JP2004334736A - Software radio terminal and software communication method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a software radio terminal and a software providing method for making it unnecessary to provide any infrastructure facility for download, for reducing setting costs, for downloading/uploading software anywhere when there is any other communicating party and for establishing an inexpensive communication network whose secrecy property is high by uploading software only to a terminal in which software is registered. <P>SOLUTION: A software radio terminal is provided with an uploadable/downloadable module, and added with a function of uploading radio software owned by its own terminal to the other station(and terminal), or of downloading radio software owned by the other station. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a software defined radio technology that flexibly uses common wireless hardware by changing software, and more particularly to a software defined radio terminal having software radio means mounted on a radio terminal, and software implemented in the software defined radio terminal. And a software communication method for performing communication by uploading and downloading.
[0002]
[Prior art]
The software defined radio technology, which is the basic technology of the present invention, will be described.
Conventionally, when performing wireless communication using wireless radio waves, a wireless device corresponding to the wireless method is required for the wireless method for performing the wireless communication, and when using a plurality of wireless methods, In general, it is necessary to have as many radios as radio systems. In recent years, wireless systems using various frequency bands have been devised due to advances in wireless hardware and software technologies, ultra-high density and high functionality of communication LSIs, and the rapid spread of wireless terminals. A variety of corresponding hardware is provided. In addition, in order to effectively use limited frequency resources, the development of new frequency bands and the development of new wireless systems are progressing, and the types of hardware are expected to increase in the future.
[0003]
For such radios that can only support one radio system, in order to cope with the radio systems that will increase more and more in the future, use common hardware for multiple radio systems and appropriately implement software to implement them. Software radio technology that switches the radio system to be used by changing the software technology has been developed.
[0004]
In the case of a software defined radio, hardware as a device is common, and processing as a communication method is realized by digital signal processing software in an internal signal processing unit. Therefore, the physical size does not increase even if the number of modulation / demodulation schemes to be handled increases, and additional functions and parameter changes can be flexibly dealt with by additional software changes.
[0005]
FIG. 5 shows a modulation / demodulation block diagram of the software defined radio terminal.
As shown in the figure, the software defined radio includes a transmission unit 70, a reception unit 71, and a software control unit 72. Transmitting section 70 has modulation processing section 10 and transmitting section 11, and transmits radio signal Q17 based on data signal P19. The receiving device section 71 includes a receiving section 12 that receives the radio signal R16, and a demodulation processing section 13 that demodulates the signal to obtain a data signal S. The software control unit 72 includes a software IO unit 15 that can be connected to the external download device 73, and a software memory unit 14 that stores downloaded software and appropriately provides the software to the modulation processing unit 10 and the demodulation processing unit 13.
[0006]
In the above configuration, the modulation processing unit 10 of the transmission device unit 70 receives the data signal P19 as input, implements modulation processing software supplied from the software memory unit 14, performs modulation processing, and performs the demodulation processing of the reception device unit 71. The unit 13 implements demodulation processing software supplied from the software memory unit 14 and performs a demodulation process to obtain a data signal S18.
[0007]
The modulation processing unit 10 and the demodulation processing unit 13 shown in FIG. 1 execute voice encoding / decoding processing, digital modulation / demodulation processing, and analog modulation / demodulation processing in accordance with the communication system, and are generally performed by a programmable device such as an FPGA or DSP. Be composed.
An apparatus that processes a plurality of modulation schemes using common hardware, such as a software defined radio, has adjustment locations, that is, parameters, by the number of modulation schemes of the apparatus, and the adjustment is performed by software processing. By performing software processing, it is possible to flexibly control a plurality of modulation schemes.
[0008]
When using a wireless terminal that implements such software defined radio technology, several methods have been proposed for downloading the software.
The most common method is to transfer wireless software data to a memory area of a software defined radio terminal using a recording medium, or to transfer wireless software data to a memory area of a software defined radio terminal using a wired network such as a LAN. There are methods. When these methods are used, a recording medium interface device or a wired connection is required, so that the hardware as a wireless device becomes large, and the work of connecting the wired to each other's connectors becomes complicated. As an alternative, a method of downloading using a radio wave has been devised (for example, see Patent Document 1).
[0009]
As shown in FIG. 6, a technique described in Patent Document 1 includes a software wireless terminal 23 having a download wireless unit 24 and a communication software wireless unit 25, a download base station 21 storing software, and a downloaded wireless software. The software wireless terminal 23 is configured to download software from the download base station 21 to the software wireless terminal using a highly public wireless communication means, and the software wireless terminal 23 transmits the downloaded software to the software wireless terminal. To communicate with the communication network 22. With such a configuration, it is not necessary to add a recording media interface or a wired interface to the software defined radio terminal, so that the device can be reduced in size and weight, and downloading can be easily performed.
[0010]
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-77030
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, the above-described conventional technology requires infrastructure equipment that stores software for download and transmits software to software wireless terminals located in the vicinity, and network equipment that monitors and controls the software. -The management cost is increased, and in an area where such a download base station does not exist, there is a problem that communication cannot be performed if the wireless system is different from the communication partner.
[0012]
The present invention does not require infrastructure for download, does not require installation cost, etc., allows downloading / uploading wherever there is a communication partner, and uploads only to the terminal where the software is registered. It is an object of the present invention to provide a software wireless terminal and a software communication method capable of establishing a low-cost and highly confidential communication network.
[0013]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
According to the present invention, a software wireless terminal is provided with a module capable of uploading / downloading, and the wireless software held by the own terminal is uploaded to the partner station (and the terminal), or the wireless software held by the partner station is downloaded. Add functions that can be used. If such hardware is provided, it is possible to perform mutual communication using a wireless method that is desired to communicate between wireless terminals originally having only software of different wireless methods.
[0014]
That is, the software defined radio terminal of the present invention includes a first radio unit having a function of downloading and uploading radio software using radio waves having a predetermined radio frequency band, and a first radio unit using the radio software. A second wireless unit that performs wireless communication using radio waves having a different wireless frequency band from the first wireless unit.
[0015]
Also, the software communication method of the present invention includes a step of transmitting a communication start request to a communication partner, transmitting wireless software information to the communication partner, and receiving wireless software information of the communication partner from the communication partner. And the step of downloading communication software that can communicate from the communication partner, or uploading the wireless software that can communicate with the communication partner, if the communication partner does not have wireless software for the same communication method, Performing wireless communication using the downloaded or uploaded wireless software.
[0016]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. As shown in the figure, the present invention provides a software defined radio terminal 1, a software defined radio terminal 2 which communicates with the software defined radio terminal 1, a software transmission line 3 for transmitting wireless software and transmitting a transmission control signal, It is configured by a wireless communication transmission line 4 that performs wireless communication by software.
[0017]
The software defined radio terminal 1 is equipped with a software transfer radio module and a communication radio module. When performing radio communication with the opposing software defined radio terminal 2, the software radio terminal 1 uses the highly versatile software transfer transmission line 3 to perform self-communication. Information necessary for establishing communication, such as the wireless system information of the terminal, is exchanged with the opposed software wireless terminal 2. Then, when both terminals have the same wireless system software, the software is executed to establish the wireless communication transmission path 4 between both terminals. On the other hand, if both terminals only have software of different wireless systems, wireless software is transmitted from one terminal (for example, software wireless terminal 1) to the other terminal (for example, software wireless terminal 2), and the software is received. The terminal that has executed the software establishes the wireless communication transmission path 4 between the two terminals.
[0018]
FIG. 2 shows a functional block diagram of the software defined radio terminal in the present invention. As shown in the figure, the software defined radio terminal includes a transmission unit 85, a reception unit 86, and a software control unit 87. The modulation processing unit 33 of the transmission device unit 85 receives the data signal P83 as input, implements modulation processing software supplied from the software memory unit 37, performs modulation processing, and sends the modulated data to the transmission unit 34. The signal is converted to a signal Q81 and wirelessly transmitted. The receiving unit 35 of the receiving unit 86 receives the radio signal R80 as input, implements demodulation processing software supplied from the software memory unit 37 in the demodulation processing unit 36, and performs a demodulation process to obtain a data signal S82. The software control section 87 includes a software memory section 37, a software transfer control section 31, and a control signal and software transmission / reception section 32. Software 84 necessary for modulation and demodulation is obtained and stored in the software memory unit 37.
[0019]
Also, when transmitting the software of the own terminal to the opposite terminal, the software transfer control unit 31 obtains the use permission of the software by the transmission authentication unit 30 that authenticates the software transmission to the user via the user interface or the like. Then, the wireless software is transmitted to the opposite software wireless terminal.
[0020]
The modulation processing unit 33 and the demodulation processing unit 36 shown in the figure execute voice encoding / decoding processing, digital modulation / demodulation processing, and analog modulation / demodulation processing according to the communication system, and are generally performed by programmable devices such as FPGA and DSP. is there.
[0021]
FIG. 3 shows a flow of software transmission according to the present invention in the case where two software defined radio terminals establish communication as shown in FIG. A person who uploads software is called a master terminal, and a person who downloads software is called a slave terminal. The one that has transmitted the communication start request will be the master terminal.
[0022]
The master terminal transmits a communication start request to the opposing terminal using the software transfer transmission path 3 of FIG. 1 (S40), and starts transmission and reception of wireless software information held by each other (S41). Here, the transmitted and received wireless software information includes information necessary for performing wireless communication, such as software version information and license information relating to software use. The slave terminal determines based on the wireless software information transmitted from the master terminal whether or not both terminals use the same wireless system and can communicate with each other (S42). This processing may be determined by the master terminal receiving information from the slave terminal.
[0023]
If the result of this determination is that both terminals can establish a transmission path for wireless communication using the same communication method (S42, Y), the communication transmission path 4 shown in FIG. (Step S50).
[0024]
On the other hand, if the result of the determination is that the software is not of the same communication method (S42, N), the process moves to the process of setting the wireless software of both terminals to the same communication method.
In order to make the wireless software of both terminals have the same communication method, first, a transmission authentication process is performed (S43). This transmission authentication process means that the master side wireless software is transmitted to the slave side terminal to match the master side communication method, or conversely, the slave side wireless software is matched to the slave side communication method. Is transmitted to the master terminal. In addition, authentication is performed by confirming whether or not the transmission is possible from the hardware ID of the partner terminal to upload / download or the user information. By performing such an authentication process, it becomes possible to transmit the wireless software only to a partner who wants to establish communication.
[0025]
If the two terminals do not have the same hardware specifications and communication cannot be established even if the wireless software is the same, or if it is determined that the terminal is not the partner terminal that transmits the wireless software (S43, N), this transmission authentication is performed. The processing becomes NG (S47), and the communication transmission path is not established (S48).
[0026]
If it is determined that both terminals have the same hardware specification and that the terminals are authenticated to transmit wireless software (S43, Y), the process proceeds to wireless software transmission processing (S44). The wireless software is transmitted from the master side to the slave side (or from the slave side to the master side when matching with the slave side wireless software). The terminal on the downloading side installs the software and performs processing for establishing a wireless transmission path for communication (S45), and communication is started using a communication method desired to communicate with each other (S46).
[0027]
As an application example of the present invention, there is an electronic conference system as shown in FIG. When the software wireless terminal and the software download system of the present invention are used, a software wireless terminal that is common hardware of the wireless terminals 60 to 66 in FIG. An electronic conference as a highly confidential communication network that is isolated from the outside only within its group by transmitting the same wireless software to each other's software terminals without cable connection or external recording media. A network 67 can be established.
[0028]
【The invention's effect】
As described in detail above, according to the present invention, there is no need for an infrastructure for download, no installation cost or the like, and download / upload can be performed at any location with a communication partner. In addition, since the software is uploaded only to the terminal in which the software is registered, an inexpensive and highly confidential communication network can be established.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a software defined radio terminal according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an electronic conference system showing an application example of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of a conventional software defined radio terminal.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation of a conventional software defined radio terminal.
[Explanation of symbols]
1, 2, 60 to 66 software radio terminal, 30 transmission authentication unit, 31 software transfer control unit, 32 control signal and software transmission / reception unit, 33 modulation processing unit, 34 transmission unit, 35 reception unit, 36 demodulation processing unit, 37 software Memory unit, 67 electronic conference network, 85 transmitting unit, 86 receiving unit, 87 software control unit.

Claims (2)

A first wireless unit having a function of downloading and uploading wireless software using radio waves having a predetermined wireless frequency band, and a wireless frequency band different from the first wireless unit using the wireless software. And a second wireless unit that performs wireless communication using radio waves having the following. Sending a communication start request to a communication partner;
Transmitting wireless software information to a communication partner and receiving wireless software information of the communication partner from the communication partner; and
If the communication partner does not have wireless software for the same communication method, downloading communication software that can communicate from the communication partner, or uploading wireless software that can communicate to the communication partner,
Performing wireless communication using the downloaded or uploaded wireless software.

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