JP2009268045A - Convolutional network - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that it is necessary for a high-speed packet mobile communication network in future to exchange radio wave propagation status closely between base stations neighboring to each other, and it is difficult for a conventional mobile communication network, because of its physical network configuration, to exchange information closely between base stations accommodated in different base station control devices. <P>SOLUTION: It is recognized that it is necessary to exchange information closely to each other even between base stations accommodated in different base station control and the base station control device is internally configured to dispatch the information to the opposite side each other within a little latency. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

The present invention relates to a new mobile communication network architecture using a network inter-node connection technology for realizing a mobile communication network that provides advanced services.

A conventional mobile communication network has a configuration in which a large number of base stations are arranged in various places and bundled together by radio control stations that control them and connected to the network. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a conventional mobile communication network. The plurality of base stations are connected to and controlled by the base station controller. Since the number of base stations that can be controlled by one base station controller is limited, in reality, when a certain number of base stations are accommodated, the subsequent base stations are accommodated in the next base station. In the example of FIG. 1, a configuration is shown in which up to the base station 6 is accommodated in the control device 1 and the base station 7 and later are accommodated in the control device 2.

FIG. 2 shows a more realistic base station arrangement. Actual base stations are arranged two-dimensionally. In FIG. 2, each circle indicates the service area of each base station, and the base station is considered to be at the center of each garden. As shown in FIG. 2, the base stations adjacent to each other usually have some service areas overlapping. Which base station a terminal in such an overlapping area should communicate with depends on the radio wave propagation situation at that time. In general, it is said that the radio wave propagation situation is greatly different at a place where the wavelength is ¼, and in a system using the 2HGz band like the WCDMA system, the radio wave propagation differs greatly only by moving about 4 cm, and should be connected. The base station may be different. Therefore, it is necessary to very carefully control which base station the terminal is accommodated between base stations whose areas overlap each other.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing what base stations and areas overlap with each other in the base station arrangement as shown in FIG. The horizontal lines in FIG. 3 indicate which base station each base station has an overlapping area. Obviously, base stations within this range for each base station need to accommodate terminals in close cooperation with each other. Also, it is clear from FIG. 3 that there are overlapping service areas between adjacent base stations in terms of radio wave propagation. This overlap usually occurs between base stations that are close to each other in physical distance, but depending on how the radio waves are reflected, it may occur between base stations that are physically separated to some extent. Base stations with overlapping service areas are called “base stations with a short network distance” in the present invention.

Such base stations having a short network distance may need to change the base station with which the terminal communicates in a very short time, and it is necessary to exchange close information with each other. As shown in FIG. 2, a base station with a short network distance is a base station in the vicinity of each base station, so there is no clear branch point.

However, it is clear that there is no need to exchange close information between all base stations. It is the surrounding base stations viewed from each base station that the terminal may move, that needs to exchange close information. In the present invention, such a network in which base stations having a short network distance can exchange information closely is referred to as a “convolution network” in the present invention.

An actual network often has a star configuration as shown in FIG. The number of base stations is extremely large, and it is expensive to install all of them together. Therefore, a node having a concentrating function is arranged. Such a concentrator is usually called a base station controller. In this case, a problem arises when base stations adjacent to each other are accommodated in different base station control apparatuses. Originally, even when the accommodated base station control devices are different, close cooperation between the base stations is required. (Base stations 4 and 5 and base stations 6 and 7 in the figure correspond to this example). However, it has heretofore been difficult to establish close cooperation between base stations accommodated in physically different control apparatuses.

A technique proposed for solving such problems is soft handoff. This concept will be described with reference to FIG. When the terminal moves from the base station 1 toward the base station 2, the terminal is connected to both the base station 1 and the base station 2 after passing point A. That is, the downlink signal for the terminal is sent from the control device to both the base station 1 and the base station 2, and both the base station 1 and the base station 2 transmit the signal for the terminal. When the terminal passes through the point B, the connection with the base station 1 is canceled and only the base station 2 is connected. Even in the section between A and B, the propagation situation actually changes only by moving a few centimeters, so it is originally desirable that either the base station 1 or the base station 2 controls this terminal and switches it at high speed. As mentioned above, since high-speed control is difficult to realize, soft handoff has solved the problem by bringing in the concept of connection control only at point A and point B and then connecting to both.

This soft handoff approach worked well for telephone services. In other words, in the telephone service, the concept of connection is clear, and it was clear that data will come one after another, so the difference in radio wave environment due to slight movement is ignored, and both are connected on average, quality It was effective to increase In addition, there is a small amount of traffic per terminal, and it is important to carry multiple phone traffic at the same time, and it is important that a phone once connected is not interrupted. It was in agreement.

However, at present, telephones are already widely used by most people, and from now on, providing high-speed data communication is extremely important for mobile communication. In data communication, if a state where there is no information to be transmitted continues, a large amount of data arrives suddenly, and the fluctuation of the data amount per terminal is extremely severe. When a large amount of data arrives, it is extremely important from the viewpoint of user satisfaction to give as much radio resources as possible to the terminal and complete the transmission in a short time. Therefore, in the case of data communication, it is most suitable to communicate with which base station according to the instantaneous radio wave environment, not macro control, such as communication between both base stations between point A and point B in FIG. It is extremely important to perform micro control such as determining whether or not to transmit from an optimal base station. For this purpose, close exchange in a short time such as confirmation of the reception status of the radio waves of the terminal between the adjacent base stations becomes indispensable. In the example of FIG. 1, such close information cooperation is relatively easy between base stations accommodated in the same base station controller such as base station 1 to base station 6. It is not easy to perform such close exchange between base stations accommodated in different base station control devices such as 4 and 5 and base stations 6 and 7. If all base stations are directly connected to each other, close exchange is possible, but this is not realistic. The conventional technology cannot meet such a demand for the future mobile communication network.

The object of the present invention is to allow radio base stations to communicate closely with each other regardless of the physical network configuration between base stations where radio waves interfere with each other as described above. A mobile communication network is provided, and a transmission system from a base station that is optimal for high-speed packet transmission can be performed.

In the present invention, a mobile communication network having a large number of base stations, each base station transmitting terminal information of its own base station to a base station having a short network distance by a method with little delay. The above problem is solved by providing a featured convolutional network.

Note that “a base station with a short network distance” means a base station in which mobile terminals may be handed over directly to each other.

In addition, “a base station with a short network distance” may mean a short physical distance.

Further, “terminal information of own base station” means information necessary for radio resource allocation to terminals under the management of the own base station.

Depending on the configuration, “terminal information of own base station” may mean transmission / reception data in addition to information necessary for radio resource allocation to terminals under the management of the own base station.

In order to realize the present invention, a base station control apparatus that controls a plurality of base stations, and a base station with a short delay between base stations that are close to each other with respect to the base stations under its own station. In some cases, a base station controller for transmitting the terminal information is installed.

Furthermore, a base station control apparatus for controlling a plurality of base stations, wherein a base station outside the base station is connected to a base station near the base station near the base station by a method having a small delay with respect to the base station. In some cases, a base station control device is installed that transmits terminal information and also transmits terminal information from the base station outside the base station to the base station under the base station in a method with little delay. .

As for the base station, the terminal information of the own station is transmitted to the base station having a network distance close to that of the own station by a method with a small delay, and the information from the base station having a network distance close to the own station is a method having a small delay A mobile communication base station characterized by receiving in

ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the mobile communication network which implement | achieves an advanced service by exchanging information closely between mutually adjacent base stations can be provided.

FIG. 5 shows a first embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, it is assumed that the base stations 1 to 6 are connected to the base station controller 200 and the base stations 7 and 8 are connected to the base station controller 300. Further, it is assumed that the mutual interference relationship between the base stations is as shown in FIG.

In this case, the base stations 5 and 6 and the base stations 7 and 8 are accommodated in different base station control apparatuses, but there is a close relationship in terms of interference, and it is necessary to exchange information in a short time. Become.

First, the operation of the base station control apparatus 200 will be described. Signals from the respective base stations are connected to the Ethernet 240 via a modem. Devices connected to the Ethernet 240 can receive signals from other devices. Here, the operation of the modem 250 connected to the base station 6 will be described.

The modem 250 raises the signal received from the base station 6 to the control unit 220 and exchanges information closely with neighboring base stations (in the example of FIG. 2, the base station base stations 4, 5, 7, and 8). In order to do so, the modem 250 is set to receive signals from the base stations 4, 5, 7, and 8. Since the signals from the base stations 4 and 5 are directly connected to the Ethernet 240, the modem 250 can receive the signals. However, since the signals from the base stations 7 and 8 are connected to the base station 300, they cannot be received as they are, and similarly the signals of the own station cannot be transmitted to the base stations 7 and 8.

Since various software processes are performed in the control unit 220, a large processing delay occurs. Therefore, in this embodiment, the filter 230 plays a role of low-delay information transmission with base stations accommodated in other base station controllers. The filter 230 passes signals of base stations (base stations 6 and 7 in this embodiment) to which information should be transmitted to different base station controllers with low delay, and base station addresses to be transmitted (in this case, base stations 7 and 7). 8) is added and sent to the router 210. Conversely, the signals of the base stations 7 and 8 received from the router 210 are sent to the Ethernet. The router 210 sends out the signal sent to the network server processed by the control unit 220 and the base station information from the filter 230 toward the IP network 100. In this case, it is desirable to mark the signal sent from the filter 230 as “high priority”.

The base station controller 300 performs the same process. When attention is paid to the signal from the base station control device 200, the router 310 sends the information of the base stations 5 and 6 of “high priority” among the signals from the base station control device 200 to the filter 330. Other normal signals are sent to the control unit 320. In the filter 330, the signals of the base stations 5 and 6 are sent to the Ethernet 340 and the signals from the base stations 7 and 8 are sent to the filter 230 through the router 210 via the router 210.

In this way, although the base stations 5 and 6 and the base stations 7 and 8 are accommodated in different base station controllers, they can exchange information with each other with a small delay. In this way, the received signal received by the base station 5 is also supplied to the base stations 6 and 7, and even if the radio wave received by another base station becomes stronger in a short time. Reception is possible without problems. Also, downstream signals can be transmitted from the base station with the best conditions. Although various processes are performed in the control units 220 and 320, the contents thereof are not directly related to the present invention and will not be described in detail.

Further, although the Ethernets 240 and 340 have been described as tools for exchanging information between connected devices, it is obvious that such a function can be realized not only by the Ethernet but also by a bus structure.

FIG. 6 shows a second embodiment of the present invention. Here, a case where the base station is directly connected to the IP network 100 is shown. A feature of an IP network is that information can be sent to any node in the network by specifying an address. A number of base stations are connected to the IP network 100. In this example, the configuration of the base station 5 is shown and the operation is described.

A signal input from the antenna terminal 10 is demodulated by the modem 54. The demodulated signal is divided by the multiplexing unit 52 into information to be transmitted to the neighboring base stations with low delay and mainly higher-level stations such as a network gateway. Information that needs to be sent to both should be included in both.

The control unit 51 is a part that handles a signal to be sent to a higher-level station, and various processes are usually performed by software processing. The address management unit 52 assigns a base station address to which low delay information is to be sent. In the case of the base station 5 shown in FIG. 2, the base stations 3, 4, 6, and 7 are assigned as addresses to be sent. The router 50 sends information from the control unit 51 and information from the address management unit 52 to the IP network. In this case, it is desirable to set the information from the address management unit 52 to “high priority”.

On the contrary, when receiving from the IP network, the router 50 captures information of the base stations 3, 4, 6, and 7. This information is passed to the control unit 51 as control information for the terminal. Note that the wireless base function of the conventional base station is realized by the modem 54 and the control unit 51, but how the function is shared by the modem 54 and the control unit 51 is not the main purpose of the present invention. Not detailed. However, it should be pointed out that functions with large processing delays should be performed by the control unit.

When the base station is directly connected to the IP network, it may seem that a convolutional network can be easily realized. In fact, if the IP network 100 is a mesh network that directly connects each other's base stations, a convolutional network can be easily realized. However, in reality, the base stations are not physically connected to each other directly, and in most cases, the hierarchical connection is as shown in FIG. However, since the IP router is used as the interface, and the other base station can be directly designated even if the IP routers are physically separated from each other, the description is as in this embodiment. Therefore, in the exchange between the base stations 5 and 6 and the base stations 7 and 8, a plurality of routers are actually interposed therebetween, and it is not easy to guarantee a low delay. However, in the router field, various devices have been devised to transmit high priority traffic with a low delay. In this embodiment, a convolution network is realized by utilizing these devices.

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, convolution is possible in which base stations that are close to each other in network distance exchange information with a small delay time and can always assign an optimal base station for communication with a terminal. A network can be provided.

  It is a figure which shows the general structure of a mobile communication network.   It is a conceptual diagram which shows the service area of the base station in a mobile communication network.   It is a conceptual diagram which shows the base station which the number of a base station and a radio wave interfere   It is a figure which shows the concept of soft handoff   It is a conceptual diagram which shows the 1st Example of this invention.   It is a conceptual diagram which shows the 2nd Example of this invention.

Claims (8)

  A mobile communication network having a large number of base stations, wherein each base station transmits terminal information of its own base station to a base station having a short network distance by a method with little delay. .   In claim 1, the term “base station with a short network distance” means a convolution network in which mobile terminals may be directly handed over to each other.   In claim 1, the term “base station with a short network distance” means a convolutional network that means a short physical distance.   In the first claim, "terminal information of own base station" means information required for radio resource allocation to terminals under the control of the own base station.   In the first claim, “terminal information of own base station” means a convolutional network that means transmission / reception data in addition to information necessary for radio resource allocation to terminals under the control of the own base station.   A base station control apparatus for controlling a plurality of base stations according to claim 1, wherein the base stations are controlled by a base station with a short network distance between base stations close to each other by a method with a small delay. A base station controller that transmits terminal information.   A base station control apparatus for controlling a plurality of base stations according to claim 1, wherein the base station is not under the control of the base station and has a small delay with respect to the base station under the network of the base station under the control of the base station. The base station control apparatus characterized by transmitting terminal information of the base station and transmitting terminal information from the base station outside the base station to the base station under the base station by a method with little delay.   A mobile communication base station that transmits terminal information of its own station to a base station that is close to the network distance from the local station in a method with little delay, and also transmits information from the base station that is close to the network distance to the local station. Mobile communication base station characterized by receiving signal with low delay

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