JP2006050207A - Full duplex control system by radio lan - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a full duplex control system by a radio LAN capable of efficiently changing full duplex communication by the two radio standards of high speed communication and low speed communication, concerning the full duplex control system by the radio LAN which is connected by radio wave to a radio terminal, or which is connected to another terminal by radio wave via an access point. <P>SOLUTION: The radio terminal performs uplink communication for transmission from the radio terminal and downlink communication in an opposite direction simultaneously through the use of two non-interference channels (frequency) as the radio standard of the high speed communication and the radio standard of the low speed communication, including a route control unit having means for measuring the amount of data to be transferred in each one of the uplink and downlink directions, and dynamically performing changeover so as to allocate the radio standard of the high speed communication radio to the direction with the large amount of data and to allocate the radio standard of the low speed communication to the direction with the small amount of data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a full-duplex control system using a wireless LAN.

  In recent years, the use of a wireless LAN in which an access point is wirelessly accessed from a plurality of personal computers and connected to a server or another personal computer via the LAN to transmit and receive data has increased. In such a wireless LAN, the bandwidth of the available wireless channel is limited, and a wide bandwidth (high speed) cannot be used for bidirectional wireless communication, so that improvement is desired.

  FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a wireless LAN. In the figure, reference numeral 80 denotes a hub (indicated by HUB) for connecting a plurality of terminals to each other, 81 and 82 are PCs (personal computers), terminals A such as portable terminals, and terminals D and 83 are for communicating with wireless terminals. Access points (indicated by AP) 84 and 85 are a wireless terminal B and a wireless terminal C.

  In such a configuration, when data is transferred from the terminal A to the wireless terminal B, it is performed by a route passing through the access point 83 and the hub 80. In this state, when a data transfer request from the wireless terminal C to the terminal D is generated, since the wireless terminal B and the wireless terminal C use the same channel (frequency), a plurality of communications via the access point 83 are simultaneously performed. Can not do. Accordingly, the wireless terminal C waits for the data transfer from the terminal A to the wireless terminal B to end and starts data transfer with the terminal D.

  In the case of data transfer from the wireless terminal B to the wireless terminal C, data cannot be transmitted from the access point 83 to the wireless terminal B while data is being transmitted from the terminal A to the access point 83. Then, the data is stored, and the data transmission from the access point 83 to the wireless terminal B is performed after the data transmission from the terminal A is completed and the channel becomes free.

  In the wireless LAN system using one channel described above, the wireless LAN portion becomes half-duplex operation. Therefore, even if the wired LAN portion can perform full-duplex operation, the wireless portion becomes a bottleneck and the entire system becomes half-duplex. There is a problem that the performance of the entire system is inferior because of double operation.

  In order to solve this, a high-speed channel cannot be used, but a communication system that performs full-duplex communication in an environment where two high-speed and low-speed channels can be used has been proposed (see Patent Document 1). FIG. 7 shows the configuration of a conventional full-duplex communication system. In the figure, 90 is a computer, 91 is a high-speed wireless device, 92 is a low-speed wireless device, 93 is a control device, 94 is a printer, 95 is a high-speed wireless device, 96 is a low-speed wireless device, and 97 is a control device.

In this example, the printer driver of the computer 90 transmits a large amount of print data, so that it is transmitted through the high-speed wireless device 91. The printer 94 prints print data received through the high-speed wireless devices 91 and 95. Information to be returned from the printer 94 to the computer 90 is transmitted through the low-speed wireless device 96, and the computer 90 receives and processes it by the low-speed wireless device 92. For example, IEEE802.11a, which is a high-speed wireless LAN standard, is used as a high-speed wireless device. Can be used.
JP 2002-271339 A

  When the prior art full-duplex communication system shown in FIG. 7 determines in advance that the amount of communication data in the communication direction from the computer to the printer is larger than the amount of data transmitted from the printer to the computer. Although high-speed wireless devices can be effectively communicated by assigning them to the communication direction, if a direction with a large amount of data cannot be determined depending on the type of data, a high-speed wireless standard (wireless device) should be used for those with a small amount of data. However, there is a possibility that a low-speed wireless standard (wireless device) may be assigned to a person with a large amount of data, and effective communication may not be realized.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a wireless LAN full-duplex control method capable of efficiently changing the allocation of communication devices when performing full-duplex communication using a high-speed wireless standard and a low-speed wireless standard in a wireless LAN. .

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a principle configuration of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a wireless terminal, 10 is a communication protocol control unit, 11 is a route control that determines whether to use a high-speed (or low-speed) wireless standard in an uplink or downlink direction and performs route switching control. 11a is a route switching means, 12 is a high-speed wireless device that performs communication according to a high-speed wireless standard, 13 is a low-speed wireless device that performs communication according to a low-speed wireless standard, and 14 has information processing and input / output functions in the terminal. An information processing unit. The high-speed wireless device 12 and the low-speed wireless device 13 are wireless devices that use two non-interfering channels (frequencies) of different standards.

  The wireless terminal 1 of the present invention is configured, for example, as a personal computer (PC) having a wireless communication function, and includes a high-speed wireless device 12 and a low-speed wireless device 13 according to different standards (channels (frequencies) that do not interfere with each other) as the wireless communication function. Is provided. The route control unit 11 is connected between the high-speed wireless device 12, the low-speed wireless device 13, and the communication protocol control unit 10 (in the direction of transmission from the wireless terminal 1 to the partner wireless device) and downstream (transmitted from the partner wireless device and transmitted wirelessly). The route switching means 11a is configured to measure the amount of data in the direction (received by the terminal 1), perform communication in a direction with a large amount of data by the high-speed wireless device 12, and perform communication in a direction with a small amount of data by the low-speed wireless device 13. It is to switch. As shown by a solid line in FIG. 1, the high-speed wireless device 12 is used for uplink and the low-speed wireless device 13 is used for downlink as shown by a solid line in FIG. The high-speed wireless device 12 is used for communication in the downlink direction, and the low-speed wireless device 13 is used for communication in the uplink direction. Transmission data is output from the information processing unit 14, and reception data is input to the information processing unit 14. Note that a wireless LAN access point or a device similar to the wireless terminal 1 can be used as a communication partner device, but these partner devices also have the same principle configuration as shown in FIG. Both devices that perform the communication can perform communication by switching the use of the high-speed wireless device and the low-speed wireless device by the same mechanism.

  According to the present invention, when performing full-duplex communication in which uplink and downlink data communication is performed simultaneously by high-speed communication and low-speed communication, a direction with a large amount of data is executed by a high-speed communication device, and a direction with a small amount of data is transmitted with low-speed communication. Efficient communication can be realized by executing the system. In addition, even when the direction with a large amount of data changes frequently, a high-speed wireless standard can always be used in the direction with a large amount of data, so that the best performance can be achieved.

  FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the route control unit. In the figure, 110 is a data amount measuring unit, 111 is a route determining unit, and 112 is a route switching unit (corresponding to the route switching means 11a in FIG. 1).

  The operation of FIG. 2 will be described. The data amount measurement unit 110 always receives data in the upstream direction (the direction in which the wireless terminal (PC or the like) transmits to the access point or another PC) and the downstream direction (the wireless terminal (PC)). Direction), measure the amount of data flowing per fixed time. The route determination unit 111 determines a wireless standard (high-speed wireless device or low-speed wireless device) to be used in the uplink direction and the downlink direction based on the measurement result information from the data amount measurement unit 110. In other words, the switch is controlled so that a high-speed wireless standard (high-speed wireless device) is used as a route in a direction with a large amount of data, and a low-speed wireless standard (low-speed wireless device) is used as a route in a direction with a small amount of data. . For example, IEEE802.11a, which is a high-speed wireless LAN standard, is used as a high-speed wireless standard, and IEEE802.11b, which is a low-speed wireless device, is used as a low-speed wireless device.

  The configuration of the embodiment of each part shown in FIG. 2 is shown in FIGS. 3 to 5 and will be described below.

  FIG. 3 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the data amount measuring unit. In the figure, 110a is an S / P (series-parallel) conversion unit to which transmission data is input, and 110b is an S / P (series / parallel) to which reception data is input. ) A conversion unit, 110c is a transmission data number counter, 110d is a reception data number counter, and 110e is an interval timer. Transmission data and reception data are converted into parallel data by S / P (serial-parallel) converters 110a and 110b, respectively. The interval timer 110e generates an output every data amount measurement period, and the transmission data number counter 110c and the reception data number counter 110d are included in the parallel outputs of the S / P (serial-parallel) conversion units 110a and 110b, respectively. The number of data is counted, and the counted result is output to the route determination unit (111 in FIG. 2).

  FIG. 4 shows the configuration of the embodiment of the route determination unit, in which 111a is a transmission data number holding unit, 111b is a reception data number holding unit, and 111c is a size determination unit. The transmission data number holding unit 111a and the reception data number holding unit 111b determine the number of transmission data and the number of reception data by the size determination unit 111c, and the radio used in uplink and downlink based on the determination result from the size determination unit 111c Determine the standard. In this case, the determination is made based on the result of the amount of data, and the determined result is output to the route switching unit (112 in FIG. 2).

  It should be noted that the parameters for determining the uplink and downlink radio standards in the route determination unit are not only the difference in the uplink and downlink data amounts as in this embodiment, but also the method of obtaining the change tendency of the data amount in each direction, etc. There are also methods for comprehensively judging these alone or in combination. In addition, this parameter can be set at a fixed value, but it can be made variable and tuned for each system.

  Based on the determination result of the route determination unit 111, the route switching unit 112 switches the route. FIG. 5 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the route switching unit. In the figure, 112a and 112b are transmission data and received data frame delimiter detection units, 112c is a frame switching unit, 112d is a transmission data switching unit, and 112e is a reception unit. This is a data switching unit.

  The route switching unit receives the result of size determination output from the route determination unit shown in FIG. 4 at the frame switching unit 112c. The determination result indicates which of the transmission data (uplink direction) or reception data (downlink) data amount is greater, and the frame switching unit 112c uses the frame segment detection unit 112a to determine the timing of the frame segment detection signal (in block units). Then, the uplink direction (transmission direction) is switched. In the downlink direction (reception direction), the frame (block) received from the wireless device is transferred as it is to the communication protocol control unit (10 in FIG. 1).

  For example, when the data amount of the transmission data is larger, the transmission is switched so that the transmission data input from the switching unit 112d is output from the high-speed wireless device side at the timing when the frame delimiter detection unit 112a detects the frame. At this time, the frame switching unit 112c performs control to switch reception data to be input from the low-speed wireless device.

It is a figure which shows the principle structure of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of a route control part. It is a figure which shows the structure of the Example of a data amount measurement part. It is a figure which shows the structure of the Example of a route determination part. It is a figure which shows the structure of the Example of a route switching part. It is explanatory drawing of wireless LAN. It is a figure which shows the structure of the conventional full-duplex communication system.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Wireless terminal 10 Communication protocol control part 11 Route control part 11a Route switching means 12 High-speed wireless apparatus 13 Low-speed wireless apparatus 14 Information processing part

Claims (4)

A full-duplex control method using a wireless LAN connected to another terminal via an access point or wirelessly connected to another wireless terminal wirelessly,
The wireless terminal simultaneously performs downlink communication in the reverse direction to the uplink transmitted from the wireless terminal using two non-interfering channels (frequencies) as a wireless standard performing high-speed communication and a wireless standard performing low-speed communication. ,
A route control unit including means for measuring the amount of data transferred in each of the uplink and downlink directions and dynamically switching so that a direction with a large amount of data is a wireless standard for high-speed communication and a direction with a small amount is a wireless standard for low-speed communication A full-duplex control method using a wireless LAN. In claim 1,
The route control unit compares the data amount measured by the data amount measuring unit with the data amount measuring unit that measures the uplink data amount and the downlink data amount, and in which direction the data amount is larger. A route determination unit for determining, and a route switching unit for switching transfer in a direction with a large amount of data to use a wireless standard for high-speed communication according to a result determined by the route determination unit. Double control method. In claim 2,
The data amount measuring unit includes a counter that counts the number of data in each direction in the upstream direction and the downstream direction, and an interval timer that generates an output for each preset period. A full-duplex control method using a wireless LAN, characterized by outputting a count value. In claim 2,
The route switching unit includes a frame delimiter detection unit for each of uplink data and downlink data, and performs switching at a frame delimiter timing detected by the frame delimiter detection unit. Full duplex control method.

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