FYI: Representation of Uncertainty and Confidence in PIDF-LO

Representation of Uncertainty and Confidence in PIDF-LO
Martin Thomson and James Winterbottom (eds), IETF Internet Draft

Members of the IETF Geographic Location/Privacy (GEOPRIV) Working
Group have published a Internet Draft for "Representation of Uncertainty
and Confidence in PIDF-LO." RFC 4119 defines "A Presence-based GEOPRIV
Location Object Format" (PIDF-LO), where the Presence Information Data
Format (PIDF) is an XML-based format designed for communicating
privacy-sensitive presence information and which has similar properties.
This "Representation of Uncertainty" I-D defines key concepts of
uncertainty and confidence as they pertain to location information are
defined. The draft also outlines methods for the manipulation of location
estimates that include uncertainty information. It provides guidance on
how to manage location information that includes uncertainty. Methods
for expanding or reducing uncertainty to obtain a required level of
confidence are described. Methods for determining the probability that
a Target is within a specified region based on their location estimate
are described. These methods are simplified by making certain assumptions
about the location estimate and are designed to be applicable to
location estimates in a relatively small area. Background: "Location
information represents an estimation of the position of a Target. Under
ideal circumstances, a location estimate precisely reflects the actual
location of the Target. In reality, there are many factors that
introduce errors into the measurements that are used to determine
location estimates. The process by which measurements are combined to
generate a location estimate is outside of the scope of work within
the IETF. However, the results of such a process are carried in IETF
data formats and protocols. This document outlines how uncertainty,
and its associated datum, confidence, are expressed and interpreted..."

http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-thomson-geopriv-uncertainty-02.txt
See also Geolocation Policy:
http://xml.coverpages.org/draft-ietf-geopriv-policy-17.txt

-- 
Pavel Smrz
Associate professor
Faculty of Information Technology
Brno University of Technology
Bozetechova 2, 61266 Brno
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 541 141 282
Fax: +420 541 141 290
http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~smrz

Received on Tuesday, 9 December 2008 09:26:47 UTC