Detailed Description
The application layer equipment of the embodiment of the invention obtains and stores the subscription information, the mapping relation between the internal identifier and the external identifier and the position information of each terminal; after receiving a proximity relation discovery request of a first terminal, determining that the first terminal has a function of discovering other terminals according to proximity relation subscription information corresponding to the first terminal; and judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the proximity principle or not, and sending the judgment result to the first terminal, thereby solving the problem that no solution for discovering the proximity relation between the user equipment which are adjacent to each other exists at present.
The embodiments of the present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the drawings attached hereto.
Referring to fig. 4, a method for determining a proximity relationship between user equipments according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:
step 41, the application layer device acquires and stores the subscription information, the mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier, and the position information of each terminal;
wherein, the signing information of each terminal is in one-to-one correspondence with the internal identification of the terminal
Step 42, after receiving the proximity relationship discovery request of the first terminal, the application layer device determines that the first terminal has a function of discovering other terminals according to the subscription information corresponding to the first terminal;
wherein, the proximity relation discovery request carries the external identifier of the first terminal;
step 43, the application layer device determines whether the second terminal and the first terminal satisfy the proximity principle;
the second terminal in the embodiment of the present invention refers to a terminal different from the first terminal.
And step 44, the application layer device sends the judgment result to the first terminal to complete the proximity relation discovery process.
The application layer device in the embodiment of the present invention may be an application server or the like (server).
In implementation, in step 42, the application layer device determines subscription information corresponding to the first terminal according to the following steps:
the application layer equipment determines an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier of the first terminal carried in the received proximity relation discovery request according to a mapping relation between the internal identifier and the external identifier stored in the application layer equipment; and
and the application layer equipment determines the subscription information corresponding to the internal identifier from the subscription information of the terminal stored by the application layer equipment according to the internal identifier of the first terminal.
It should be noted that, for a terminal having a proximity relation discovery function, the subscription information further includes proximity relation subscription information of the terminal, and the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is: the terminal allows discovery of other terminals and not allows discovery by other terminals, the terminal allows discovery by other terminals and not allows discovery of other terminals, the terminal allows discovery of other terminals and allows discovery by other terminals, or the terminal does not allow discovery by other terminals and does not allow discovery of other terminals; the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is for all proximity relation related services of the terminal, that is, any proximity relation related service activated by the terminal should obey the proximity relation subscription information signed by the terminal.
In the implementation of the present invention, a certain terminal does not have a function of discovering other terminals, including: the terminal does not have a proximity relation discovery function; or the terminal has a proximity relation discovery function, but the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is that the terminal is allowed to be discovered by other terminals and is not allowed to discover the other terminals; or the terminal has a proximity relation discovery function, but the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is that the terminal is not allowed to be discovered by other terminals and is not allowed to discover other terminals;
a terminal has a function of discovering other terminals, including: the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is that the terminal allows other terminals to be discovered and allows the other terminals to be discovered; or the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal allows other terminals to be discovered for the terminal and does not allow the other terminals to be discovered.
In implementation, if the first terminal does not have a function capable of discovering other terminals, the application layer device does not execute the proximity relationship discovery process after receiving the proximity relationship discovery request sent by the first terminal, or notifies the first terminal that the first terminal does not have the function capable of discovering other terminals through an application layer message.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the proximity rule in step 43 means that the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal satisfies the setting condition.
Further, the following three ways are included when the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal meets the setting condition:
in the first mode, the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal is not greater than a set threshold value;
wherein, the set threshold is an empirical value and can be set according to requirements; for example, the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal is not more than 500 meters, etc.;
in the second mode, the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same cell; namely: the IDs of the current resident cells of the first terminal and the second terminal are the same;
in the third mode, the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same base station; namely: and the IDs of the first terminal and the second terminal which currently reside in the base station are the same.
Since a limited scenario for the discovery process of the proximity relationship is also defined in 3GPP, that is, the discovery process of the proximity relationship is required to be related to the proximity relationship subscription information of the UE, the network configuration, and whether the registration relationship between two user equipments at the application layer is a friendship (i.e. social relationship) or not.
For example, the following steps are carried out: assuming A, B and C use the same social networking application and A, B and C both use a proximity business enabled UE, the social networking application layer maintains a context in which the following relationship information is displayed: a and C are friends, C and B are friends, and A and B are not friends, in this scenario, the proximity discovery function needs to be implemented as follows:
the UE of a may find C in a nearby location;
the UE of C may find a in a nearby location;
the social networking application of a can know whether C is in its vicinity;
the social networking application of C can know whether a is in its vicinity;
-the UE of B cannot find the UE of a in its vicinity;
the social networking application of a cannot detect whether B is in its proximity;
the social networking application of B cannot detect whether a is in its proximity;
therefore, the proximity relation discovery process requires that only UEs with a friendship can discover each other, and if the application layer displays that the UEs are not friendships, the UEs cannot discover each other, that is, two terminals in proximity need to satisfy a certain social relation.
For the limited scenario defined by the 3GPP for the proximity relationship discovery process, further, in step 43, when the application layer device determines whether the second terminal and the first terminal satisfy the proximity principle, the method further includes:
and judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the set social relationship.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the set social relationship means that the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network satisfies the set condition, where the application layer device may query the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network in a context stored by the application layer device, for example, the UE1 and the UE2 are a friendship, and the UE1 and the UE3 are not a friendship; for another example, UE1 belongs to the same group as UE2, UE2 does not belong to the same group as UE 3; and the like;
the set social relationship may be that the second terminal to be determined is in a friendship with the first terminal, or that the second terminal to be determined and the first terminal belong to the same set group, and so on; in the embodiment of the invention, the conditions which need to be met in the process of discovering the identity relationship of each terminal registered in the same social network can be set according to actual needs.
Further, in step 41, in the embodiment of the present invention, the application layer device obtains the location information of each terminal in a manner reported by each terminal, and specifically, the application layer device obtains the location information of each terminal according to the following steps:
after a terminal establishes a PDN connection for transmitting application layer services with an access network, application layer connection is established between application layer equipment and each terminal; and
the application layer equipment receives and stores the current position information reported by each terminal, and the position information comprises: one or a combination of an ID of a cell in which the terminal currently resides, an ID of a base station in which the terminal currently resides, and geographical location information of the terminal.
In implementation, the terminal may obtain the ID of the cell where the terminal currently resides through the air interface;
the terminal can acquire the GPS position information of the terminal, such as longitude and latitude information, through a GPS module contained in the terminal.
Taking the network architecture diagram shown in fig. 5 as an example, in the network architecture, interaction between the intermediate interaction device and the HSS is defined through an interface Xy, where the interface Xy is used to implement a subscription information query process, that is, the intermediate interaction device sends a query request to the HSS, and the HSS feeds back subscription information of each terminal and a mapping relationship between an internal identifier and an external identifier of each terminal to the intermediate interaction device; defining the interaction between the intermediate interactive equipment and the application layer equipment through an interface Xz, wherein the interface Xy is used for realizing that the application layer equipment initiates a signing information acquisition request to the intermediate interactive equipment and the intermediate interactive equipment sends the signing information of each terminal and the mapping relation between the internal identification and the external identification of each terminal to the application layer equipment; it should be noted that the interface Xy and the interface Xz may be defined by any existing protocol stack as long as the above functions are implemented.
In the network architecture, the interaction process between the terminal and the application layer device is shown in fig. 6; specifically, PDN connections are established between the UE1 and the UE2 and the application layer device, and current location information of the UE1 and the UE2 is reported to the application layer device through application layer interaction; correspondingly, the application layer device receives and stores the location information reported by the UE1 and the UE2, and updates the location information stored by the application layer device in time when the locations of the UE1 and the UE2 change.
It should be noted that, after being attached to a network, each terminal initiates a Packet Data Network (PDN) connection establishment to an access network, and establishes a PDN connection with the access network through an SGi interface of a Packet Data network gateway (PGW), which is described in the specific process of the protocol 3gpp ts 23.401;
after PDN connection is established, each terminal is respectively connected with application layer equipment to establish application layer connection;
each terminal reports the current position information to the application layer equipment;
preferably, each terminal reports the current position information of the terminal to the application layer equipment in real time; or after the current position information of each terminal changes, reporting the current position information of each terminal to the application layer equipment, so that the application layer equipment can update the position information of each terminal in time.
Further, in this embodiment of the present invention, in step 41, the application layer device obtains the subscription information of each terminal from the HSS through the intermediate interaction device according to the external identifier (e.g., application layer identifier) of each terminal, and specifically, the application layer device obtains the subscription information of each terminal according to the following steps:
the application layer equipment initiates a signing information acquisition request to the intermediate interactive equipment, wherein the signing information acquisition request carries the external identifier of the terminal;
after receiving the signing information acquisition request, the intermediate interaction equipment sends a query request to the HSS so as to acquire the signing information of the terminal, wherein the query request carries the external identifier of the terminal;
after receiving the query request, the HSS determines an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier carried in the query request according to a mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier, and sends subscription information corresponding to the determined internal identifier and a mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier of the terminal to the intermediate interaction device, wherein the subscription information of the terminal having the proximity relationship discovery function at least includes the proximity relationship subscription information of the terminal; and
and the intermediate interaction equipment sends the subscription information of the terminal returned by the HSS and the mapping relation between the internal identifier and the external identifier of the terminal to the application layer equipment for storage.
Still taking the network architecture shown in fig. 5 as an example, the interaction process between the intermediate interaction device and the application layer device, and between the intermediate interaction device and the HSS is shown in fig. 6.
It should be noted that, the HSS stores the subscription information of each terminal, and for a terminal with a proximity relationship discovery function, the subscription information also includes the proximity relationship subscription information of the terminal, and since the terminal and the application layer device use the external identifier for interaction and the 3GPP network side device use the internal identifier for interaction, the HSS also stores the mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier of each terminal; generally, the internal identifier of the terminal is an IMSI, and the external identifier of the terminal is an application layer ID (e.g., a QQ number of the terminal, an MSN account number, etc.).
Preferably, the intermediate interaction device in the embodiment of the present invention may be deployed alone, may be co-located with an MTC-IWF, and may be co-located with an HSS.
Specifically, if the intermediate interactive device is combined with the MTC-IWF, the intermediate interactive device may interact with the HSS and the application layer device through the interface Xy and the interface Xz, respectively; the MTC-IWF may also interact with the HSS and the application layer device through an interface S6m and an interface Tsp of the MTC-IWF, where the interface S6m and the interface Tsp are defined to have the functions of the interface Xy and the interface Xz;
if the intermediate interactive device is combined with the HSS, the intermediate interactive device interacts with the HSS and the application layer device through an interface Xy and an interface Xz respectively, wherein the interaction between the intermediate interactive device and the HSS adopts internal signaling.
Further, the proximity relation discovery request initiated by the first terminal includes the following two types:
the first proximity relation discovery request is: the first terminal requests to determine whether the first terminal and a second terminal specified by the first terminal meet the proximity principle (or meet the proximity principle and a set social relationship); the proximity relation discovery request also carries an external identifier of the second terminal;
in this application scenario, the first terminal needs to be able to obtain the external identifier of the second terminal specified by the first terminal, for example, the first terminal may obtain the external identifier of the second terminal through the application layer device, and certainly, the external identifier of the second terminal may also be obtained in other manners.
The second proximity relation discovery request is: the first terminal requests to determine all the second terminals which satisfy the proximity principle (or the proximity principle and the set social relationship) with itself.
In the following, for the limited scenario defined by the above 3GPP for the proximity relationship discovery process, after the first terminal initiates the proximity relationship discovery request, in step 43, the proximity relationship determination process performed by the application layer device is described.
For the first proximity relation discovery request, step 43 further includes:
the application layer equipment determines whether the second terminal has a function which can be discovered by other terminals or not according to the subscription information of the second terminal;
when the application layer equipment determines that the second terminal has the function which can be discovered by other terminals and meets the set social relationship and proximity principle with the first terminal, the second terminal is determined to be adjacent to the first terminal; and
and when the application layer equipment determines that the second terminal does not have the function which can be discovered by other terminals, or does not satisfy the set social relationship with the first terminal, or does not satisfy the proximity principle with the first terminal, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal.
Correspondingly, in step 44, the sending, by the application layer device, the determination result to the first terminal includes:
if the determination result in the step 43 is that the second terminal is adjacent to the first terminal, the application layer device returns an adjacent response message to the first terminal;
if the determination result in step 43 is that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal, the application layer device returns a non-proximity response message to the first terminal.
Preferably, step 44 further includes:
and the application layer equipment sends the judgment result to the second terminal.
Further, if the determination result in step 43 is that the second terminal is adjacent to the first terminal, the application layer device returns a response message adjacent to the first terminal to the second terminal, where the returned message carries the external identifier of the first terminal;
if the determination result in step 43 is that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal, the application layer device returns a non-adjacent response message to the second terminal, where the returned message carries the external identifier of the first terminal.
Further, the application layer device determines whether the second terminal has a function that can be discovered by other terminals according to the following steps:
the application layer equipment determines an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier of the second terminal carried in the received proximity relation discovery request according to the mapping relation between the internal identifier and the external identifier stored in the application layer equipment, and acquires the subscription information of the second terminal from the subscription information stored in the application layer equipment; and
the application layer device determines, according to the subscription information of the second terminal, whether the second terminal has a function that can be discovered by other terminals, specifically:
and if the proximity relation subscription information contained in the subscription information is that the terminal is allowed to be discovered by other terminals and is not allowed to be discovered by other terminals, or the terminal is allowed to be discovered by other terminals and is allowed to be discovered by other terminals, determining that the second terminal has the function of allowing the second terminal to be discovered by other terminals.
If the subscription information does not include proximity relation subscription information (i.e., the terminal does not have a proximity relation discovery function), or the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is that the terminal allows discovery of other terminals and is not allowed to be discovered by other terminals, or the proximity relation subscription information of the terminal is that the terminal does not allow discovery of other terminals and is not allowed to discover other terminals, it is determined that the second terminal does not have a function allowing discovery of other terminals.
In the embodiment of the invention, when the application layer device judges whether the first terminal and the second terminal meet the set social relationship and the proximity principle, the judgment sequence is not limited; namely:
the application layer device may first determine whether the first terminal and the second terminal satisfy a set social relationship; if the set social relationship is not met, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal; if the set social relationship is met, continuously judging whether the first terminal and the second terminal meet the proximity principle; if the proximity principle is met, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal; if the proximity principle is not satisfied, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal;
the application layer device may also determine whether the first terminal and the second terminal satisfy the proximity principle, and if not, determine that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal; if the proximity principle is met, continuously judging whether the first terminal and the second terminal meet the set social relationship; if the set social relationship is met, determining that the second terminal is adjacent to the first terminal; and if the set social relationship is not satisfied, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal.
In this embodiment, the application layer device may perform the proximity relationship discovery process only when it is determined that the first terminal has a function of allowing discovery of other terminals (that is, the proximity relationship subscription information of the first terminal is: allowing discovery of other terminals and not allowing discovery of other terminals, or allowing discovery of other terminals and allowing discovery of other terminals), and the second terminal has a function of allowing discovery of other terminals (that is, the proximity relationship subscription information of the second terminal is: allowing discovery of other terminals and not allowing discovery of other terminals, or allowing discovery of other terminals and allowing discovery of other terminals), that is, it is determined whether the first terminal and the second terminal satisfy the proximity rule and the set social relationship.
For the second proximity relation discovery request, step 43 further includes:
the application layer equipment determines all second terminals which meet the proximity principle with the first terminal; and
the application layer device determines all second terminals which have the functions which can be discovered by other terminals and meet the set social relationship with the first terminal.
In this embodiment, after determining all the second terminals that satisfy the proximity rule with the first terminal, the application layer device does not limit the order of determining whether the second terminals have functions that can be discovered by other terminals and determining whether the second terminals and the first terminal satisfy the set social relationship;
for each determined second terminal, the application layer device may first determine, according to subscription information of the second terminal, whether the second terminal has a function that can be discovered by other terminals, and if not, determine that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal; if yes, judging whether the social relationship between the first terminal and the second terminal meets the set social relationship, and if yes, determining that the second terminal is adjacent to the first terminal; if not, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal;
for each determined second terminal, the application layer device may further determine whether the second terminal and the first terminal satisfy a set social relationship, and if not, determine that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal; if yes, judging whether the second terminal has a function which can be found by other terminals, and if yes, determining that the second terminal is adjacent to the first terminal; and if not, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal.
Correspondingly, in step 44, the sending, by the application layer device, the determination result to the first terminal includes:
if the second terminal which has the functions that can be found by other terminals and satisfies the proximity principle and the set social relationship with the first terminal exists as a result of the determination in the step 43, the application layer device returns a successful response message to the first terminal and feeds back the determined external identifiers and/or position information of all the second terminals to the first terminal;
if the determination result in step 43 is that there is no second terminal that satisfies the above condition, the application layer device returns a failure response message to the first terminal.
Preferably, step 44 further includes: the application layer equipment sends the judgment result to the second terminal;
specifically, if the result of the determination in step 43 is that a certain second terminal and the first terminal satisfy the above condition, the application layer device returns a response message adjacent to the first terminal to the second terminal, where the returned message carries the external identifier of the first terminal.
Preferably, the application layer device sends the judgment result in step 43 to the first terminal and/or the second terminal through an application layer message.
The above method process flow may be implemented by a software program, which may be stored in a storage medium, and when the stored software program is called, the above method steps are performed.
Based on the foregoing embodiments, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an application layer device, as shown in fig. 7, where the application layer device includes:
an obtaining module 70, configured to obtain and store subscription information of each terminal, a mapping relationship between an internal identifier and an external identifier, and location information;
a receiving module 71, configured to, after receiving a proximity relationship discovery request of a first terminal, determine, by an application layer device, that the first terminal has a function of being able to discover other terminals according to subscription information corresponding to the first terminal stored in the obtaining module 70, where the proximity relationship discovery request carries an external identifier of the first terminal;
a determining module 72, configured to determine whether the second terminal and the first terminal satisfy a proximity rule;
a sending module 73, configured to send the determination result of the determining module 72 to the first terminal.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the second terminal refers to a terminal different from the first terminal.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the proximity rule means that a distance between the first terminal and the second terminal satisfies a predetermined condition.
Further, the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal satisfying the setting condition includes: the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal is not greater than a set threshold, or the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same cell, or the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same base station.
Further, the decision module 72 is further configured to: and when judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the proximity principle, judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the set social relationship.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the set social relationship means that the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network satisfies the set condition, where the application layer device may query the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network in a context stored by the application layer device, for example, the UE1 and the UE2 are a friendship, and the UE1 and the UE3 are not a friendship; for another example, UE1 belongs to the same group as UE2, UE2 does not belong to the same group as UE 3; and the like;
the set social relationship may be that the second terminal to be determined is in a friendship with the first terminal, or that the second terminal to be determined and the first terminal belong to the same set group, and so on; in the embodiment of the invention, the conditions which need to be met in the process of discovering the identity relationship of each terminal registered in the same social network can be set according to actual needs.
Further, the obtaining module 70 is specifically configured to:
establishing PDN connection with each terminal; and receiving and storing the current position information reported by each terminal, wherein the position information comprises: the identification ID of the cell where the terminal currently resides, the ID of the base station where the terminal currently resides, and the geographical location information of the terminal.
Further, the obtaining module 70 is specifically configured to:
the method comprises the steps of initiating a signing information acquisition request to an intermediate interactive device, receiving and storing signing information of a terminal returned by the intermediate interactive device and a mapping relation between an internal identifier and an external identifier of the terminal, wherein the signing information acquisition request carries the external identifier of the terminal.
Further, if the proximity relation discovery request is: the method comprises the steps that a first terminal requests to determine whether the first terminal and a second terminal designated by the first terminal meet a proximity principle and a set social relationship, and a proximity relationship discovery request also carries an external identifier of the second terminal; the decision module 72 is specifically configured to:
determining whether the second terminal has a function that can be discovered by other terminals according to the proximity relation subscription information of the second terminal; when the second terminal is determined to have the function which can be discovered by other terminals and meet the set social relationship and proximity principle with the first terminal, the second terminal is determined to be adjacent to the first terminal; and when the second terminal is determined not to have the function which can be found by other terminals, or does not satisfy the set social relationship with the first terminal, or does not satisfy the proximity principle with the first terminal, determining that the second terminal is not adjacent to the first terminal.
Further, if the proximity relation discovery request is: the first terminal requests to determine all second terminals which satisfy the proximity principle and set social relation with the first terminal; the decision module 72 is specifically configured to:
determining all second terminals which meet the proximity principle with the first terminal; and determining all second terminals which have functions which can be discovered by other terminals and meet the set social relationship with the first terminal.
Correspondingly, the sending module 73 is further configured to:
and feeding back the external identification and/or the position information of all the second terminals which have the functions which can be discovered by other terminals and meet the set social relationship with the first terminal to the first terminal.
Further, the receiving module 71 is specifically configured to:
determining an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier of the first terminal carried in the received proximity relationship discovery request according to the mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier stored in the obtaining module 70; according to the internal identifier of the first terminal, determining the subscription information corresponding to the internal identifier from the subscription information of the terminal stored in the obtaining module 70;
accordingly, the decision module 72 is further configured to: determining an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier of the second terminal carried in the proximity relationship discovery request received by the receiving module 71 according to the mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier stored in the obtaining module 70; according to the internal identifier of the second terminal, the subscription information corresponding to the internal identifier is determined from the subscription information of the terminal stored in the obtaining module 70, and it is determined whether the second terminal has a function that can be discovered by other terminals.
Further, the sending module 73 is further configured to: and sending the judgment result to the second terminal.
Based on the foregoing embodiments, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a communication system, as shown in fig. 8, where the communication system includes:
the application layer device 81 is configured to acquire and store subscription information of each terminal, a mapping relationship between an internal identifier and an external identifier, and location information; after receiving a proximity relation discovery request of a first terminal 82, determining that the first terminal 82 has a function of being capable of discovering other terminals according to proximity relation subscription information corresponding to the first terminal 82; judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal 82 meet the set social relationship and the proximity principle, and feeding back the judgment result to the first terminal 82; wherein, the external identifier of the first terminal 82 is carried in the proximity relation discovery request;
the first terminal 82 is configured to send a proximity relationship discovery request to the application layer device, and receive a determination result fed back by the application layer device.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the second terminal refers to a terminal different from the first terminal.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the proximity rule means that a distance between the first terminal and the second terminal satisfies a predetermined condition.
Further, the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal satisfying the setting condition includes: the distance between the first terminal and the second terminal is not greater than a set threshold, or the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same cell, or the first terminal and the second terminal reside in the same base station.
Further, the application layer device 81 is also configured to: and when judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the proximity principle, judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the set social relationship.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the set social relationship means that the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network satisfies the set condition, where the application layer device may query the identity relationship between terminals registered in the same social network in a context stored by the application layer device, for example, the UE1 and the UE2 are a friendship, and the UE1 and the UE3 are not a friendship; for another example, UE1 belongs to the same group as UE2, UE2 does not belong to the same group as UE 3; and the like;
the set social relationship may be that the second terminal to be determined is in a friendship with the first terminal, or that the second terminal to be determined and the first terminal belong to the same set group, and so on; in the embodiment of the invention, the conditions which need to be met in the process of discovering the identity relationship of each terminal registered in the same social network can be set according to actual needs.
Further, the communication system further includes: intermediate interaction device 83 and HSS 84; wherein,
the intermediate interaction device 83 is configured to send, after receiving the subscription information acquisition request sent by the application layer device 81, an inquiry request to the HSS84, where the inquiry request carries an external identifier of the terminal; and sends the subscription information fed back by the HSS84 and the mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier of the terminal to the application layer device 81;
the HSS84 is configured to, after receiving the query request, determine an internal identifier corresponding to the external identifier of the terminal carried in the query request according to a mapping relationship between the internal identifier and the external identifier, and send subscription information corresponding to the determined internal identifier and the mapping relationship between the internal identifier of the terminal and the external identifier to the intermediate interaction device 83.
After receiving a proximity relation discovery request of a first terminal, an application layer device determines that the first terminal has a function of discovering other terminals according to proximity relation subscription information corresponding to the first terminal; judging whether the second terminal and the first terminal meet the proximity principle or not, and sending a judgment result to the first terminal; the embodiment of the invention provides a scheme for determining the proximity relation between user equipment, which has small change on the network architecture in the existing protocol and is easy to realize.
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, embodiments of the present invention may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.
The present invention is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.
While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described, additional variations and modifications in those embodiments may occur to those skilled in the art once they learn of the basic inventive concepts. Therefore, it is intended that the appended claims be interpreted as including preferred embodiments and all such alterations and modifications as fall within the scope of the invention.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, if such modifications and variations of the present invention fall within the scope of the claims of the present invention and their equivalents, the present invention is also intended to include such modifications and variations.