MEIF Protocol Research

This is my contemporaneous log of my research activities into the Nokia Measurement Engine InterFace (MEIF) protocol and its specific implementation in Android-based PDAs; primarily Samsung devices using Broadcom chip-sets.

Its purpose is to help other hackers who wish to help with the reverse engineering of the MEIF protocol to understand the research I've already done and the sources I've used in order to check my findings and reproduce my results.

Analysis of the Nokia MEIF

Analysis of the Global Locate/Broadcom A-GPS GNSS driver

Analysis of the Acer Tablet Iconia W510P GPS driver files: UTF-8 and ASCII strings

Resources

FOSS-GPS project and mailing-list

FOSS-GPS mailing list provides a general, free and open source specific forum for any free/open GPS software and hardware related issues. This may include software projects dealing with GPS, communication between the developers and users, user reports, beta testing, and so on.

Eric Raymond's gpsd project and Developer mailing List

The goal of the gpsd project is to create a solid layer of open-source infrastructure for programs running under Linux and other open-source Unixes that want to be location-sensitive. We aim for simple, robust interfaces, unfussy operation, and an easy learning curve for application developers.

News reports

There are recent reports that Samsung might be developing their own alternative to the chip-set maker's GNSS libraries.

Descriptions of MEIF

Internet Archive of the original 2007 Nokia MEIF overview.

"A-GPS: Assisted GPS, GNSS, and SBAS" by Frank Stephen Tromp van Diggelen (Google Books Preview). Also at Pavia Physics

Background technical details on GPS

GPS Books and Publications (U.S.A. National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Coordination Office)

Various papers on GNSS, GPS, and associated technologies at Italian Pavia Physics, National Institute of Nuclear Physics](http://www2.pv.infn.it/~genova/gps/)

"How a GPS Receiver Gets a Lock" by Tom Clark(W3IWI)

"IJARCSSE - A Survey of Positioning Algorithms on Mobile Devices in Location Based Services"

Technical Details of A-GPS

TUT Positioning Algorithms Group: Publications List

Chip-sets

Broadcom BCM4752 Integrated Multi-Constellation GNSS Receiver

Drivers

BCM47511 Standalone GPS Solution: Dell driver download for Windows 8 Surface Tablet version 19.14.6362.4,A02

Broadcom GNSS Geolocation Driver for Windows 8 (32-bit) - Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 version 19.14.8401.4. According to the Binarydb there are four versions of the GNSS Geolocation Sensor driver 'in the wild'.

Acer: Tablet, Iconia W, W510P, Windows 8 32-bit, Driver Package is one large ZIP file with sub-directories for the GPS drivers containing some interesting files in Driver_Acer_2.12_W8x86/MI/Drivers/GPS/. See the Broadcom BCM4751x_GNSS_driver page for more detail.

Open Source Geo-Location Projects

GPS ToolKit GPSTk

GNSS Software Defined Receiver

Open GNSS Projects

Open Source GPS

Source Code

Broadcom GPS (CNTIN) driver gps_cntin_driver (GNU GPL) in Maroc-OS Merruck-Technology Linux kernel github repository. git clone git@github.com:Maroc-OS/Merruk-Technology.git

Java Astrodynamics Toolkit (JAT) library provides a Positioning Engine and interfaces to multiple Measurement Engines. See the Javadocs for library overview and in particular the GPS_MeasurementGenerator class.

How to get all LBS parameters in S60 3rd Edition FP1 links to example source-code AllLBS.zip which contains useful code in understanding Nokia's geo-location services thinking.

i2c-gps-nav Arduino based GPS and NAV co-processor with I^2^C protocol

Location-Based Services (LBS); Servers and Protocols

3GPP, meeting G2-29b 2006-05-22, Sophia Antpolis G2-060181 Change Request for A-GNSS support to RRLP {ZIP containing Word DOC} by Nokia, Global Locate, Siemens.

Nokia LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) overview at GPSworld

Broadcom LBS software services

Broadcom Long Term Orbits (LTO) technical brief

Broadcom AGPS Server World Wide Reference Network feature brief

Broadcom AGPS Server World Wide Reference Network technical brief

Broadcom AGPS Server World Wide Reference Network white paper

Broadcom Secure User Plane Location feature brief

Broadcom Secure User Plane Location white paper

BLOG 2013-02-19: Broadcom’s Latest GPS Tech (BCM47521) Zooms in on Geofencing

Press Release 2011-11-16: Broadcom Powers Global Positioning in New Samsung GALAXY Note

Press Release 2012-03-21: Broadcom Introduces New Location Architecture with Advanced Multi-Constellation and Indoor Positioning Support

Product Features: GNSS - New Location Architecture With BCM4752

Broadcom GPS Location Library ?

Patents

Google Patents search for all Global Locate patents.

US 6535833: 1999-11-22, Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd., Method and apparatus for filtering measurements used in a generalized positioning system

US 6609080: 1999-11-22, Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd., Multiple-model navigation filter with hybrid positioning

US 6618690: 1999-11-22, Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd., Generalized positioning system based on use of a statistical filter

WO 2006090200 A1: 2005-02-28, Nokia Corporation et al, Supporting a satellite based positioning

US 20090140918 A1: 2005-02-28, Nokia Corportation, Supporting a Satellite Based Positioning

US 20080008278 A1: 2006-07-05, Nokia Corporation, Frequency generation and adjustment

US 8391335: 2006-10-13, Rpx Corporation, Apparatus and method for correlation in a GPS receiver

WO 2007135472 A1: 2006-05-24, Nokia Corporation, Philip Geoffrey Eade, Method in a CDMA Receiver Using Hardware and Software in Acquisition, Tracking and Hosting

US 7965232: 2007-03-21, Nokia Corporation, Assistance data provision

US 8462046: 2008-10-01, Nokia Corporation - Managing the measurement of signals