructions within the processor. Each level of compression is further described as follows.
[0022] In first level of compression, the GPS compressor 214 compresses the GPS string to a certain extent by eliminating undesired information for tracking a GPS module. In an embodiment, India (a larger region of interest) is considered as a geographical reference and determined a difference value between a target latitude, longitude and reference latitude, longitude of the region of interest. This first level compression has reduced data size of the GPS string from 19 bytes to 8 bytes with a compression percentage of 57.9%.
[0023] In second level of compression, the GPS compressor 214 compresses the GPS string based on preconfigured region-specific latitude and longitude as a reference point. In this level, a user is restricted to use the GPS module within the limits of the specific region (a smaller region of interest) wherein the GPS compressor 214 gets disabled outside the specific region and the GPS string is directly transmitted to the remote server 210 from the GPS module 206. In an example, a smaller region of interest for example, Bangalore city in India is considered as the geographical reference. By reducing the size in region of interest, the size of the reference rectangle region has been reduced from a larger area (for example, India) to a smaller area (for example, Bangalore city) which in turn reduces the data size to be transmitted to the remote server. Thus, using this second level of compression, the GPS compressor further reduces the data size by 68.5% from 19 bytes to 6 bytes.
[0024] In third level of compression, a first or initial GPS string from the GPS module 206 is transmitted to the remote server 210 through the GPS compressor 214 over the communication channel 208. For transmitting a second and subsequent GPS strings to the remote server 210, the GPS compressor 214 determines a difference value of real-time GPS string with its previous GPS string and transmits the difference value to the remote server 210. For example, after sending the first GPS string to the remote server 210, the GPS compressor receives a second GPS string from the GPS module 206. The GPS compressor then determines the difference i.e., a delta value between the first GPS string and the second GPS string and transmits that delta value to the remote server 210. On the other hand, the remote server 210 receives the delta value and adds it to the first GPS string so that the second GPS string is decoded at the server end. In an embodiment, the data size has been reduced by 78.95% from 19 bytes to 4 bytes using this level of compression by the GPS compressor.
[0025] In yet another embodiment of the present disclosure, a histogram is plotted using the delta values obtained from the third level of compression to obtain a data frame of points each having 3 bytes. Further, a difference between these points are determined in a similar way to that of the delta between the GPS strings. The difference between the data frame of points that lie under the histogram plot are then transmitted to the remote server 210 which decodes the points in histogram at server end. This enables the data size reduction by 84.21% from 19 bytes to 3 bytes.
[0026] The power management unit 226 powers the GPS compressor 214 for a desired operation. The power management unit 226 may comprise, for example, batteries, circuitry, integrated circuits and other functional modules to manage and distribute power to various components 220 through 228 according to power requirements of the respective components.
[0027] The communication system 228 is configured to establish communication between the GPS compressor 214 and external system(s)/device(s)/server(s) through one or more wired and/or wireless communication channels. In one embodiment, the communication system 218 comprises functional components that enable the GPS compressor 214 to transmit and receive data according to one or more of communication standards such as, but not limited to, GSM, CDMA, GPRS, Wi-Fi, LAN, and Bluetooth.
[0028] The processor 250 is configured to execute instructions to perform various mathematical and control operations. The processor 250 comprises one or more processors or processor cores operating in conjunction to execute multiple instructions sequentially or simultaneously. The processor 250 comprises processors or cores customized to efficiently perform specific tasks, such as one or more Digital Signal Processing (DSP) cores, math coprocessors etc. In one embodiment, the processor 250 is configured to perform operations related to components 220 through 228 by executing a respective set of instructions (programs) stored in, for example, the memory unit 222. Thus, the processor 250 lends processing power to the components 220 through 228 and operates as part of the overall system.
[0029] FIG. 3A and 3B are the diagrams illustrating a reference latitude and longitude for a selected region in another embodiment of the present disclosure. In order to obtain a reference point 314 comprising a reference latitude and longitude for determining current location of a GPS module, any region of interest 312 is considered to be in a rectangle 310 as shown in the FIG. 3A. Then latitude and longitude at the corners of the rectangle 310 are determined on a global map and a bottom left corner point is considered as the reference point 314. In an example, India is selected as a region of interest 312 and considered to be in the rectangle 310. Latitude and longitude at all the four corners of the rectangle 310 are determined. As shown there, latitude and longitude at the reference point 314 is determined as 5°N 60°E. As shown in the FIG. 3B, multiple tracking points (322 through 328) on the map within the rectangle are plotted which resembles the position of GPS modules to be determined. As the reference point 314 of the rectangle 310 is known, latitude and longitude of all the tracking points (322 through 328) are determined based on data received from GPS module. It is determined that the tracking points 322 through 326 on the map are on the same vertical axis so that they share a common longitude of 75°E whereas the tracking points 322 and 328 shares a common latitude of 25°N.
[0030] FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating the steps involved in compressing the GPS data using the GPS compressor of the present disclosure. A method 401 of compressing the GPS string at first level compression of the GPS string is illustrated. In step 402, a GPS string is retrieved from a GPS module which receives signal from the GPS satellite. The retrieved GPS string is then transmitted to the GPS compressor where it gets processed by its first level compressor to reduce its data size.
[0031] In step 404, undesired information from the GPS string is eliminated and only time, latitude and longitude are extracted and stored in the memory of the GPS compressor. In an example, undesired information such as speed, valid/invalid status of the GPS string, true value, date and the like are eliminated.
[0032] In step 406, the extracted information from the GPS string is then separated into three different modules so that a first module holds the information related to time, second module holds only latitude and the third module holds longitude information. These modules are further processed separately as described in the following steps.
[0033] In step 408, the second and third module data are processed separately by determining a difference value between a tracking point and a reference point which is obtained from the rectangle in similar way to that of the reference point 314 in the FIG. 3B. As the reference point is known from the rectangle, latitude and longitude of the tracking point of the GPS module is determined and then a difference value i.e., delta is determined from the reference and tracking points.
[0034] In step 410, the difference value of the reference point and the tracking point are converted to a binary value by using conventional mathematical operations such as multiplying with a decimal number and subtracting the latitude and longitude values from the reference and tracking points. In an example, latitude and longitude at the reference point is considered to be 1250.66136 and 7725.21428 whereas the same for the tracking point are determined to be 1380.31222 and 7747.14038 respectively. In this case, the difference i.e., delta value is obtained by subtracting the latitudes of reference point and tracking point in the second module while longitudes of reference point and tracking point in the third module. This results in obtaining the difference values of 129.65086 and 21.92610 respectively. These delta values are further multiplied with 100000 to obtain whole numbers. The difference values i.e., delta of the latitude and longitudes obtained from the second and third modules are then converted to binary numbers.
[0035] In step 412, milliseconds data is eliminated from the time information of the first module and as it plays no role in accuracy of tracking the GPS module. The time information from the first module thus comprises only hours, minutes and seconds data which is converted to binary values using conventional algorithms.
[0036] In step 414, the binary values obtained from step 410 and 412 i.e., from the first, second and third modules (as described in the step 406) are concatenated together forming a GPS string with complete binary values in it.
[0037] In step 416, data size of the concatenated binary values of the GPS string is determined to be reduced by 57.9% from 19 bytes to 8 bytes. This compressed GPS string with reduced data size is then transmitted to the remote server where it is decoded by following the steps 402 through 414 in reverse order at the server end.
[0038] FIG. 4B is a diagram illustrating the identification of reference latitude and longitude for a desired area in the selected region in another embodiment of the present disclosure. The GPS string compression following the steps 402 through 416 is further compressed by preconfiguring the region of interest in determining the reference point. In an example, if a user wishes to use a GPS module which is restricted or confined to a specific region within a small range, that range of geographical area 420 only considered to be inside a rectangle 422 and the reference points 424 are determined in a similar way to that of the reference point 314 in the FIG. 3B. Thus, tracking point 426 within the geographical location 420 inside the rectangle 422 is determined based on the reference point 424. This further reduces the value of the delta obtained in step 408 which helps in reducing the size of the GPS string. In an example, it is determined that the data size is reduced from 19 bytes to 6 bytes with a compression percentage of 68.5% using a preconfigured fixed geographical area falling in a short range as shown in 403.
[0039] FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the steps involved in compressing GPS data and increasing the rate of data transfer to a remote server in another embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown there, 501 represents a method of compressing the GPS string with the GPS compressor using its third level of compression. In step 502, a GPS string is retrieved from a GPS module which receives signal from the GPS satellite. The retrieved GPS string is then transmitted to the GPS compressor where it gets processed and compressed by its third level compressor to reduce its data size.
[0040] In step 504, a first GPS string received from the GPS module is directly transmitted to the remote server through the GPS compressor of the present disclosure. The first GPS string comprising all the information such as time, latitude, longitude speed, true value, validity status and the like as it is in the original string without any change or elimination in it. In an embodiment, the string may be processed to a certain extent by retaining only time, latitude and longitude by eliminating milliseconds from time. This processed string is then transmitted as a first GPS string to the webserver.
[0041] In step 506, a second and subsequent GPS strings are then fed to the GPS compressor by the GPS module at regular intervals of time. In an embodiment, the GPS strings received from the GPS module are processed in a similar way to that of the processing of the first GPS string as describe in the step 504. However, the second and subsequent GPS strings are not transmitted to the remote server directly from the GPS compressor.
[0042] In step 508, a difference i.e., delta value between the second GPS string and the first GPS string is determined. Similarly, a third GPS string is received at the GPS compressor from the GPS module and difference between the third and the second GPS string is determined. Similarly, multiple number of delta values are determined from plurality of the GPS strings.
[0043] In step 510, the first delta value is transmitted to the remote server over a communication system. Similarly, whenever the second and subsequent delta values are determined for respective GPS strings, they are transmitted to the remote server over the communication system at regular intervals.
[0044] In step 512, the delta value corresponding to a GPS string is received in real-time at the remote server end wherein the GPS string is retrieved from the delta value by adding the delta value to the previous GPS string received and stored in the remote server. Thus, the second GPS string is decoded from the first GPS string and the first delta value and similarly, the third and subsequent GPS strings are decoded at the remote server side. In an example, the data size has been reduced to an extent of 78.95% from 19 bytes to 4 bytes using this method.
[0045] In an embodiment, a delta value very close to '0' i.e., very small may be determined if the data frequency of the GPS module is increased in the third level of compression. This data may be compressed to 3 bytes depending on the frequency of the GPS module used in the system. Also, the data size is further reduced in case of the delta value is zero by sending data in one binary bit as zero instead of sending it in 4 bytes of zero.
[0046] As a single zero is transmitted to the remote server, the remote server considers that the GPS module is idle and takes only the previous GPS string from its database. In this method, the data size has been reduced to an extent of 84.21% from 19 bytes to 3 bytes which drastically enhances the rate of data transfer to the remote server as well as reduces the network bandwidth and load onto the remote server.
[0047] Thus, the GPS string is transmitted over a communication system wherein the size of the data is reduced at three levels as per the requirement which eventually leads to increased rate of data transfer from the GPS module to the remote server as well as reduces the network bandwidth and load onto the remote server.
[0048] While various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present disclosure should not be limited by any of the above-discussed embodiments but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.
,CLAIMS:CLAIMS
I/We Claim,
1. A system (201) for compressing a GPS string comprising:
a GPS satellite (202) providing geographical location data;
a GPS module (206) receiving a signal (204) comprising a GPS string;
a GPS compressor (214) compressing the GPS string to a three-level compression stage as required;
a communication channel (208) establishing a communication between the GPS compressor (214) and a remote server (210),
wherein the GPS compressor (214) processes the time, latitude and longitude values which are converted to binary values before transmitting to the remote server in the first and second level of compression stage while a delta value of current GPS string and its previous GPS string along with a histogram plot are used in the third level of compression stages.
2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the latitude and longitude data from the GPS module is processed in the GPS compressor by determining a reference point of latitude and longitude in specific to a geographical location.
3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the time, latitude and longitude are processed separately in three different modules and are integrated after converting the processed values to binary values.
4. A method of compressing a GPS string comprising:
retrieving (402) a GPS string from a GPS module (206);
extracting (404) time, latitude and longitude data from the GPS string;
separating (406) the extracted data into three different modules;
determining (408) delta values of the extracted latitude and longitude with a reference latitude and longitude;
converting (410) the delta values into binary values;
eliminating (412) milliseconds data from the extracted time and converting the hours, minutes and seconds in the extracted time to a binary value;
concatenating (414) the binary values obtained from the extracted time, latitude and longitudinal data; and
obtaining (416) GPS string with reduced data size in binary format,
wherein the reduced data size of the GPS string enables the transmission of data to a remote server at regular intervals without any interruptions.
5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the reference latitude and longitude are determined by considering a region of interest within a rectangle such that any of the corner in that rectangle is used as a reference point.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the binary values are decrypted at the remote server by following the compressions steps inversely and the data size reduction of 68.5% is achieved when compared with the data transmission without any compression.
7. A method of compressing the GPS string using a histogram plot comprising:
retrieving (522) a GPS string from a GPS module;
storing (524) plurality of GPS strings in a GPS compressor at regular intervals;
transferring (526) a first GPS string to a remote server;
determining (528) a first set of delta values from a current GPS string and its previous GPS string;
plotting (530) a histogram with the first set of delta values forming a plurality of data frame of points;
determining (532) a second set of delta values from the plurality of data frame of points in the histogram;
transferring (534) the second set of delta values to the remote server; and
decoding (536) real-time GPS string from the second set of delta values and the previous string at the remote server,
wherein the data size of the GPS string is reduced to an extent of 84.21% when compared to the original GPS string without any compression.
8. A method, system and apparatus providing one or more features as described in the paragraphs of this specification.

Date: 21-05-2020 Signature………………………
OMPRAKASH S.N
Agent for Applicant
IN/PA-1095