US 12,270,927 B2
System to determine the location of a radio frequency source using radio frequency signal strength and related methods
James Turney, Silver Spring, MD (US); Jaclyn Scott, Jessup, MD (US); Dan Scheffer, Frederick, MD (US); Sriram Manivannan, Elkridge, MD (US); John Lettow, District of Columbia, DC (US); Josiah Henry, Linthicum, MD (US); Kenneth Fritsch, Jessup, MD (US); Michael Filipelli, Jessup, MD (US); Victor Contreras, Baltimore, MD (US); Samarpita Chowdhury, Jessup, MD (US); and Trentice V Bolar, Columbia, MD (US)
Assigned to Vorbeck Materials Corp., Jessup, MD (US)
Filed by VORBECK MATERIALS CORP., Jessup, MD (US)
Filed on Aug. 22, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/821,467.
Application 17/821,467 is a continuation in part of application No. 17/749,129, filed on May 19, 2022.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/190,449, filed on May 19, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0176175 A1, Jun. 8, 2023
Int. Cl. G01S 5/06 (2006.01); H01Q 1/02 (2006.01); H01Q 1/27 (2006.01); H01Q 1/52 (2006.01)
CPC G01S 5/06 (2013.01) [H01Q 1/02 (2013.01); H01Q 1/273 (2013.01); H01Q 1/526 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A RF localization system (“RFLS”) that determines a position of a RF source of interest relative to the RFLS, comprising:
a plurality of nodes that are man-portable and communicate with each other via a self-organizing wide area network (“WAN”);
wherein
each node comprises:
a housing that comprises;
a communications device;
antenna elements oriented in each nodal cardinal direction;
a battery;
a control circuit communicatively coupled to the communications device and the battery;
the communications device is conductively coupled to each antenna element;
the control circuit one or more of
comprises at least two processing cores;
splits a process into parts that execute simultaneously on the processing cores;
executes code using the processing cores at different stages of execution;
executes two or more instructions threads independently using the same process resources;
the control circuit is configured to:
establish, via the communications device, the self-organizing WAN with other nodes of the plurality of nodes and thereby connect directly, dynamically, and non-hierarchically to the WAN;
capture a RSSI value for each antenna element oriented in each nodal cardinal direction to generate cardinal RSSI values that are associated with a RF signal that emanates from a RF source of interest;
determine, using the cardinal RSSI values, a position of the RF source of interest relative to the node;
when not functioning as a primary node of the plurality of nodes, transmit, via the communications device, the determined position to one or more of the primary node or a computing device that is communicatively positioned external to the WAN for processing; and
when functioning as a primary node, determine, using received determined position, a relative position of the RF source of interest relative to the plurality of nodes.