1

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Тема: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi dear Gurtam team and dear Gurtam partners...

GPS is nice but there are many "usage" scenarios where it would be great to "lookup" a ca. position of a GSM enabled Device by Cell-ID.

I played a bit around with the "free" OpenCellID Database and must say, that it becomes better and better.

I would very much like to ask Gurtam for some kind of Implementation.

Any ideas what would be nesessary?

As its possible to download here http://downloads.opencellid.org/cell_towers.csv.gz a full database (worldwide) of avaiable cell tower ids it could be possible just to set a flag in device configuration like "use CelltowerDB" and than configure 4 sensors like "MCC", MNC", "LAC","CELLID" and voila you can track even if you have no GPS.

Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
2

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

I am afraid the accuracy of CellID localisation is too low. At the same time the usage of this feature will be also low, as it needs specific approach around trip detection and fuel consumption, It is interesting to have it for a small segment of cargo/personal/auto trackers, in case it is lost an gps blocked. But most of these trackers can send that data on demand by sms commands, and you can manually find the location.
Anyway, as an app it would be handy sometimes.

3

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

the interesting thing in this is:
you need extremly low energy.

A competitor of us made a device sending one location update per day (via GSM) 3 years stand by time with one CR123A.

And its perfect for all kind of Assets... Containers, trailers etc.
Most people (i know) just need a round about position for their assets.
And if you need exact position, enable GPS.

Thats the idea behind.

Its an benefit, data is available, data is free, no loockup costs per lookup.

Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
4

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Agree Wolf this is a good back up if the GPS is lost. We have all of our BTS locations maped as POI's as we can get them from our service provider. We have a deal with them that we give them signal strength information for them to be able to get user data on the network operation and we gate location information. It has my vote

Regards
John

Phoenix Solusi
Mobile Visible Secure
Specialists in data acquisition and analysis for mobile and fixed assets. Integration in to content management systems is a specialty we have.
5

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

we've started working on that. thanks for the proposal.

6

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Aliaksandr,

great to hear that!!!

Now we need a Hardware for that hihi
(I know that Jamal developed something like that)

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
7

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

hi aliaksandr,

any news on this topic?

Thanks
Wolf

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
8

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

We are also interested in LBS support by wialon software

Подходящая компания - это такая компания, где меня чем-нибудь угостят и с удовольствием послушают мою Ворчалку. © Пух
9

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

The investigations has been finished and tescases succeeded. Real implementation is currently in the queue and still shifted by more important features from Q2 to Q4 of this year.

At the dark side of telematics...
10

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Shal,

sounds great.

An idea would be to do some kind of calculations...
For example in larger towns you have typically every 500m a new BTS (base station transceiver). So you could make a circle of 250 meter around the LBS position.
Outside the city there are typicaly every 3-6km a BTS. so here radius should be round about 2KM.

Idea for understanding how big the circle should be:
do a calculation of how many BTS you have per sqarekilometer (if you use opencellid and/or other sources you can just do a grid and than have this calculation done once....)

Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
11

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

The implementation will accumulate and use our own database of point/cell/signalstrength plus other databases for unknown areas. Basically, on normal roads and in well covered countries, like Russia, Belarus, we should have very good approximations, close to GPS level.

At the dark side of telematics...
12

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Wolf, as far as the appropriate hardware to use for this purpose, you might want to look into GoSafe. I know their devices can capture and transmit:
MNC, MCC, LAC,  Cell Tower ID and RSSI (tower signal strength). They can send data for up to seven cell towers at a time.

13

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

hi Sergey,

we use mostly Teltonika (can be configured to send MCC/MNC/LAC/CellID) and Meitrack (send always this data).

So that would be no problem.

So just in need of Wialon function :-)

Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
14

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Shal,

we are going to receive a brand new low energy using GSM tracker which we would like to implement into Wialon. So the question would be, how far you are with the integration of LBS (Celltower) Data into Wialon?
Is there any chance to speed up that?

Thanks a lot
Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
15

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

LBS location feature is currently in implementation stage. I supose we'll be able to do GSM based LBS before our conference.

At the dark side of telematics...
16

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Shal,

playing around with opencellid-database and comparing to google maps cell lookups here are some screenshots of triangulation by doing simple weighting of 3-5 celltower positions. weighting is at the moment done by using the position in table of neigbhourcells and not using available TA parameter and/or signal-strength... (i was analysing the data of our little new HW and signal strength is not always a good indicator, the lookuptable of the neighbourcell-list seems to be already ordered by the gsm modem in a good way)...

the first shows a cell-list of a device on my office-desk (no gps)... calculated distance ca. 200m. distance of cells is only a few hundred meters.

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

second shows a testunit in denmark near Ejsberg. Cell-Tower Distance is here much higher (up to 7km) and the maximum difference in elevation is 1m or so :-)) so gsm modem receives also cell-towers with longer distance... So calculated location is round about 1000m away from real location.

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

going to compare it with google data :-)

Wolf.

P.S. Wialon is also a nice mapping-tool! together with POI and Geofences hihi

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
17

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

wwbusch aka Buwo пишет:

P.S. Wialon is also a nice mapping-tool! together with POI and Geofences hihi

btw, I'm using it along with orange.gps-trace.com for years for geocoding (good Belarus map) and especially for location distance calculation (nice distance tool in tools). I tryed to use other systems like Goolge, but they are sometimes slow and not intuitive for me ))))

At the dark side of telematics...
18

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

The LBS function will return approx coordinate of cell tower. The idea is to have smth, when there is no GPS. Initially it will be user function, not a system - e.g. click on asset and do LBS navigation detection instead storing its coordinate in its history like for GPS.

At the dark side of telematics...
19

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

(23/10/2014 21:19:13 отредактировано GlobalSoft)

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

+1 will be very useful for us. Meanwhile more and more clients are asking for cargo tracking solutions.

20

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Globalsoft,

we are just developing our own little "LBS" Translator (already working but still in debug/stability phase).
It receives the data from the hardware we use (little device with battery inside, gps inside, active RFID tag inside, movement sensor inside, light sensor inside), if no gps available it sends up to 10 celltower ids together with TA, if it can not connect to server it starts sending via RFID its ID and you can use a special antenna to find the unit (even inhouse) It uses two Goldcaps to use 100% of battery energy and has a (tested) stand by time of 3 years (or 15 years) at 2 messages per day.
(my testdevices sending every 15 minutes and already sended 980 messages in 4 weeks and battery is 90%)

our little server is installed at a windows virtual server and has the opencellid.org cell-list on a mysql database (4 Million cellids with location).
If a new message by UDP is received from server, it scans the message and does a lookup of celltowers in the local database. than it calculates the different distances and tries to do some kind of weighting. than it uses Wialon IPS protocol and sends the calculated "position" to Wialon (together with some infos we receive from device). Additional the little server logs into sdk.wialon and sets a geofence with the calculated radius (so if gps=valid, radius is a few meters, if GSM it uses the TA (timing advance value) of the served cell to create the radius) to the middle of the served cell and you can see it in Wialon.
In a future version we want also to show the served cellid with location as POI and dynamicaly change / update / delete them

Usage for this HW is always anti theft where there is no regular power suply and parcel tracking

Wolf

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
21

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Tool avaible(under Tools) in development branch: http://dev.hosting.wialon.com

At the dark side of telematics...
22

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

(23/01/2015 15:12:32 отредактировано wwbusch aka Buwo)

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Shal,

here is a case for your debug guys :-)
Device "GORDON" = VT310, it tells for MCC=106 but that is hexadecimal.
(rest of data is also hex as i remember), so that does not work with LBS lookup...
I know that some HW sends data as HEX and some as decimal, so how Wialon handle that?

Wolf.

  • Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable
Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
23

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hello Gurtam Forum,

this is our first post :]

We are using Teltonika FM1100 with enabled parameters:
21 GSM Level
205 Cell ID
206 Area Code
241 GSM Operator code

LBS Detector says "Your working list is empty or there are no units with appropriate parameters."

Pleas explain what to do, to not have empty working list.

24

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Hi Vestigodata,

seems that there are data missing:

you need MCC (mobile country code), 3 digits
MNC = mobile network code, 2-3 digits (seems to be 241???)
Area code (or location area), cellid

so one is missing

Wolf.

Politeness dictates it to write his name on a post
25

Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Re: Using OpenCellID Database for Position Lookup if no GPS Avaiable

Wolf,

this numbers are Teltonika params numbers, not values received by Wialon

.