JP2019095332A - Communication controller, method for controlling communications, program, and communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a device, a method, and a program, which can suppress reduction of the accuracy of estimating a position.SOLUTION: The device is a communication controller for controlling communications with a plurality of apparatuses, and the device includes: acquisition means for acquiring information related to movement of a second apparatus other than a first apparatus; determination means for determining the presence of movement of the second apparatus by at least a specific length according to the acquired information; and control means for changing the time interval for estimating at least one position of the first apparatus and the second apparatus according to the result of the determination.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 8

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication control apparatus that controls communication with a plurality of devices, a communication control method, a program for causing a computer to execute the control, and a communication system.

  A method using radio waves from a GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite or IMES (Indoor Messaging System) (hereinafter referred to as the first method) and radio waves from a base station are used to estimate the position of a device such as a smartphone. A method to be used (hereinafter referred to as a second method) is known.

  Here, the radio wave used in the first method can be reliably estimated because the radio wave used in the first method is not missed, but because the time interval (position estimation interval) for estimating the position is long, it can be carried by a person etc. When the device moves, the position estimation accuracy is degraded. The radio wave used in the second method may not be able to estimate the position because there is a dropout, but since the position estimation interval is short, the position estimation accuracy is high even when the device moves. It has the feature of.

  From such features, it is usually known how to estimate the position using the first method and switch to the second method when the device moves to improve the position estimation accuracy of the moving device (See, for example, Patent Document 1).

  However, in the method described in Patent Document 1 above, if the position estimation fails for one device (target device) after switching to the second method, the position is estimated again using the first method. There is a problem that position estimation accuracy falls.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus, method and program capable of improving the position estimation accuracy of a target device.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a communication control apparatus for controlling communication with a plurality of devices in order to solve the problems described above.
Acquisition means for acquiring information related to movement of another device other than the one device;
A determination unit that determines the presence or absence of movement of another device based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit;
A communication control apparatus is provided that includes control means for changing a time interval for estimating the position of one device and at least one other device according to the determination result by the determination means.

  According to the present invention, position estimation accuracy of a target device can be improved.

The figure which showed an example of the system configuration | structure of a communication system. The figure which showed an example of the environment where a communication system is built. The figure which showed an example of the hardware constitutions of the device which comprises a communication system. The figure which showed an example of the hardware constitutions of the gateway which comprises a communication system. The figure which showed an example of the hardware constitutions of the server which comprises a communication system. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of a device. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of a gateway. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of a server. A figure showing an example of information which a server and a device hold. The figure which showed an example of the detailed information which a server hold | maintains. The flowchart which showed the 1st example of the processing which controls communication with a device, and estimates the position of the object device concerned. The flowchart which showed the 1st example of the processing which judges the classification of a device. The flowchart which showed the 2nd example of the process which controls communication with a device, and estimates the position of an object device. The flowchart which showed the 3rd example of the process which controls communication with a device and estimates the position of an object device. The flowchart which showed the 4th example of the process which controls communication with a device and estimates the position of an object device. The flowchart which showed the 2nd example of the processing which judges the classification of a device.

  In recent years, in addition to IT related devices such as smartphones, tablet terminals, PCs, projectors, digital cameras, MFPs (Multi-Function Peripherals) etc., those equipped with various sensors by IoT (internet of Things) are also connected to the Internet, Information and information collected by various sensors can be used via the Internet.

  There is position information of the object as the information of the object, and in order to estimate the position of the object, a first method using radio waves from GPS satellites and IMES, and a second method using radio waves from a base station Is used. As in the conventional method, position estimation is performed using the first method, and when an object to be estimated moves, the method can be switched to the second method to improve the position estimation accuracy. . If position estimation fails in the second method, it is possible to switch back to the first method and estimate the position in the first method. In addition, estimation of a position can be performed not only for things but also for people.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a system configuration of a communication system. The communication system includes a plurality of devices 10, a plurality of first gateways 11 communicating with the respective devices 10 by the first radio wave, and a plurality of second gateways 12 communicating with the respective devices 10 by the second radio wave, A server 13 in communication with a plurality of first gateways 11 and a plurality of second gateways 12 is included.

  The first radio wave is a radio wave used in the first method and does not fail in position estimation because it is not missed, but is a radio wave that is weak to movement because the position estimation accuracy is low when the device 10 moves. As the first radio wave, for example, a radio wave of LoRa (registered trademark), which is one of communication standards for realizing communication of a low power wide area called LPWA (Low Power Wide Area), may be mentioned.

  The second radio wave is a radio wave used in the second method, and there is a possibility that position estimation may fail because it is missed. However, even when the device 10 moves, the radio wave that is strong against movement has high position estimation accuracy. It is. Examples of the second radio wave include radio waves of weak radio.

  The communication system may include a gateway that communicates by radio waves having different properties other than the first radio wave and the second radio wave, and may include other devices. A gateway is a device that enables communication of data with different protocols (rules and standards of communication).

  The device 10 can communicate with the first gateway 11 by the first radio wave, can communicate with the second gateway 12 by the second radio wave, holds its own information, and controls its own operation. The device 10 may be any device as long as it has such a function, and may be, for example, an IC tag. The information of the device 10, which is the own information, includes identification information (ID) for identifying the device 10, and may include type information indicating the type of the device, if necessary. It can include information measured by the sensor. Also, the information of the device 10 includes communication information of communication with each gateway, and the communication information includes communication parameters used when communicating using each radio wave.

  The first gateway 11 communicates with the server 13, communicates with the device 10 by the first radio wave, holds communication information with the device 10, and controls its own operation. Similarly, the second gateway 12 communicates with the server 13, holds communication information with the device 10, controls its own operation, and communicates with the device 10 by the second radio wave. This communication information also includes communication parameters.

  The server 13 communicates with the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12 and holds information of each device 10, and in addition to the operation of the server 13, each device 10, the first gateway 11, and the second gateway 12 Control. Further, the server 13 estimates the position of each device 10 based on the information collected by each gateway, and presents the position information.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an environment in which the communication system is installed. This environment is a building such as an office building having a plurality of rooms on each floor. The device 10 is attached to a person and is attached to a device by which the wireless connection can be made to the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12, and the device 10 can be connected to the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12 by wireless. And a possible device 10b. Each of the devices 10a and 10b has a battery mounted thereon and operates by being supplied with power from the battery. Hereinafter, the devices 10a and 10b are simply referred to as "device 10" unless otherwise distinguished.

  Only the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12 or only the second gateway 12 is installed on the ceiling of each room. The first gateway 11 is installed every other room to use the first radio wave with a wide communication range, and the second gateway 12 uses a second radio wave with a narrow communication range. is set up.

  The server 13 is installed in any room, communicates with one of a plurality of first gateways 11 and one of a plurality of second gateways 12, acquires information collected by each gateway, and based on the information, the device 10 Estimate the position. As a method of estimating a position, there is a method of acquiring IMES position information and a device ID as information collected by the gateway and estimating the IMES position as the position of a device having the device ID. IMES is a system that complements indoor positioning that can not receive GPS radio waves, and directly transmits position information as a message. Note that this method is only an example, and the present invention is not limited to this. Information received by the device 10 from GPS satellites or base stations (location information of satellites or base stations, transmission time of radio waves, etc.) or information measured ( The gateway may collect the reception time of the radio wave, the radio wave intensity, etc., and estimate the position based on the information. The server 13 presents the result to the user of the system by displaying the position estimation result of each device 10 on a display or the like.

  In this environment, there are many devices 10 that should perform position estimation, and when there is no movement or when position estimation fails even when moving, the devices 10 communicate using the first radio wave, so The communication band of radio waves is under pressure.

  The communication speed (data rate) of communication by the first radio wave is related to the position estimation interval, the position estimation interval can be narrowed by increasing the data rate, and the position estimation interval may be widened by decreasing the data rate. it can. The data rate is determined by a combination of four set values set as communication parameters, that is, SF (Spread Factor), BW (Band Width), CDR (Coding Rate), and Optimized set values. Therefore, if it is desired to raise or lower the data rate, these parameters may be changed.

  Here, SF is a spreading factor that represents the ratio of the chip rate to the bit rate. The bit rate is the amount of data that can be transmitted and received per second. The chip rate is the number of chips per second when carrying data on a carrier wave and performing primary modulation, and applying a pseudo noise signal (chip) to the carrier wave subjected to primary modulation to carry out secondary modulation and expand the band. is there. As the SF is larger, the communicable distance is longer and the reception sensitivity is improved, but the communication speed is reduced.

  BW is a range (bandwidth) of radio wave frequencies. The larger the BW, the faster the communication speed. CDR is a coding rate (coding rate) and indicates the degree of redundancy of a code added to data. The larger the CDR, the higher the redundancy and the greater the amount of information, and the lower the communication speed. "Optimise" indicates whether or not to perform communication optimization. When the "optimize" is performed, conversion such as lossy compression is performed on data. Therefore, the communication speed is reduced by turning on the optimize and performing the optimization.

The increase and decrease of the data rate will be described using a specific example. It is assumed that the BW of one device is 250 kHz, the SF is 10, the CDR is 2, and the optimize is ON. If it is desired to increase the data rate, it can be implemented by any of the following four methods.
(1) Set BW to 500 kHz, which is greater than 250 kHz.
(2) Make CDR 1 less than 2.
(3) Turn off Optimize.
(4) Implement any two or all of the above (1) to (3).

If it is desired to reduce the data rate, it can be implemented by any of the following four methods.
(1 ') Set SF to one of 11 and 12 greater than 10.
(2 ') Set BW to 125 kHz, which is smaller than 250 kHz.
(3 ') Make CDRs either larger than 2 or 3 or 4.
(4 ') Any two or all of the above (1') to (3 ') are performed.

  Note that the data rate can be greatly increased by performing the above (4), and the data rate can be significantly reduced by performing the above (4 ').

  Next, with reference to FIG. 3, the hardware configuration of the device 10 configuring the communication system will be described. The device 10 includes a CPU 20, a memory 21, a sensor 22, and an antenna 23 as hardware.

  The CPU 20 controls the operation of the device 10, and the memory 21 stores information of the device 10. The memory 21 can store a program for the CPU 20 to control the operation of the device 10 and provides the CPU 20 with a work area. The sensor 22 is a device that measures the state of the device 10, and is, for example, an acceleration sensor or the like that measures acceleration. The antenna 23 transmits and receives radio waves to and from the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12.

  The hardware configuration of the first gateway 11 constituting the communication system will be described with reference to FIG. The second gateway 12 has the same hardware configuration as the first gateway 11, and thus the description of the second gateway 12 will be omitted.

  The first gateway 11 includes, as hardware, a CPU 30, a ROM 31, a RAM 32, an HDD 33, a communication I / F 34, and an antenna 35. The CPU 30 controls the operation of the first gateway 11. The ROM 31 stores a boot program for activating the first gateway 11, firmware for controlling other hardware, and the like. The RAM 32 provides the CPU 30 with a work area. The HDD 33 communicates with the plurality of devices 10 in accordance with the communication information, and stores a program, an OS, communication information, and the like for executing a process of transmitting the acquired information of the device 10 to the server 13. The communication I / F 34 is an interface for communicating with the server 13. The antenna 35 transmits and receives radio waves to and from the device 10.

  The hardware configuration of the server 13 constituting the communication system will be described with reference to FIG. The server 13 includes a CPU 40, a ROM 41, a RAM 42, an HDD 43, a communication I / F 44, an input / output I / F 45, an input device 46, and a display device 47 as hardware.

  The CPU 40 controls the operation of the server 13. The ROM 41 stores a boot program for starting the server 13, firmware for controlling other hardware, and the like. The RAM 42 provides the CPU 40 with a work area. The HDD 43 controls communication with a plurality of devices 10, and stores a program for executing processing of estimating the position of each device 10, an OS, position information of positions estimated in the past, and the like. The communication I / F 34 is an interface for communicating with the first gateway 11 and the second gateway 12.

  The input device 46 receives an input of information from the user of the system, and the display device 47 displays position information of each device 10. The input / output I / F 45 controls the input from the input device 46 and the display on the display device 47. The server 13 may further include an audio input device, an audio output device, an imaging device, and the like.

  FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the device 10. The device 10 causes the device 10 to function as the following functional units by the CPU 20 reading and executing a program stored in the memory 21. Thus, the device 10 can be considered to include the following functional units. The following functional units may be configured partially or entirely by hardware such as an integrated circuit.

  The device 10 includes, as functional units, a communication unit 50, an acquisition unit 51, a storage unit 52, and a control unit 53. The communication unit 50 communicates with the first gateway 11 by the first radio wave, and communicates with the second gateway 12 by the second radio wave. At this time, the communication unit 50 communicates in accordance with the communication information included in the information of the device 10. The acquisition unit 51 acquires information related to movement of the device 10 such as acceleration. The acquisition unit 51 also acquires IMES position information and the like.

  The storage unit 52 stores the device ID, the communication information, the information acquired by the acquisition unit 51, and the like as the information of the device 10. The control unit 53 controls the operation of the device 10, and instructs the communication unit 50 to transmit the information of the device 10 to the server 13.

  FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the first gateway 11. The second gateway 12 can have the same functional configuration as that of the first gateway 11, and thus the description of the functional configuration is omitted. The first gateway 11 causes the first gateway 11 to function as the following functional units by the CPU 30 reading and executing the program stored in the HDD 33. Therefore, it can be considered that the first gateway 11 includes the following functional units. The following functional units may be configured partially or entirely by hardware such as an integrated circuit.

  The first gateway 11 includes a communication unit 60, a storage unit 61, and a control unit 62 as functional units. The communication unit 60 communicates with the device 10 by the first radio wave or the second radio wave, and also communicates with the server 13. The storage unit 61 stores communication information with the device 10. The communication unit 60 communicates with the device 10 according to the communication information stored in the storage unit 61.

  The control unit 62 controls the operation of the first gateway 11 and instructs the communication unit 60 to transmit the information received from the device 10 to the server 13. Further, in response to an instruction from the server 13, the control unit 62 changes the communication information stored in the storage unit 61, and instructs the device 10 to change the communication information via the communication unit 60.

  FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the server 13. Similarly to the first gateway 11, the server 13 causes the server 13 to function as the following functional units by the CPU 40 reading and executing a program stored in the HDD 43. Therefore, it can be considered that the server 13 also includes the following functional units. The following functional units may be configured partially or entirely by hardware such as an integrated circuit.

  The server 13 includes, as functional units, a communication unit 70, a storage unit 71, a determination unit 72, a control unit 73, and a position estimation unit 74. The communication unit 70 functions as an acquisition unit, and receives and acquires information transmitted from each device 10 via the first gateway 11 or the second gateway 12.

  The storage unit 71 stores the information acquired from each device 10 and the position information of the position estimated by the position estimation process as information of each device 10. The determination unit 72 determines the presence or absence of movement of each device 10 by a predetermined amount or more. The control unit 73 controls the operation of the server 13 and communication with the first gateway 11, the second gateway 12, and each device 10. For control of communication, a position estimation interval for estimating at least one position of one device (target device) 10 and another device 10 other than the target device 10 is changed according to the determination result by the determination unit 72 Is included. Therefore, the control unit 73 instructs, via the communication unit 70, the first gateway 11 and the device 10 whose position estimation interval is to be changed, to change the communication information.

  The position estimation unit 74 estimates each position of the target device 10 and at least one of the other devices 10 at the position estimation interval changed by the control unit 73. The position estimation unit 74 estimates the position of the target device 10 and the device 10 other than at least one of the other devices 10 at the set position estimation interval. The position estimation unit 74 can display the position information estimated for each device 10 on a display device such as a display and store the information in the storage unit 71.

  Information stored in the storage unit 52 of the device 10 shown in FIG. 6 and the storage unit 71 of the server 13 shown in FIG. 8 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 8A, the storage unit 52 of the device 10 stores, for example, acceleration, type information indicating the type of the device 10, and the like as information related to the movement acquired by the acquisition unit 51.

  The acceleration is used to determine whether or not the device 10 has moved more than a certain level, that is, whether or not the device 10 has a motion. The type information is also used in the process of determining whether the device 10 has a motion. These are all used in the determination processing, and it can be determined if there is any one of the information, so only one of them may be stored in the storage unit 52. The type information can be arbitrarily set by the user of the system.

  The type information may be two pieces of information of “person” and “object” when the user wants to increase the position estimation accuracy of the person but may lower the position estimation accuracy of the object. By using such information, the position of the device 10 of a specific type can be estimated with high accuracy.

  In the storage unit 71 of the server 13, as shown in FIG. 8B, the above-described type information acquired from each device 10 by the communication unit 70 and the past position information of each device 10 estimated by the position estimation unit 74 Is stored. The type information and the past position information are used for the process of determining whether each device 10 has a motion.

  The storage unit 71 may store a state confirmation instruction for confirming whether each device 10 has a motion. The server 13 can transmit a state confirmation command to each device 10 to make it confirm, receive a confirmation result, and determine whether each device 10 has movement based on the received confirmation result. It is. Thus, the server 13 can include an instruction unit that transmits a state confirmation instruction to the communication unit 70 and instructs the communication unit 70 to receive the confirmation result.

  An example of the information of each device 10 stored in the storage unit 71 of the server 13 is shown in FIG. Each device 10 has a device ID as identification information of the device 10. The identification information may be a MAC (Media Access Control) address or a device name. The storage unit 61 stores a device ID, acquired type information, position information estimated this time, and position information estimated last time as past position information. The position information is a center point of the position estimation result, and is a direction or a distance of the center point from the base point based on an arbitrary position of the building. Specifically, the positional information may be the distance in the vertical direction from the base point and the distance in the horizontal direction, where an arbitrary direction is the vertical direction with respect to the base point and a direction perpendicular thereto is the horizontal direction. it can.

  The position information of the past assumes the position information of the new position estimated this time as the position information of this time every time the position is newly estimated, and the position information stored so far as the position information of this time as the previous position information It is possible to delete what was stored as previous position information. Note that position information for several times in the past may be held, and an average of them may be used as past position information.

  The determination unit 72 determines whether each device 10 has no movement or a small movement based on the information of each device 10 stored in the storage unit 71, and the control unit 73 has no movement or a small movement. The data rate of the device determined to be Then, the control unit 73 can increase the data rate of the target device. In this way, the server 13 raises the data rate to the target device and increases the number of times the information is provided from the target device, so that even the first radio wave that is not a failure but is weak to movement The position estimation accuracy can be improved.

  A first example of the process of controlling the communication executed by the server 13 and estimating the position of the target device will be described with reference to FIG. The first example is an embodiment in which communication is controlled using current and previous position information of the device information shown in FIG. When there is a motion in the target device, the position estimation by the first radio wave is switched to the position estimation by the second radio wave to improve the position estimation accuracy. However, when the position estimation by the second radio wave fails, it is switched to the position estimation by the first radio wave whose position estimation accuracy is low with respect to the movement. The processing described below is processing after switching to position estimation by the first radio wave.

  The server 13 starts the process from step 1100, and in step 1105, the control unit 73 confirms whether or not the determination as to whether or not there is a motion has been completed for all other devices than the target device. The target device is a device designated by the user of the system as the accuracy of position estimation. If it has been completed, the process proceeds to step 1125. If it is not completed, the process proceeds to step 1110.

  In step 1110, the control unit 73 instructs the determination unit 72, and the determination unit 72 moves a certain amount or more of the devices whose determination is not completed based on the information of the device stored in the storage unit 71. Determine if there is. For the determination here, the current position estimation result and the previous position estimation result among the information of the device are used.

  At step 1115, the control unit 73 receives the determination result from the determination unit 72, and confirms whether the determination result is not moving. If there is a move, return to step 1105 without doing anything to see if it is complete again. On the other hand, if there is no movement, the process proceeds to step 1120, and the control unit 73 changes the communication information of the device determined to have no movement and the first gateway 11 to reduce the data rate, and uses the communication by the first radio wave. Increase the estimated position interval. This is because the number of devices is large and the communication bandwidth is compressed, and the data rate of the target device can not be increased unless the amount of communication of other devices is reduced. The position estimation interval can be changed by changing the combination of the above SF, BW, CDR and Optimize settings. By extending the position estimation interval of other devices in this manner, it is possible to reduce the amount of communication and make a vacancy in the communication band. After the process of step 1120 is completed, the process returns to step 1105 again.

  As described above, after making a vacancy in the communication band, in step 1125, the control unit 73 combines the setting values of SF, BW, CDR, and Optimization of the communication information of the target device and the first gateway 11. Change and raise the data rate of the target device. The control unit 73 can instruct the target device and the first gateway 11 via the communication unit 70, and can change each setting value of the communication information held by them.

  At step 1130, the position estimation unit 74 estimates the position of the target device. As the data rate is increased, the number of times of information provision from the target device is increased, so that the position estimation accuracy can be improved. After estimating the position of the target device, the process proceeds to step 1135, and the process ends.

  The details of the process in step 1110 of FIG. 11 will be described with reference to FIG. The process starts from step 1200, and in step 1205, the determination unit 72 sets a movement distance as a threshold in order to determine whether or not there is a movement above a certain level. As this movement distance, a distance given as a default value may be set, or the user may be prompted to input and a value input by the user may be set.

  In step 1210, the past position information of the target device among the information of the devices held by the server 13 is referred to. This past position information is position information of the position estimated last time. Then, in step 1215, the difference between the position information of the position currently estimated and the past position information referred to is calculated. This difference is the movement distance.

  In step 1220, it is determined whether the calculated movement distance is equal to or less than a threshold. If it is less than the threshold, there is no movement or small movement, so the process proceeds to step 1225, and the determination result of "no movement" is stored in the storage unit 71. On the other hand, when the threshold value is exceeded, the movement is large, so the process proceeds to step 1230, and the determination result of "with movement" is stored in the storage unit 71. After storing the determination result, the process proceeds to step 1235, and the process ends.

  In this example, although the determination is simply made based on the difference with the previous position information, the present invention is not limited to this, and other determination criteria, for example, "the difference of the position information in the past plural times is less than the threshold And the like may be used as the determination condition.

  A second example of the process of controlling the communication executed by the server 13 and estimating the position of the target device will be described with reference to FIG. The second example is an embodiment in which communication is controlled using type information of the information of the device 10 shown in FIG.

  The server 13 starts the process from step 1300, and in step 1305, the control unit 73 confirms whether or not the determination as to whether or not there is a motion has been completed for all other devices other than the target device. If it has been completed, the process proceeds to step 1325. If it is not completed, the process proceeds to step 1310.

  In step 1310, the control unit 73 instructs the determination unit 72, and the determination unit 72 refers to the type information in the information of the device stored in the storage unit 71 for the device for which the determination is not completed. Do. The type information is, for example, information such as “person” and “article”. "Person" is information that can be classified as having movement and "article" as having no movement.

  In step 1315, the determination unit 72 determines whether the type of the device is an object. If it is not an object, the process returns to step 1305 without doing anything, and confirms whether it has been completed again. On the other hand, if it is an object, the process proceeds to step 1320, where the control unit 73 changes the communication information of the first gateway 11 that communicates with the device in the first radio wave to lower the data rate and widen the position estimation interval. This is also for making a vacancy in the communication band. After the process of step 1320 is completed, the process returns to step 1305 again.

  In this example, only two types of “person” and “article” are used. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the user can arbitrarily designate. This allows the user to freely decide which device he wants to estimate the position with high accuracy.

  As described above, after making a vacancy in the communication band, in step 1325, the control unit 73 combines the setting values of SF, BW, CDR, and Optimization of the communication information of the target device and the first gateway 11. Change and raise the data rate of the target device. In step 1330, the position estimation unit 74 estimates the position of the target device. Also in this case, since the number of times of providing information from the target device is increased as the data rate is increased, it is possible to improve the position estimation accuracy. After estimating the position of the target device, the process proceeds to step 1335, and the process ends.

  Processing to reduce the data rate by changing the communication information of the device or the first gateway 11 if there is no movement, based on the movement distance in the first example and the type in the second example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and determination may be made based on both the movement distance and the type. Specifically, when the movement distance is equal to or less than a threshold or an object, it can be determined that there is no movement. Even if a person is stationary, the position estimation accuracy does not greatly decrease, and even if it is an object, if the object is transported and moved, the position estimation accuracy can not be further reduced. It is not preferable.

  Alternatively, the acceleration measured by the acceleration sensor included in the device may be integrated with time to calculate the moving speed, and the determination may be made based on the moving speed. Specifically, it can be determined whether the moving speed is equal to or less than a threshold. If it is below the threshold, it is estimated that there is no motion or motion is small, and if it is above the threshold, it is estimated that the motion is large.

  In the first example and the second example, although the process is executed based on the information acquired by the server 13 from the device, a part of the process may be executed by the device. A third example of the process of controlling the communication executed by the server 13 and estimating the position of the target device will be described with reference to FIG. The third example is an embodiment in which communication is controlled using the moving speed described above, and a part of processing is performed by the device.

  The server 13 starts the process from step 1400, and in step 1405, the control unit 73 takes out the state confirmation instruction stored in the storage unit 71, transmits the state confirmation instruction to the communication unit 70, and transmits the target device Issue a status check instruction to other devices except.

  At step 1410, another device other than the target device receives a state confirmation instruction from the server 13. The reception of this instruction is performed by the communication unit 50 provided in the device 10 shown in FIG. Then, in step 1415, the device acquires, for example, the acceleration by the acquisition unit 51, integrates the acceleration over time by the control unit 53, and calculates the moving speed. The acceleration is a value measured by the acceleration sensor, and the acceleration sensor always measures the acceleration at constant time intervals.

  In step 1420, the control unit 53 determines whether there is a motion in the device based on the calculated moving speed. In this case, since the determination is performed using the value measured by itself, it can be accurately determined whether the device has a motion.

  At step 1425, the control unit 53 confirms whether or not the determination result indicates no movement, and instructs the communication unit 50. If there is no movement, the communication unit 50 moves to the server 13 at step 1430. Send the judgment result "none". On the other hand, if there is a motion, in step 1435, the communication unit 50 transmits the determination result of “with motion” to the server 13 via the first gateway 11.

  In the server 13, the communication unit 70 receives the determination result from the device in step 1440 and acquires the determination result. In step 1445, the control unit 73 confirms whether the determination as to whether or not there is movement has been completed for all other devices other than the target device. If it has been completed, the process proceeds to step 1460. If it is not completed, the process proceeds to step 1450.

  At step 1450, control unit 73 receives the determination result from communication unit 70, and confirms whether the determination result is not moving. If there is movement, then, without doing anything, return to step 1445 and see if it is complete again. On the other hand, if there is no movement, the process proceeds to step 1455, where the control unit 73 changes the communication information of the device and the first gateway 11 to lower the data rate and extend the position estimation interval. After the communication band is freed in this way, the process returns to step 1445 again.

  In step 1460, the control unit 73 changes the combination of SF, BW, CDR, and Optimized set values of the communication information of the target device and the first gateway 11, and raises the data rate of the target device. At step 1465, the position estimation unit 74 estimates the position of the target device. Also in this case, since the number of times of provision of information from the target device is increased as the data rate is increased, it is possible to improve the position estimation accuracy. After estimating the position of the target device, the process proceeds to step 1470 to end the process.

  In the third example, the determination is made in the device, and the server 13 acquires the determination result, but the device returns the acquired acceleration and the moving speed calculated from the acceleration, and the server 13 moves from the acceleration and the moving speed It may be determined whether or not it exists. An example of returning the moving speed will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 15 as a fourth example.

  The server 13 starts the process from step 1500, and in step 1505, the control unit 73 takes out the state confirmation instruction stored in the storage unit 71, transmits the state confirmation instruction to the communication unit 70, and transmits the target device Issue a status check instruction to other devices except.

  At step 1510, another device other than the target device receives a state confirmation instruction from the server 13. Then, in step 1515, the acquisition unit 51 acquires the acceleration from the acceleration sensor, and the control unit 53 integrates the acceleration over time to calculate the moving speed. In step 1520, the communication unit 50 of the other device receives the instruction from the control unit 53, and transmits the moving speed calculated by the control unit 53 to the server 13 as a measurement result.

  In step 1525, the communication unit 70 of the server 13 receives and acquires the measurement result transmitted from the other device. Then, in step 1530, the control unit 73 confirms whether or not the determination as to whether or not there is a motion has been completed for all the devices other than the target device. If it has been completed, the process proceeds to step 1550. If it is not completed, the process proceeds to step 1535.

  In step 1535, the determination unit 72 receives the measurement result from the communication unit 70, and determines, based on the measurement result, whether or not there is a certain movement or more. In step 1540, the control unit 73 receives the determination result from the determination unit 72, and confirms whether the determination result indicates no movement. If there is movement, then nothing is done, and the process returns to step 1530 to check if it has been completed again. On the other hand, if there is no movement, the process proceeds to step 1545, where the control unit 73 changes the communication information of the other device and the first gateway 11 to lower the data rate and extend the position estimation interval. After the communication band is freed in this way, the process returns to step 1530.

  In step 1550, the control unit 73 changes the combination of the SF, BW, CDR, and Optimized setting values of the communication information of the target device and the first gateway 11, and raises the data rate of the target device. At step 1555, the position estimation unit 74 estimates the position of the target device. Also in this case, since the number of times of provision of information from the target device is increased as the data rate is increased, it is possible to improve the position estimation accuracy. After the position of the target device is estimated, the process proceeds to step 1560 to end the process.

  In this manner, by performing the determination in the server 13, the number of processed devices can be reduced.

  Motion determination using the moving speed in step 1420 of FIG. 14 and step 1535 of FIG. 15 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

  The determination unit 72 starts the process from step 1600, and in step 1605, sets a moving speed as a threshold. As in the first example shown in FIG. 12, the moving speed may set the speed given as the default value, or the user may be prompted to input and the value input by the user may be set. .

  In step 1610, it is determined whether the calculated moving speed is equal to or less than a threshold. If it is less than the threshold, there is no movement or small movement, so the process proceeds to step 1615, and the determination result of "no movement" is stored in the storage unit 71. On the other hand, when the threshold value is exceeded, the movement is large, so the process proceeds to step 1620, and the determination result of "movement" is stored in the storage unit 71. After storing the determination result, the process proceeds to step 1625, and the process ends.

  As described above, even after the position estimation by the second radio wave fails and the position estimation by the first radio wave is switched, the position estimation interval by the first radio wave of another device other than the target device By increasing the data rate of the target device, the number of times of providing information from the target device can be increased, and the decrease in the position estimation accuracy of the target device can be suppressed.

  Also, by using the type information in the determination of the device that extends the position estimation interval, the user can freely select the device that is regarded as important and the device that is not regarded as important, and by causing the device to execute the determination Movement can be determined. If it is executed by the device until the movement is determined, the device is loaded and consumes a lot of power, but the device only performs measurement of acceleration and calculation of movement speed, and the movement is determined by the server. Can reduce the load on the device and reduce power consumption.

  The present invention has been described above with the embodiments described above as a communication control device, a communication control method, a communication system, and a program. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, and other embodiments, additions, modifications, deletions, etc. can be modified within the scope of those skilled in the art. . Moreover, as long as the effect | action and effect of this invention are show | played in any aspect, it is contained in the scope of the present invention. Therefore, a recording medium in which the program is recorded, a program providing server for providing the program, and the like can also be provided.

10, 10a, 10b: device 11: first gateway 12: second gateway 13: server 20: CPU
21: Memory 22: Sensor 23: Antenna 30: CPU
31 ... ROM
32 ... RAM
33 ... HDD
34 ... Communication I / F
35: Antenna 40: CPU
41 ... ROM
42 ... RAM
43 ... HDD
44 ... Communication I / F
45: Input / output I / F
46: input device 47: display device 50: communication unit 51: acquisition unit 52: storage unit 53: control unit 60: communication unit 61: storage unit 62: control unit 70: communication unit 71: storage unit 72: determination unit 73: Control unit 74 ... position estimation unit

JP, 2015-28444, A

Claims (10)

A communication control device that controls communication with a plurality of devices, and
Acquisition means for acquiring information related to movement of another device other than the one device;
A determination unit that determines the presence or absence of movement of the other device based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit;
A communication control apparatus, comprising: control means for changing a time interval for estimating the position of at least one of the one device and the other device in accordance with the determination result by the determination means.   The control unit changes the setting so as to widen the time interval and to narrow the time interval with respect to the one device with respect to the other devices determined to be not moving by the determination unit. The communication control device as described.   The communication control device according to claim 1, further comprising a position estimation unit configured to estimate a position of each device based on each information acquired in communication with each device. The acquisition unit acquires, as the information related to the movement of the other device, the past position information in which the position of the other device is estimated;
The determination means determines whether or not the movement distance calculated from the current position information estimated by the position estimation means and the past position information acquired by the acquisition means is equal to or less than a threshold. The communication control device according to 3. The acquisition unit acquires, as information related to the movement of the other device, type information indicating the type of the other device;
The communication control apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the determination unit determines the presence or absence of movement of the other device by a predetermined amount or more based on the type information acquired by the acquisition unit. Including instruction means for instructing the other device to confirm movement;
The communication control device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the acquisition unit acquires, as the information related to the movement of the other device, information related to the movement confirmed by the other device. Including instruction means for instructing the other device to measure the moving speed,
The acquisition means acquires, as the information related to the movement of the other device, the movement speed measured by the other device,
The communication control apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the determination unit determines whether the moving speed acquired by the acquisition unit is equal to or less than a threshold. A communication control method for controlling communication with a plurality of devices by a communication control device, comprising:
The communication control device includes an acquisition unit, a determination unit, and a control unit.
The acquisition unit acquires information related to movement of another device other than the one device;
The determination unit determines the presence or absence of movement of the other device based on the information acquired by the acquisition unit;
A communication control method including the step of changing the time interval at which the control means estimates the position of at least one of the one device and the other device according to the determination result by the determination means.   A program for causing a computer to execute each step included in the communication control method according to claim 8.   A communication system, comprising: the communication control device according to any one of claims 1 to 7; and a plurality of devices whose communication is controlled by the communication control device.