CN102111709A

CN102111709A - Method and device for realizing terminal location in network comprising home base station

Info

Publication number: CN102111709A
Application number: CN2009102655863A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 骆文; 宋建全
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2009-12-25
Filing date: 2009-12-25
Publication date: 2011-06-29

Abstract

The invention discloses a method for realizing terminal location in a network comprising a home base station, which comprises the following steps of: judging base station type(s) of a serving base station and/or a reference base station of a terminal to be located; acquiring the location information of the home base station when the serving base station is judged to be the home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station; and determining the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station by using a location server. The invention also provides a device for realizing the terminal location in the network comprising the home base station. The method and the device have the advantages of solving the problems of relatively lower location efficiency and resource wasting in the service provision of the home base station, fulfilling the aims of accelerating the location of a target terminal, reducing the cost of the home base station and increasing the degree of satisfaction of a user are fulfilled, and reducing the investment cost of an operator or an equipment manufacturer.

Description

Method and device for realizing terminal positioning in network containing home base station

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of mobile communications, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for implementing terminal positioning in a network including a femto cell.

Background

In order to provide higher traffic rates to mobile users and reduce the cost of using high-rate services, and at the same time, to make up for the lack of coverage of existing distributed cellular wireless communication systems, home base stations are typically deployed in existing communication networks as a supplement to macro base stations. Home base stations are generally installed in homes, office areas, and the like. The home base station is a small-sized and low-power base station, and has the advantages of practicability, convenience, low power output and the like.

LBS is an important service provided by wireless communication networks. For measuring and determining the current location of the target terminal within the network and providing the measured terminal location to an authorized entity within or outside the operator network. Based on LBS function, it can realize many value-added services.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network structure implementing LBS (Location Based Services) in a home base station system, as shown in fig. 1, a terminal 102 is connected to a home base station 104, and the home base station 104 can be connected to an access gateway 108 through a logical network element of a security gateway 106. In hardware implementation, the security gateway 106 may be co-located with the access gateway 108 or may be separate from the access gateway 108. The security gateway 106 has the main function of securing the link between the femto-bs 104 and the access gateway 108.

Network elements or functional entities closely related to the LBS include a Location Requester (LR) 112, a Location Server (LS) 110, a Location Controller (LC) 116, and a Location Agent (LA).

LR is a client of a positioning service, and is configured to initiate a positioning request for positioning a terminal to be positioned (referred to as a target terminal) to LS; the LS is responsible for receiving a location request initiated by the LR and authenticating the request; the system is responsible for triggering the network to carry out positioning measurement on the target terminal, carrying out position calculation by using a positioning algorithm (such as a triangulation method) according to the collected measurement data to obtain the position information of the target terminal, and returning the result to the LR; LC is responsible for coordinating base station and terminal to use wireless air interface to implement wireless measurement according to LS positioning measurement request, collecting relevant measurement data, and sending the measurement data to LS; the function of LA is to take charge of implementing specific wireless measurement under the control of LC, and generate real-time measurement parameters. The LR is typically located at the terminal, or third party service provider; the LS and the LC are positioned in the wireless communication network as control network elements; the LAs are typically located at the base station and the terminal.

In the prior art, the LA may use various manners to perform wireless measurement on the wireless air interface, such as Round-Trip Delay (RTD), Relative Delay (RD), and Time-Difference of arrival (TDOA). The basic principle is that, for example, an originating LA sends a reference signal to a receiving LA, where the signal carries a timestamp of when the originating LA sent the signal. After receiving the signal, the receiving terminal LA compares the local receiving time to obtain a time difference (measurement data), and the time difference may reflect the distance. If the LS collects enough such measurement data, a more accurate positioning can be achieved by, for example, triangulation. The measurement data may be generated by a terminal LA or a base station (macro base station) LA, and accordingly, the measurement data may be divided into a terminal measurement (MS measurements) and a base station measurement (Network measurements).

The Anchor Authenticator (AA) 118 has a main function of providing access authentication service to the mobile terminal when the mobile terminal accesses the network; and the mobile terminal is responsible for managing and maintaining the context information of the mobile terminal after the mobile terminal accesses the network and before the mobile terminal leaves the network. In hardware implementations, typically the anchor point authenticator may be placed in the access gateway. In LBS applications, the anchor point authenticator is used to relay and process the messages exchanged between the location server and the location controller.

The operating parameters of the femtocell are dynamically configured by the Network, and in the prior art, configured by a Self Organizing Network server (SON server for short) 114. The SON server is configured to discover/extract a series of operation and maintenance parameters of the home base station (e.g., a wireless environment around the home base station, and perform location authentication for the home base station) without human intervention, so as to provide initialization configuration parameters for the home base station and support bootstrap initialization of the home base station.

The macro base stations are deployed by operators, the number of the macro base stations is small, the positions of the macro base stations are fixed, and the position information of the macro base stations is stored in a network (LS) through a manual pre-configuration method; the home base station is generally purchased by a user and also deployed by the user, the number of the home base station is large, and the home base station is not fixed in position. For example, a user may turn off a home base station and then move his home base station from his residence to his office and then continue using it. Therefore, the location information of the femto cannot be stored in the network using a manual pre-configuration method. Therefore, in the prior art, when a home base station is electrically connected to a wireless communication network, the wireless communication network performs location authentication on the home base station first, determines more accurate location information of the home base station, and stores the location information in the network. In the existing network deployment, the SON server performs the location authentication function, and the SON server and the hnb management system store the location information of the hnb.

The basic principle of location service implementation is that when the LS receives an authorized location request, the AAA first queries the anchor point authenticator of the located target terminal, and then sends the location measurement request to the anchor point authenticator. The anchor point authenticator finds the service base station of the current target terminal, sends the positioning measurement request to the LC associated with the service base station, the LC controls the completion of the positioning measurement, and returns a positioning report to the LS, and finally the LS calculates the position of the terminal according to the report. As shown in fig. 2, the method specifically comprises the following steps:

step 201: LS receives a positioning request for positioning a target terminal, wherein the request carries parameters such as a terminal identifier, positioning precision, positioning timeliness and the like of the target terminal.

Step 202: and the LS interacts with an AAA server of the target terminal to authenticate and authorize the positioning request.

Step 203: LS sends positioning measurement request to the anchor point authentication device of the target terminal, the request carries the identification of the target terminal and the positioning measurement method appointed by LS. The LS generally determines the positioning measurement method used according to the requirements of the positioning requester on positioning accuracy and positioning timeliness.

Step 204: the anchor authenticator looks up the serving base station of the current target terminal and sends a location measurement request to the LC associated with the serving base station.

Step 205: the LC coordinates the target terminal with the base stations in the vicinity of the target terminal to perform wireless measurements using the functionality of the wireless air interface using the specified positioning measurement method. The LC gathers measurement reports from the LA.

Step 206: and the LC returns a measurement response message to the anchor point authenticator, wherein the measurement response message carries the collected measurement report.

Step 207: the anchor authenticator sends the measurement report obtained from the LC to the LS.

Step 208: and the LS calculates the current position of the terminal according to the acquired measurement report and a corresponding positioning algorithm (such as a triangulation method).

Step 209: and the LS returns a positioning response to the LR, wherein the positioning response comprises a positioning result of the positioning server to the target terminal.

In the prior art, the LC coordinates the process of performing wireless measurements (step 205), and the LC initiates a measurement request to the serving base station of the target terminal. When using the method of terminal measurement, the serving base station (LA) notifies the terminal and triggers the terminal (LA) to start radio measurement. At this time, the terminal not only needs to measure the downlink reference signal sent by its serving base station, but also needs to measure the downlink reference signals sent by other base stations that the terminal can receive; when the method of base station measurement is used, a serving base station (LA) notifies neighbor base Stations (LAs) of the serving base station, and uplink reference signals from terminals are measured together. The other base stations mentioned above, as well as the neighbor base stations, are all referred to herein as reference base stations for the target terminal. Theoretically, the more reference base stations participating in the measurement process of the target terminal, the more beneficial the LS calculates the position of the terminal; meanwhile, when the number of the reference base stations is fixed, the more the measurement data acquired in unit time is, the more the position of the LS calculation terminal is beneficial. Therefore, based on one measurement request from the LS, the LC triggers the wireless measurement to be performed multiple times (repeating step 205 multiple times), which is generally specified by the LS. The uplink/downlink reference signals are not a part of the LA function, but are a function unique to the base station itself.

However, the inventors have found that in the existing LBS service, regardless of whether the target terminal is served by the home base station, complicated wireless location measurement is performed according to the existing macro base station-based location procedure. This leads to a complete Location Agent (LA) function (positioning measurement needs to be performed) that must be deployed on the hnb, which increases the cost of the hnb, and in order to obtain sufficient accuracy, radio measurement needs to be performed multiple times, which results in waste of air interface resources and waste of terminal resources (e.g. battery resources).

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention mainly aims to provide a method and an apparatus for implementing terminal positioning in a network including a home base station, so as to at least solve the problem that resources are wasted due to low positioning efficiency when the home base station provides services.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for positioning a terminal in a network including a home base station, including: judging the base station type of a service base station and/or a reference base station of a terminal to be positioned; acquiring the position information of the home base station under the condition that the service base station is judged to be the home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station; and the positioning server determines the position of the terminal according to the position information of the home base station.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, determining the base station type of the serving base station of the terminal includes at least one of the following modes: the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the type of a base station of a service base station according to the base station identification of the service base station; the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the service base station from the service base station, the anchor point authentication device or the access gateway; and in the third mode, the positioning controller judges the type of the service base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

Optionally, in the method described above, determining the base station type of the reference base station of the terminal includes at least one of the following modes: the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the base station type of a reference base station according to the base station identification of the reference base station; the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station, the service base station or the access gateway; and in the third mode, the positioning controller judges the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

Optionally, in the method described above, before the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station or the serving base station, the method further includes: a terminal acquires a base station identifier of a reference base station and sends the acquired base station identifier to a service base station; or, the reference base station determines whether the terminal is in its coverage area, and notifies the serving base station of the determination result, including at least one of the following ways: in a first mode, a reference base station indicates that a terminal is in or out of a coverage area of the reference base station by sending or not sending a measurement response message to a serving base station; in the second mode, the reference base station sends a measurement response to the serving base station, and carries an indication in the measurement response to indicate that the terminal is in or out of the coverage area of the terminal.

Optionally, in the method, when the reference base station notifies the serving base station of the determination result, the method further includes: the reference base station transmits information of a base station type of the reference base station to the serving base station.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, the determining, by the positioning controller, a base station type of a reference base station of the terminal to be positioned includes: the method for judging the base station type of the reference base station by the service base station comprises at least one of the following modes: in the first mode, the service base station judges the type of the reference base station according to the base station identifier of the reference base station; in the second mode, the service base station acquires the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station; in a third mode, the service base station judges the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system; the serving base station transmits information of the base station type to the positioning controller.

Optionally, in the method described above, in a case where the positioning controller determines that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station includes a home base station, the method further includes: the positioning controller sends the base station type information to the positioning server, and the method comprises at least one of the following modes: the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller directly sends information of base station types to a positioning server; and in the second mode, the positioning controller sends the information of the base station type to the anchor point authenticator, and the anchor point authenticator forwards the information of the base station type to the positioning server.

Optionally, in the above method, when it is determined that the serving base station is the home base station or the reference base station includes the home base station, the positioning controller obtains the location information of the home base station by using one of the following methods: in the first mode, the positioning controller acquires position information from a home base station, or a self-organizing network server, or an access gateway; in a second mode, the positioning controller obtains the position information from the management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and a home base station management system; after acquiring the position information, the positioning controller transmits the acquired position information to the positioning server.

Optionally, in the method, in a case that it is determined that the serving base station is the home base station or the reference base station includes the home base station, the obtaining the location information of the home base station includes: the anchor point authentication device acquires the position information of the home base station by adopting one of the following modes: firstly, an anchor point authentication device acquires position information in context information of a terminal; in the second mode, the anchor point authentication device acquires position information from a self-organizing network server or a home base station; and in the third mode, the anchor point authentication device acquires position information from a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and a home base station management system; after obtaining the location information, the anchor point authenticator sends the location information to the location server.

Optionally, in the method, in a case that it is determined that the serving base station is the home base station or the reference base station includes the home base station, the obtaining, by the positioning server, the location information of the home base station includes at least one of the following: in the first mode, the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the positioning controller or the anchor point authentication device; the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station through local inquiry according to the identification of the home base station; the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the self-organizing network server or the home base station; in a fourth mode, the positioning server obtains the location information about the femtocell from the management plane network element, and the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, the determining, by the positioning server, the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station includes: and in the case that the serving base station is judged to be the home base station, the positioning server takes the position information of the home base station as the position of the terminal.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, the determining, by the positioning server, the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station includes: under the condition that the reference base station comprises the home base station, if the home base station is one, the positioning server takes the position information of the home base station as the position of the terminal; under the condition that the reference base station comprises the home base stations, if the number of the home base stations is multiple, the positioning server takes the position information of one home base station as the position information of the terminal; or the positioning server calculates the position centers of the plurality of home base stations according to the position information of the plurality of home base stations, and takes the position centers as the positions of the terminals.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, after the positioning server determines the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station, the method further includes: and the positioning server sends the position information of the terminal to the terminal and/or the positioning request party.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for positioning a terminal in a network including a home base station, including: the judging module is used for judging the base station type of a service base station and/or a reference base station of the terminal to be positioned; the acquiring module is used for acquiring the position information of the home base station under the condition that the service base station is judged to be the home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station; and the determining module is used for enabling the positioning server to determine the position of the terminal according to the position information of the home base station.

The method and the device for realizing the terminal positioning in the network containing the home base station directly adopt the position of the home base station as the terminal position, and the acquisition of the position of the home base station only needs few system resources, thereby solving the problem of low positioning efficiency and resource waste when the home base station provides service, realizing the beneficial effects of accelerating the positioning process of a target terminal, reducing the cost of the home base station, improving the satisfaction degree of users and reducing the investment cost of operators (equipment manufacturers).

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate embodiment(s) of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the invention without limiting the invention. In the drawings:

fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a communication network when positioning services are applied to a home base station;

fig. 2 is a flow chart of a conventional location service implementation;

fig. 3 is a flow chart of a method for positioning a terminal in a network including home base stations according to a basic embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a flow chart of a positioning method according to a first preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a flow chart of a positioning method according to a second preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flow chart of a positioning method according to a third preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a flow chart of a positioning method according to a fourth preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a flow chart of a positioning method according to a fifth preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a block diagram of an apparatus for implementing terminal positioning in a network including a home base station according to a basic embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings in conjunction with embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be combined with each other without conflict.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a method for positioning a terminal in a network including a home base station according to a basic embodiment of the present invention, including:

step S10, judging the base station type of the service base station and/or the reference base station of the terminal to be positioned;

step S20, acquiring the position information of the home base station under the condition that the service base station is judged to be the home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station;

in step S30, the location server determines the location of the terminal according to the location information of the femto cell.

The existing LBS does not care about the current serving base station of the target terminal, referring to the type of base station (i.e., does not care about whether the target terminal is currently located within the coverage of the home base station). At this time, after the LS determines an appropriate positioning measurement method, even if the target terminal is currently located within the coverage of the home base station, complex wireless positioning measurement is performed according to the existing positioning procedure. The treatment is as follows: the positioning process of the target terminal cannot be accelerated (because wireless measurement is to be performed) to improve the satisfaction of the user; the full LA function (positioning measurement needs to be performed) must be deployed on the femto base station, which cannot reduce the cost of the femto base station, and in order to obtain sufficient accuracy, radio measurement needs to be performed multiple times, resulting in waste of air interface resources and waste of terminal resources (battery resources).

As can be seen from the above description, a femto is a small, low power base station, and the coverage area of the signal is much smaller than that of a macro base station, and a typical application is an area with a radius of at most 30 meters. Therefore, the present embodiment proposes that, in practical use, when a target terminal to be located is within the coverage of a home base station (e.g., the serving base station of the terminal is the home base station or the reference base station of the terminal is the home base station), the position information of the home base station (serving base station or reference base station) can be directly used as the estimated position of the target terminal, a complete wireless measurement procedure does not need to be performed, or even a wireless measurement procedure does not need to be performed, and a sufficiently high accuracy can be obtained. At the moment, the positioning process of the target terminal can be accelerated without influencing the positioning precision, and the satisfaction degree of a user is improved; the positioning agent function is not required to be deployed on the home base station, so that the cost of the home base station is reduced, and the profit margin of an operator (equipment manufacturer) is improved; radio measurements may not be performed, saving air interface resources and terminal resources (battery resources).

It is noted that the positioning accuracy standard commonly used in the industry at present is 67% within 50 m and 95% within 150 m, which is also a requirement of FCC (federal communications commission) for positioning accuracy. Therefore, the position information of the home base station is directly used as the estimated position of the target terminal, and the accuracy can reach 100% within 30 meters, which is far superior to the positioning accuracy standard commonly used in the industry.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, determining the base station type of the serving base station of the terminal includes at least one of the following modes:

the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the type of a base station of a service base station according to the base station identification of the service base station;

the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the service base station from the service base station, the anchor point authentication device or the access gateway;

and in the third mode, the positioning controller judges the type of the service base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

In the optional method, the determination of the base station type of the serving base station by the positioning controller is realized. It is obvious that the management plane network elements can be a wide variety of management systems.

Optionally, in the method described above, determining the base station type of the reference base station of the terminal includes at least one of the following modes:

the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the base station type of a reference base station according to the base station identification of the reference base station;

the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station, the service base station or the access gateway;

and in the third mode, the positioning controller judges the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

In the optional method, the base station type of the reference base station is judged by the positioning controller.

Optionally, in the method described above, before the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station or the serving base station, the method further includes:

a terminal acquires a base station identifier of a reference base station and sends the acquired base station identifier to a service base station; or, the reference base station determines whether the terminal is in its coverage area, and notifies the serving base station of the determination result, including at least one of the following ways:

in a first mode, a reference base station indicates that a terminal is in or out of a coverage area of the reference base station by sending or not sending a measurement response message to a serving base station;

in the second mode, the reference base station sends a measurement response to the serving base station, and carries an indication in the measurement response to indicate that the terminal is in or out of the coverage area of the terminal.

In the optional method, the serving base station notifies the positioning controller of information of the reference base station.

This alternative method may directly indicate the base station type of the reference base station.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, the determining, by the positioning controller, a base station type of a reference base station of the terminal to be positioned includes: the service base station judges the base station type of the reference base station, and then the service base station sends the information of the base station type to the positioning controller, wherein the method comprises at least one of the following modes:

in the first mode, the service base station judges the type of the reference base station according to the base station identifier of the reference base station;

in the second mode, the service base station acquires the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station;

in a third mode, the service base station judges the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

The alternative method provides a solution for obtaining the base station type by the serving base station.

Optionally, in the method described above, in a case where the positioning controller determines that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station includes a home base station, the method further includes: the positioning controller sends the base station type information to the positioning server, and the method comprises at least one of the following modes:

the method comprises the following steps that firstly, a positioning controller directly sends information of base station types to a positioning server;

and in the second mode, the positioning controller sends the information of the base station type to the anchor point authenticator, and the anchor point authenticator forwards the information of the base station type to the positioning server.

This alternative method provides a solution for the positioning controller to inform the positioning server of the base station type.

Optionally, in the foregoing method, in a case that it is determined that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station includes a home base station, the positioning controller acquires the location information of the home base station, and after the location information is acquired, the positioning controller sends the acquired location information to the positioning server, using one of the following manners:

in the first mode, the positioning controller acquires position information from a home base station, or a self-organizing network server, or an access gateway;

in a second mode, the positioning controller obtains the position information from the management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and a home base station management system.

The optional method provides a technical scheme for the positioning controller to acquire the position information.

Optionally, in the above method, step S20 includes: the anchor point authentication device acquires the position information of the home base station, and after acquiring the position information, the anchor point authentication device sends the position information to the positioning server, and one of the following modes is adopted:

firstly, an anchor point authentication device acquires position information in context information of a terminal;

in the second mode, the anchor point authentication device acquires position information from a self-organizing network server or a home base station;

and in the third mode, the anchor point authentication device acquires position information from a management plane network element, and the management plane network element comprises: a network management system and a home base station management system.

The alternative method provides a technical scheme for the anchor point authenticator to acquire the position information.

Optionally, in the method, in a case that it is determined that the serving base station is the home base station or the reference base station includes the home base station, the obtaining, by the positioning server, the location information of the home base station includes at least one of the following:

in the first mode, the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the positioning controller or the anchor point authentication device;

the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station through local inquiry according to the identification of the home base station;

the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the self-organizing network server or the home base station;

in a fourth mode, the positioning server obtains the location information about the femtocell from the management plane network element, and the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

The optional method provides a technical scheme for the positioning server to acquire the position information.

The serving base station is unique, so this alternative is simple and easy to implement.

This alternative provides a more accurate solution since there may be multiple home base stations for the reference base station.

This alternative method provides a solution for reporting the positioning result.

Preferred embodiment 1

Fig. 4 is a flowchart of a positioning method according to a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, and this embodiment assumes that a current serving base station of a terminal to be positioned (hereinafter, the terminal to be positioned is referred to as a target terminal) is a home base station. At this time, the positioning controller (LC) determines the type of the serving base station of the target terminal, acquires the location information of the home base station, returns the location information to the positioning server (LS), and calculates the location of the target terminal by the positioning server, specifically including the steps of:

step 301: in the same step 201, the LS receives a positioning request for positioning a target terminal, where the request carries parameters such as a terminal identifier, positioning accuracy, and positioning timeliness of the target terminal.

Step 302: in the same step 202, the LS interacts with the AAA server of the target terminal to authenticate and authorize the upper location request.

Step 303: in the same step 203, the LS determines a positioning measurement method and sends a positioning measurement request to the anchor point authenticator of the target terminal.

The request contains the identity of the target terminal, the location measurement method, and a number of times (e.g., 5 times) that the LC is to perform the wireless measurement.

Step 304: the anchor authenticator sends a measurement request to the LC.

The anchor authenticator learns the serving base station of the current target terminal from the identification of the target terminal in the location measurement request (step 303) and sends the location measurement request to the LC associated with the serving base station. The measurement request includes the base station identifier of the target terminal serving base station.

Step 305: the LC determines the type of serving base station.

Specifically, after receiving the location measurement request (step 304), the LC first determines the base station type (macro base station or home base station) of the serving base station of the target terminal, and there are several methods:

in the first method, the LC can judge whether the type of the base station is a macro base station or a home base station according to the base station identifier. For example, when the base Station identity is expressed by BSID (base Station identity), the range of BSID can be used to distinguish the macro base Station from the home base Station; when the base station Identifier is represented by NAI (Network Access Identifier), a specific character string in the NAI may be used to distinguish the macro base station from the home base station.

In the second method, the LC may directly send a request to the serving base station to request the type of the base station. For example, if the serving base station is a home base station, the home base station will respond to the LC request and may carry an identifier indicating that the LC serving base station is a home base station; if the serving base station is the macro base station, the macro base station may also return an identifier to the LC to indicate that the LC serving base station is the macro base station, or the macro base station may not respond to the request of the LC, and at this time, the LC defaults to the macro base station.

And in the third method, the LC can also acquire the type information of the serving base station from the anchor point authenticator. For example, the location measurement request (step 304) may also carry a type identifier of the serving base station, which is used to indicate whether the serving base station is a macro base station or a home base station.

And fourthly, the LC can inquire the type of the base station in management plane network elements such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like according to the base station identifier. For example, the base station identifier is sent to a network management system or a home base station management system, and then the network management system or the home base station management system determines whether the base station identifier is a home base station or not.

And the LC can also request the access gateway where the home base station is located to inquire the type of the base station in the access gateway according to the base station identifier.

Step 306: the LC acquires location information of the home base station.

Specifically, after the LC determines that the serving base station is the home base station, the LC needs to acquire the location information of the home base station, that is, the location of the home base station itself, and there are various methods:

in a first method, the LC may obtain the location information from the SON server. The LC sends a request to the SON server to request the position information of the home base station; the SON server searches for the location information of the home base station (e.g., obtained from the archive data of the home base station), and returns the searched location information to the LC.

And secondly, the LC can directly request the position information of the home base station, and at the moment, the home base station sends the position information of the home base station to the LC.

And thirdly, the LC can acquire the position information of the home base station from the network elements of the management surfaces such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like.

In the fourth method, the LC may also request the access gateway where the home base station is located to acquire the location information of the home base station in the access gateway.

Step 307: the LC sends a location measurement response message to the anchor point authenticator.

When the serving base station of the target terminal is judged to be the home base station (step 305), the LC ignores the positioning measurement method specified by the LS (step 303). For example, the originally specified method is a base station measurement method, or a terminal measurement method, both of which require radio measurement to be performed between the terminal and the home base station. At this point, the LC will not trigger the measurement process to be performed.

The LC sends the acquired location information of the hnb (step 306) to the anchor authenticator through the location measurement response message. At the same time, the message may also carry an indication indicating the type of serving base station of the target terminal (which is the home base station, i.e. the target terminal is currently in the coverage of the home base station).

Step 308: and the anchor point authenticator sends a positioning measurement response message to the LS.

The anchor point authenticator takes out the information in the location measurement response message from the LC, puts it in the location measurement response message between the anchor point authenticator and the LS, and then sends the message to the LS. The information includes the location information of the serving base station (home base station) and may further include the indication (step 306).

Step 309: the LS calculates location information of the target terminal.

After receiving the positioning measurement response message, the LS may know that the type of the current serving base station of the target terminal is the home base station. The LS may be known by the indication described in step 306 or by the fact that the home base station location information is carried in the positioning measurement reply message.

In this case, the LS may directly calculate the location information of the target terminal using the location information of the femto cell regardless of the previously selected positioning method. For example, the LS may directly use the location information of the home base station as the positioning result of the target terminal.

Step 310: in step 209, the location server returns a location response to the location requester, where the location response includes the location result of the target terminal by the location server.

It should be noted that, in the present invention (e.g., step 305, step 306 of this embodiment), the LC may obtain the address or the identity of the serving base station from the access gateway; acquiring the type of a service base station; acquiring addresses or identifiers of network elements of management surfaces such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like; acquiring an address or an identifier of the SON server; and acquiring the position information of the home base station.

The LC is located in the access gateway and the home base station (serving base station) is also connected to the access gateway. When the home base station accesses the wireless communication network and registers to the access gateway, a series of attributes of the home base station can be sent to the access gateway, and the home base station is stored locally by the access gateway. The LC may directly obtain the information of the terminal from the access gateway. The series of attributes of the home base station include: base station type (is home base station); SON server address (or identification) served for it; the address (or mark) of the network element of the management surface such as the network management system, the home base station management system and the like serving the network management system; its own address (e.g., address identification, or IP address, etc.); its own location information.

In addition, the LC can directly find the address of the hnb management system serving the hnb according to the identifier of the hnb. For example, when the base station identifier is represented by a BSID, its value can reflect an operator to which the home base station belongs; when the base station identification is identified by the NAI, a specific character string therein can reflect the operator to which the home base station belongs. Depending on the configuration, the LC may know the address of the operator's home base station management system; then the LC may obtain a list of attributes of the home base station in the management plane at this time.

Preferred embodiment two

Fig. 5 is a flowchart of a positioning method according to a second preferred embodiment of the present invention. Unlike the preferred embodiment, if the serving bs is a hnb, the LC informs the anchor authenticator of the location information of the hnb, and the anchor authenticator returns the location information to the Location Server (LS). The method specifically comprises the following steps:

step 401 to step 405: the same as step 301 to step 305.

Step 406: the LC returns a location measurement response to the anchor point authenticator.

In the same manner as described in step 307, the LC ignores the positioning measurement method specified by the LS when it is determined that the serving base station of the target terminal is the home base station. The LC sends a location measurement reply message to the anchor authenticator and carries an indication in this message indicating that the type of serving base station of the target terminal is a home base station (i.e., the target terminal is currently in the coverage of the home base station). However, in this embodiment, the LC does not acquire the location information of the home base station, and the location measurement response does not carry the location information.

Step 407: anchor point authentication device for obtaining position information of home base station

Upon receiving the location measurement response message (step 406), the anchor authenticator may learn that the current serving base station is the home base station through the indication it carries (step 406). At this time, the anchor point authenticator needs to acquire the location information of the femtocell, and there are various methods:

in the first method, the anchor point authenticator can obtain the location information of the home base station (serving base station) from the context information of the target terminal. The anchor authenticator may find the context information locally based on the identity of the target terminal.

In the second method, the anchor point authenticator can acquire the home base station location information from the SON server. The anchor point authentication device sends a request to the SON server to request the position information of the home base station; the SON server searches for the location information of the home base station (e.g., obtained from the archive data of the home base station), and returns the found location information to the anchor point authenticator.

And in the third method, the anchor point authentication device can directly request the position information of the home base station, and at the moment, the home base station sends the position information of the home base station to the anchor point authentication device.

In the fourth method, the anchor point authenticator can also obtain the location information of the femtocell from the network entities (network elements) of Management planes (Management planes) such as a network Management system and a femtocell Management system.

Step 408: and the anchor point authenticator returns a positioning measurement response to the LS.

After the position information of the home base station is obtained, the anchor point authentication device sends the position information to the LS through a positioning measurement response message. At the same time, the anchor authenticator may also send the above indication (step 406) to the LS together.

Step 409 to step 410: as in steps 309 through 310.

It should be noted that, in the invention (for example, in step 407 of this embodiment), the anchor point authenticator may obtain an address or an identifier of the SON server from the context information of the target terminal; acquiring an address or an identification of a home base station; acquiring addresses or identifiers of network elements of management surfaces such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like; and acquiring the position information of the home base station.

When the terminal accesses the network through the femtocell or is handed over to the femtocell, the femtocell (serving femtocell) may perform network access, and when the terminal is handed over, send a series of attributes of the femtocell to the anchor authenticator of the terminal through appropriate messages (e.g., a terminal pre-attach message, a context information request/response message, etc.), and store the attributes as a part of the terminal context information (specifically, attributes of the serving femtocell of the terminal) in the anchor authenticator. The series of attributes of the femtocell include: base station type (is home base station); SON server address (or identification) served for it; the address (or mark) of the network element of the management surface such as the network management system, the home base station management system and the like serving the network management system; its own address (e.g., address identification, or IP address, etc.); its own location information.

In addition, the anchor authenticator can directly find the address of the femtocell management system serving the femtocell according to the identity of the femtocell (e.g., the method described in the first embodiment). Then at this point the anchor point authenticator may obtain a list of attributes of the home base station in the management plane.

This embodiment may be regarded as a modification of the first embodiment. That is, in the first embodiment, when the LC determines that the serving base station is a home base station, the LC acquires the location information of the home base station; but in this embodiment it can be seen as an example where the LC informs the anchor authenticator to obtain the location information. Indeed, further, the LC may also notify the LS to obtain the location information. For example, in this embodiment, if step 407 is not performed, the anchor authenticator sends the above indication (step 406) to the LS only via the location measurement response in step 408. At this time, in step 409, the LS may obtain, according to the above indication, that the target terminal is currently located in the coverage area of the home base station, but the LS finds that the positioning measurement response message does not carry the location information of the home base station, so the LS also needs to obtain the location information of the home base station, and there are various methods:

in the first method, if the LS itself grasps the topology structure of the deployed femtocell, the LS may locally query the current location information of the femtocell according to the identifier of the femtocell. For example, in the process of powering on and accessing the network by the home base station, the home base station reports the own location information to the LS, and the LS stores the location information locally; or, the home base station management system synchronizes the location information of the home base station to the LS in the management plane.

In the second method, the LS may obtain the location information of the home base station from the SON server.

In the third method, the LS can directly request its location information from the home base station.

And in the method IV, the LS can acquire the position information of the home base station from the network elements of the management surfaces such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like.

In the fifth method, the LS may further request the location information of the hnb from the anchor authenticator.

In some of the above manners, information such as an address or an identifier of the SON server, an address or an identifier of a management plane network element such as a network management system and a home base station management system, and an address of the home base station may be sent to the LS by the anchor point authenticator through the positioning measurement response (e.g., step 408).

In addition, it should be noted that in some application scenarios, the LC may directly return a location measurement response message to the LS, and in this case, the transfer through the anchor point authenticator is not required. In this case, the above-described examples (embodiment one and embodiment two) are still applicable to this scenario, and the principle is the same, and are not repeated.

Preferred embodiment three

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of a positioning method according to a third preferred embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the serving base station of the target terminal is a macro base station, and the reference base station includes a home base station. The method comprises the following steps that a positioning controller (LC) judges the type of a reference base station, if the LC finds that the reference base station comprises a home base station, the LC does not execute the original positioning measurement method, the obtained position information of the home base station is sent to an LS, and the LS calculates the position information of a target terminal according to the position information, and specifically comprises the following steps:

step 501: the LC sends a location measurement request to the serving base station of the target terminal.

After the LC receives a location measurement request from the anchor authenticator (see step 204), the LC needs to resolve the parameters therein. From this, the LC can know the positioning measurement method specified by the LS, including the methods of base station measurement and terminal measurement, and the like. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that LS specifies a method of using terminal measurement. The LC may also know that several measurements are required (i.e., several identical location measurement requests need to be repeatedly sent to the serving base station).

Step 502: the serving base station (macro base station) sends a scanning response message to the terminal to trigger the terminal to execute a positioning measurement method based on terminal measurement.

Step 503: the service base station returns a measurement request confirmation message to the LC, and the message is used for informing the LC that the service base station receives the positioning measurement request sent by the LC.

Step 504: the terminal measures downlink reference signals from the serving base station and its surrounding reference base stations.

The terminal can receive downlink reference signals of a serving base station (macro base station) and surrounding reference base stations. Through measurements on the downlink reference signals of the base stations, the terminal (LA) can obtain a series of measurement parameters, and the measurement parameters are used by the LS for calculating the position information of the terminal.

Step 505: the terminal returns a scan report to the serving base station.

The terminal (LA) sends these measurement parameters to its serving base station, including the base station identity of its serving base station and the base station identity of its reference base station. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the reference base station of the target terminal includes the home base station, and therefore, the reference base station identifier described above includes an identifier of the home base station.

Step 506: the serving base station returns a measurement report to the LC.

The serving base station (macro base station) transmits a series of information such as measurement parameters obtained from the terminal to the LC.

Step 507: the LC determines the type of the reference base station.

After receiving the measurement report, the LC extracts all the measurement parameters and the identities of the base stations associated with the measurement parameters. At this time, the LC may check whether there is a femto in the reference bss one by one, and there are several methods:

in the first method, the LC may determine whether the type of the base station is a macro base station or a home base station according to the base station identifier (see method one 305).

In method two, the LC may directly send a request to the reference base station to request the type of the base station (see 305, method two).

In the third method, the LC may query the base station type in a management plane network element such as a network management system and a home base station management system according to the base station identifier (see method four 305).

In the fourth method, the LC may also request the access gateway where the home base station is located to query the type of the base station in the access gateway according to the base station identifier (see 305, method five).

Step 508: the LC returns a measurement report to the LS.

When the reference base station of the target terminal contains the home base station, the LC gives up the original measurement method and returns a measurement report to the LS. The method comprises two methods of returning the measurement report to the LS through the anchor point authenticator and directly returning the measurement report to the LS. The LC or anchor authenticator also acquires the location information of the femto as described in steps 306 to 308(406 to 408) and sends the location information to the LS. And finally, the LS calculates the position information of the target terminal according to the position information of the home base station (reference base station). In addition, as described in the second preferred embodiment, the LS may also obtain the location information of the home base station by itself. It should be noted that the method and the principle for the LC/anchor point authenticator/LS to acquire the home base station location information, including the indication described in step 307(406), are the same as the method and the principle described in the first preferred embodiment and the second preferred embodiment, and no essential differences are found, and are not described herein again.

It is worth mentioning that in this embodiment the LC is located at the access gateway to which the serving base station is also connected, but it is possible that the reference base station (home base station) is connected to another access gateway. In this case, the LC may find the access gateway to which it is connected based on the identity of the reference base station.

At this time, the LC may acquire the address of the reference base station (home base station) from the access gateway; acquiring an address (or identity) of a SON server serving it (the reference base station); acquiring addresses (or identifications) of network elements of management planes such as a network management system, a home base station management system and the like serving the network elements; acquiring the address of the user; acquiring the position information of the reference base station; the base station type of the reference base station is obtained.

It should be noted that if the LC finds that there is more than one reference bs of the hnbs, the LC/anchor authenticator/LS may obtain the location information of all the hnbs or obtain the location information of only one of the hnbs (e.g., the first one). When the LS obtains the location information of a plurality of home base stations, it may select the location information of only one of the home base stations to calculate the location information of the terminal (for example, the LS selects the location information of the home base station which it considers most accurate), or the LS also calculates in consideration of the location information (for example, taking the average value of the location information of the home base stations).

By the method described in the embodiment, the purpose of optimizing the positioning process when the reference base station of the target terminal contains the home base station can be achieved. By using the method, when the positioning method based on the terminal measurement is adopted, the terminal is only required to execute the measurement for 1 time at most, whether the home base station is contained in the reference base station can be obtained, and the position information of the home base station is further used for positioning the terminal. If the prior art method is adopted, the LC generally needs to ask the terminal for multiple sets of positioning measurement reports (e.g., 5 sets), and at this time, the LC needs to repeat step 501(5 times), and the terminal needs to repeat the positioning measurement process (5 times). This is no different and increases the consumption of terminal resources and slows down the overall positioning process. It can be seen that corresponding advantages can be obtained with the method of the invention.

Preferred embodiment four

Fig. 7 is a flowchart of a positioning method according to a fourth preferred embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, assuming that a positioning measurement method based on base station measurement is adopted, and meanwhile assuming that a serving base station of a terminal is a macro base station, and a reference base station thereof includes a home base station, the method specifically includes the following steps:

step 601: in step 501, the LC sends a location measurement request to the serving base station of the target terminal.

In contrast, in this step, the LC knows that the positioning measurement method specified by the LS is a method of base station measurement.

Step 602: a serving base station (macro base station) sends a scanning response message to a terminal and triggers the terminal to scan surrounding base stations; the terminal reports the base station identity of the nearby base stations it scans to the serving base station in a scan report message.

The nearby base stations scanned by the terminal are reference base stations of the terminal, including home base stations.

Step 603: the serving base station returns a measurement request acknowledge message to the LC.

And after receiving the scanning response returned by the terminal, the service base station takes out the base station identifier of the reference base station scanned by the terminal from the service base station, and places the identifier in a measurement request response to be sent to the LC.

Step 604: in step 507, the LC determines whether the reference base stations include a femto base station.

Step 605: the LC sends a measurement stop message to the serving base station.

After determining that the home base station is included in the reference base station, the LC may further transmit a measurement stop message to the serving base station to notify the serving base station that location measurement is not required to be performed. Of course, the LC may not inform the serving base station to stop the measurement, and in this case, the serving base station performs the positioning measurement only once according to the prior art method.

Step 606: as in step 508.

In fact, in this embodiment, the serving base station may also determine whether the home base station is included in the reference base station of the target terminal. At this time, the serving base station may return a positioning request response to the LC (step 603) before receiving the scanning report of the terminal (step 602), and does not carry the identification of the reference base station therein. After receiving the scanning report, the serving base station takes out the reference base station identifiers (a plurality of reference base station identifiers including the home base station) and determines whether the home base station is included, and there are several methods: method one, the serving base station determines the type of the reference base station according to the identifier of the reference base station (synchronization step 305, method one); method two, the serving base station sends a request to the reference base station for its type (synchronization step 305, method two); in the third method, the serving base station queries the base station type from the network management system or the home base station management system (step 305, method four). After the serving base station determines that the reference base station contains the home base station, the serving base station does not execute the positioning measurement method executed by the LC, but directly returns a measurement response to the LC, and carries a response indication therein to indicate that the reference base station of the target terminal contains the home base station and needs to carry the identity of the home base station. The LC can learn this information, and the remaining steps are the same as those described in this embodiment. At this time, the LC does not need to transmit a measurement stop message to the serving base station (step 605). In addition, when the reference base station includes a plurality of femto base stations, the processing method is the same as the method described in the third embodiment, and details are not repeated here.

Preferred embodiment five

Fig. 8 is a flowchart of a positioning method according to a fifth preferred embodiment of the present invention, which assumes that a positioning measurement method based on base station measurement is adopted, while assuming that a serving base station of a terminal is a macro base station and a reference base station thereof includes a home base station, as in the fourth embodiment. In contrast, in the present embodiment, the home base station is required to support part of the functions of the Location Agent (LA). The method specifically comprises the following steps:

step 701: in step 601, the LC sends a location measurement request to the serving base station of the target terminal.

Step 702: the serving base station returns a measurement request acknowledge message to the LC. This message is only used to acknowledge receipt of the location measurement request to the LC.

Step 703: the serving base station sends a measurement request to the reference base station.

In this step, the serving base station selects a reference base station for the terminal, and the serving base station generally considers that all neighbor base stations of the serving base station may be reference base stations of the terminal.

Step 704: the serving base station and the reference base station start performing positioning measurements for the terminal.

At this time, when the reference base station is a home base station, the home base station does not need to perform positioning measurement of the terminal. After the hnb receives the measurement request (step 703), the hnb starts to check whether it can receive the wireless signal of the target terminal over the air interface, i.e., determines whether the target terminal is in its coverage area.

Step 705: the reference base station returns a measurement response to the serving base station.

At this time, when the reference base station is a home base station, if the home base station determines that the target terminal is in its coverage area in step 704, the home base station returns a measurement response message to the serving base station in step, and using the message, the home base station needs to indicate whether the target terminal is in its coverage area, and there are various methods:

in the first method, if it is determined that the target terminal is not in the coverage area of the target terminal (for example, in the above step, the femto does not detect the uplink signal of the terminal), the femto does not return a measurement response to the serving femto. At this point, the return reply message implies that the target terminal is within its coverage.

In the second method, the femtocell may add an indication to the measurement response, and use the indication to explicitly indicate that the femtocell is out of the coverage area of the femtocell.

In addition, in the measurement response message returned by the home base station (reference base station) to the serving base station, an identifier may be carried to indicate that the home base station is a home base station.

Step 706: the serving base station returns a measurement response message to the LC.

After collecting the measurement parameters returned by all the reference base stations, the serving base station needs to send these measurement parameters to the LC together with the base station identifiers of the reference base stations.

Step 707: the LC determines the type of the reference base station.

After receiving the measurement report, the LC takes out all the measurement parameters and the identifications of the base stations associated with the measurement parameters, and judges whether the reference base station of the target terminal has a home base station.

The femto indicates whether the target ue is in its coverage area as shown in step 705, and there are several methods, and here the LC also has several corresponding processing methods:

method one, corresponding to method one in step 705. If the target terminal is not in the coverage area of the home base station a, the home base station a does not return a measurement response to the serving base station, and at this time, the serving base station does not carry the identifier of the home base station a in the measurement response sent to the LC in step 706; on the contrary, if the target terminal is within the coverage of the femto B, the measurement response in step 706 will carry the identifier of the femto B. At this time, the LC only needs to extract all the base station identifiers carried in the measurement response message, and examines whether there is a home base station in the reference base stations one by one, and the determination method is the same as the method described in step 305.

Method two, corresponds to method two in step 705. The home base station will return an indication to the serving base station and the serving base station will also send the indication to the LC via the measurement reply message in step 706. In this case, the LC also takes out the instruction together when taking out the base station id carried in the measurement response message. Then, for those base station identities having a corresponding indication, they are home base stations; but not, it is a macro base station. The LC needs to filter out those home base stations that indicate that the terminal is not within its coverage. Finally, if there is a home base station indicating that the target terminal is within its coverage, the LC determines that there is a home base station in the reference base station of the target terminal.

Method three, corresponding to method two in step 705. The indication is viewed by the serving base station and when the indication indicates that the terminal is not within the coverage of the home base station, the serving base station does not send the identity of this base station to the LC. At this time, in the step, the processing method of the LC is identical to the method used in the first method in the present step.

For the second method, it is worth to be noted that, if the second method is adopted, it is equivalent to the base station type (home base station) of the reference base station obtained by the LC from the reference base station. In the same manner, as the method described in step 705, if the reference base station sends the information of its own base station type to the serving base station through the message when responding to the measurement response message to the serving base station, the serving base station may further send the information to the LC, and the LC may determine the type of the reference base station according to the information, and similarly, the LC may obtain the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station (home base station).

Step 709: as in step 508.

This embodiment actually requires that the femto supports a part of functions of a Location Agent (LA), that is, supports identifying a location measurement request sent by the serving femto and may return a measurement response message to the serving femto, but does not need to execute a responsible air interface wireless measurement algorithm. This is in fact a small part of the LA functionality and is not complex to implement and does not require much additional cost. The resulting benefits are as described in embodiment three, e.g. only the macro base station needs to perform a positioning measurement at most once, etc.

In addition, when the reference base station includes a plurality of home base stations, the processing method is the same as the method described in the third preferred embodiment, and details are not described here.

Fig. 9 is a block diagram of an apparatus for positioning a terminal in a network including a femto-cell according to a basic embodiment of the present invention, including:

a judging module 10, configured to judge a base station type of a serving base station and/or a reference base station of a terminal to be located;

an obtaining module 20, configured to obtain location information of the femto when it is determined that the serving femto is a femto or the reference femto includes a femto;

and a determining module 30, configured to enable the positioning server to determine the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station.

After receiving the measurement request sent by the positioning server, the positioning device of the embodiment determines the current serving base station of the positioned terminal by the positioning controller, and refers to the type of the base station; if the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station, the positioning server estimates the position information of the positioned terminal according to the position information of the home base station, so that the problems of long time consumption and high resource consumption of terminal positioning in a wireless communication system comprising the home base station can be solved.

From the above description, it can be seen that the method and apparatus for implementing optimized terminal positioning in a wireless communication network including femto-cells described in the present invention can obtain many advantages.

Since the positioning server can be notified of this when the serving base station of the target terminal is a home base station or when the home base station is included in the reference base station of the target terminal, the positioning server can directly use the position information of the home base station (as the serving base station, or the reference base station) itself to estimate the position of the target terminal. Then: the home base station does not need to deploy a positioning agent function, so that the investment cost is reduced; wireless measurement is not required to be performed between the home base station and the terminal, so that wireless air interface resources and terminal resources (such as a battery) are saved; the anchor point authentication device does not need to issue the positioning measurement request to a proper positioning controller layer by layer, so that the signaling resource of a core network is saved, the positioning process is accelerated under the condition of not influencing the positioning precision, the positioning time delay is reduced, the positioning timeliness is facilitated, and the satisfaction degree of a user is improved.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the modules or steps of the present invention described above may be implemented by a general purpose computing device, they may be centralized on a single computing device or distributed across a network of multiple computing devices, and alternatively, they may be implemented by program code executable by a computing device, such that they may be stored in a storage device and executed by a computing device, and in some cases, the steps shown or described may be performed in an order different than that described herein, or they may be separately fabricated into individual integrated circuit modules, or multiple ones of them may be fabricated into a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the present invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for positioning a terminal in a network including a home base station, comprising:

judging the base station type of a service base station and/or a reference base station of a terminal to be positioned;

acquiring the position information of the home base station under the condition that the service base station is judged to be the home base station or the reference base station comprises the home base station;

and the positioning server determines the position of the terminal according to the position information of the home base station.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the base station type of the serving base station of the terminal comprises at least one of:

the method comprises the steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the base station type of a service base station according to the base station identification of the service base station;

in a second mode, the positioning controller acquires the base station type of the service base station from the service base station, the anchor point authenticator or the access gateway;

in a third mode, the positioning controller determines the base station type of the serving base station through a management plane network element, where the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the base station type of the reference base station of the terminal comprises at least one of:

the method comprises the steps that firstly, a positioning controller judges the base station type of a reference base station according to the base station identification of the reference base station;

in a second mode, the positioning controller acquires the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station, a service base station or an access gateway;

in a third mode, the positioning controller determines the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, where the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising, before the positioning controller obtains the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station or a serving base station:

the terminal acquires a base station identifier of the reference base station and sends the acquired base station identifier to the service base station; or,

the reference base station judges whether the terminal is in the coverage area of the reference base station, and informs the serving base station of the judgment result, wherein the judgment result comprises at least one of the following modes:

in a first mode, the reference base station indicates that the terminal is in or out of the coverage area of the terminal by sending or not sending a measurement response message to the serving base station;

in a second mode, the reference base station sends a measurement response to the serving base station, and carries an indication in the measurement response to indicate that the terminal is in or out of the coverage area of the terminal.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein when the reference base station notifies the serving base station of the determination result, further comprising: the reference base station transmits information of a base station type of the reference base station to the serving base station.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the base station type of the reference base station of the terminal to be located by the positioning controller comprises:

the method for judging the base station type of the reference base station by the service base station comprises at least one of the following modes:

in a first mode, the serving base station judges the type of the reference base station according to the base station identifier of the reference base station;

in a second mode, the serving base station acquires the base station type of the reference base station from the reference base station;

in a third mode, the serving base station determines the base station type of the reference base station through a management plane network element, where the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system;

the serving base station sends the base station type information to the positioning controller.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein in case that the positioning controller determines that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station comprises a home base station, further comprising:

the positioning controller sends the information of the base station type to the positioning server, and the method comprises at least one of the following modes:

in a first mode, the positioning controller directly sends the information of the base station type to the positioning server;

in the second mode, the positioning controller sends the information of the base station type to an anchor point authenticator, and the anchor point authenticator forwards the information of the base station type to the positioning server.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein in case that the serving base station is determined to be a home base station or the reference base station comprises a home base station, the positioning controller obtains the location information of the home base station by one of the following methods:

in a first mode, the positioning controller obtains the location information from the home base station, or the self-organizing network server, or the access gateway;

in a second mode, the positioning controller obtains the position information from a management plane network element, where the management plane network element includes: a network management system and a home base station management system; after acquiring the location information, the location controller transmits the acquired location information to the location server.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein in case that it is determined that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station comprises a home base station, acquiring the location information of the home base station comprises:

the anchor point authentication device acquires the position information of the home base station, and adopts one of the following modes:

in a first mode, the anchor point authenticator acquires the position information from the context information of the terminal;

in a second mode, the anchor point authenticator acquires the position information from an ad hoc network server or the home base station;

in a third mode, the anchor point authenticator acquires the position information from a management plane network element, and the management plane network element includes: a network management system and a home base station management system;

after obtaining the location information, the anchor point authenticator sends the location information to the location server.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein in the case that it is determined that the serving base station is a home base station or the reference base station includes a home base station, acquiring, by the positioning server, location information of the home base station includes at least one of:

in a first mode, the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the positioning controller or the anchor point authenticator;

in a second mode, the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station through local query according to the identifier of the home base station;

in a third mode, the positioning server acquires the position information of the home base station from the self-organizing network server or the home base station;

in a fourth mode, the positioning server obtains the location information about the hnb from a management plane network element, where the management plane network element includes: a network management system and/or a home base station management system.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining, by the positioning server, the location of the terminal according to the location information of the femto cell comprises:

and under the condition that the service base station is judged to be the home base station, the positioning server takes the position information of the home base station as the position of the terminal.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining, by the positioning server, the location of the terminal according to the location information of the femto cell comprises:

under the condition that the reference base station comprises a home base station, if the home base station is one, the positioning server takes the position information of the home base station as the position of the terminal;

under the condition that the reference base station comprises a plurality of home base stations, if the number of the home base stations is multiple, the positioning server takes the position information of one home base station as the position information of the terminal; or the positioning server calculates the position centers of the plurality of home base stations according to the position information of the plurality of home base stations, and takes the position centers as the position of the terminal.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein after the positioning server determines the location of the terminal according to the location information of the home base station, the method further comprises:

and the positioning server sends the position information of the terminal to the terminal and/or a positioning request party.

14. An apparatus for positioning a terminal in a network including a home base station, comprising:

the judging module is used for judging the base station type of a service base station and/or a reference base station of the terminal to be positioned;

an obtaining module, configured to obtain location information of the femto when it is determined that the serving femto is a femto or the reference femto includes a femto;

and the determining module is used for enabling the positioning server to determine the position of the terminal according to the position information of the home base station.