JP2013026794A - Radio communication system, and method for detecting silent fault in radio communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve accuracy in auxiliary determination of a silent fault.SOLUTION: A radio communication system 1 includes multiple base stations 10 which are mutually connected via a network 1. Each base station 10 includes a data generation part 14, a determination part 15, and a control part 16. A data generation part 14 generates determination data on the basis of information to be acquired by the base station. The control part exchanges the determination data with the other predetermined base station. The determination part 15 compares the determination data generated by the data generation part with determination data received from the other predetermined base station. The determination part 15 determines the possibility of the occurrence of a silent fault in the base station 10 itself on the basis of the comparison.

Description

  The present invention relates to a wireless communication system for detecting the occurrence of a silent failure and a method for detecting a silent failure in a wireless communication system.

  In a wireless communication system, an event (failure) that hinders the normal operation of the system may occur due to equipment failure or application problem. In order to realize a stable wireless communication system, it is necessary to quickly detect the occurrence of a failure and restore the system.

  When the base station detects a packet loss or a transfer delay during data transfer due to a failure, the base station determines that the communication is abnormal. And a base station notifies the alarm which is error information to a monitoring center (for example, EMS (element management system)). The occurrence of a failure is detected by the alarm.

  However, if the device itself that is judged to be abnormal in communication has deteriorated or failed, an alarm may not be notified to the monitoring center even though a failure has occurred. If an alarm is not notified, the occurrence of a failure will not be detected. As described above, it is known that there is a failure that is not detected despite the occurrence of the failure (see Patent Document 1), and such a failure is called a silent failure.

  Silent failures are not alarms but are discovered in situations such as performance degradation, network delays and inability to communicate, so recovery is more time consuming and expensive than normal failures.

JP 2011-097466 A

  In order to detect silent failures, conventionally, the number of calls from wireless communication terminals at each base station is collected as statistical data and compared with past statistical data. It is determined preliminary whether or not.

  If there is a possibility of silent failure in such preliminary determination, the monitoring device is notified and statistical data is also sent from the base station to the monitoring device. In the monitoring apparatus, a silent failure is detected by performing a secondary determination by an analysis process such as a normality diagnostic test by an operator on a base station in which a silent failure may occur.

  However, in the detection of such a silent failure, since there are various patterns in the collected statistical data, the reliability of the comparison result is low and the accuracy of the preliminary determination is low. In addition, since the operator performs the secondary determination while the accuracy of the preliminary determination is low, it is necessary to execute the secondary determination for more base stations than necessary, which places a heavy burden on the operator.

  In addition, it is necessary to receive a large number of statistical data for secondary determination, and high communication capability is required between the base station and the monitoring device. Further, since the monitoring device samples the received statistical data, a storage device having a large capacity is necessary.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention made in view of such circumstances is to improve accuracy in preliminary determination, reduce the burden on the operator, reduce the communication load between the base station and the monitoring device, and reduce the capacity of the storage device of the monitoring device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a wireless communication system and a silent failure detection method.

In order to solve the above-described problems, a wireless communication system according to the present invention includes:
A wireless communication system including a plurality of base stations connected to each other via a network,
The base station
Based on information acquired at the base station, a data generation unit that generates data for determination of silent failure occurrence,
A control unit for transmitting / receiving the determination data to / from a predetermined other base station;
Based on the comparison between the determination data generated by the data generation unit and the determination data received from another predetermined base station, it is determined that there is a possibility that a silent failure has occurred in its own base station And a determination unit.

As described above, the solution of the present invention has been described as an apparatus. However, the present invention can be realized as a method, a program, and a storage medium storing the program, which are substantially equivalent thereto, and the scope of the present invention. It should be understood that these are also included.

For example, a silent failure detection method that implements the present invention as a method is:
A silent failure detection method in a wireless communication system including a plurality of base stations connected to each other via a network,
Based on the information acquired at the base station, a data generation step for causing the base station to generate data for determining the occurrence of silent failure for each base station;
A communication step of transmitting and receiving the determination data generated by a plurality of base stations between predetermined other base stations connected via a network;
Based on the comparison between the determination data generated by the data generation unit and the determination data received from a predetermined other base station, it is possible that the base station may have a silent failure. And a determination step for making the determination.

  According to the wireless communication system according to the present invention configured as described above, the first data created in a plurality of predetermined base stations is mutually transmitted and received, and is compared in each base station. It is possible to improve the accuracy of possibility prediction. In addition, since the accuracy of possibility prediction is improved, the number of base stations that detect the occurrence of silent failure is reduced, so that the burden on the operator can be reduced. Moreover, since the prediction is performed at each base station, the burden on the monitoring device can be greatly reduced.

It is a figure which shows the network structure of the radio | wireless communications system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram which shows the structure of the principal part of the radio | wireless communications system of FIG. FIG. 2 is a sequence diagram until a silent failure of the base station in FIG. 1 is detected. It is a flowchart which shows the preliminary determination process performed in the base station of FIG.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of a wireless communication system to which the present invention is applied will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a network configuration of a radio communication system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. A wireless communication system 1 shown in FIG. 1 includes a plurality of base stations 10a, 10b, 10c and a monitoring device 20 connected to a communication network 2 such as an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network or the Internet network. In FIG. 1, first, second, and third base stations 10a, 10b, and 10c are shown to simplify the drawing. A plurality of base stations including the first, second, and third base stations 10a, 10b, and 10c are connected to the monitoring device 20 via a wired or wireless connection.

  The wireless communication terminals 3a and 3b are wirelessly connected to the same or different base stations. Thereby, a telephone call (communication) is possible between the wireless communication terminals 3a and 3b. In FIG. 1, the wireless communication terminal 3a is wirelessly connected to the first base station 10a or the second base station 10b, and the wireless communication terminal 3b is wirelessly connected to the second base station 10b or the third base station 10c. This shows a case where a telephone call is made via the communication network 2.

  FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of the main parts of the base station 10 and the monitoring device 20 constituting the wireless communication system of FIG. The first, second, and third base stations 10 a, 10 b, and 10 c have the same configuration as the base station 10.

  The base station 10 includes a wireless communication unit 11, a base station communication unit 12, a monitoring device communication unit 13, a data generation unit 14, a determination unit 15, and a control unit 16 that controls each part of the base station 10.

  The radio communication unit 11 transmits and receives various data such as voice data and control commands such as a call request as radio signals to and from the radio communication terminals 3a and (3b) via the base station antenna 17. The base station communication unit 12 is connected to the base station communication unit 12 of another base station 10 via the communication network 1 and transmits / receives data such as voice data. The monitoring device communication unit 13 is connected to the monitoring device 20 and transmits and receives control commands such as an alarm and a confirmation request to be described later.

  The data generation unit 14 generates determination data based on a substantial current state regarding communication between the base station 10 and the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b). Note that the current state regarding communication between the base station 10 and the wireless communication terminal is, for example, the number of calls from the wireless communication terminal and the traffic volume.

  The determination data is transmitted / received to / from a predetermined other base station 10 at a predetermined time interval. That is, an arbitrary base station 10 transmits the determination data generated by itself to another predetermined base station 10 and receives the determination data generated by another base station 10.

  The other base station 10 that transmits / receives determination data to / from an arbitrary base station 10 is arranged in an environment that is adjacent to or adjacent to the arbitrary base station 10 and is similar to the arbitrary base station 10. A plurality of base stations 10 having equivalent performance are selected.

  The determination data received from the other base station 10 is transmitted to the determination unit 15. The determination unit 15 performs a preliminary determination as to whether or not its own base station 10 has caused a silent failure as described below.

  The determination unit 15 calculates an average value of determination data received from other base stations 10. The determination unit 15 also receives determination data generated by its own base station 10 from the data generation unit 14. The determination unit 15 compares the average value with its own determination data, and determines whether or not the difference exceeds the first threshold value. The determination unit 15 has a counter (not shown), and the counter measures the number of times that the difference exceeds the threshold value. When the number of times exceeding the threshold exceeds the second threshold, the determination unit 15 preliminarily determines that there is a possibility that a silent failure has occurred in the base station 10 of itself.

  If there is a possibility of silent failure, an alarm is transmitted from the monitoring device communication unit 13 to the monitoring device 20. The alarm includes the ID information of the base station 10, and it is possible to recognize from the alarm which base station 10 is likely to cause a silent failure.

  As will be described later, a confirmation request may be transmitted from the monitoring device 20 to the base station 10. When receiving the confirmation request, the control unit 16 searches for the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b) that are in the idle state and capable of wireless communication with the base station 10 of itself. The wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b) to be searched may be single or plural. A confirmation request is transmitted to the searched wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b).

  As will be described later, based on the confirmation request, the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b) transmit a call request to the specific base station 10 and confirm the execution result of the wireless communication with the specific base station 10. An execution result of the wireless communication is transmitted to the monitoring device 20 via the base station 10 that has transmitted the confirmation request.

  Next, the configuration of the monitoring device 20 will be described. The monitoring device 20 includes a communication unit 21, a control unit 22, a monitor 23, and the like.

  The communication unit 21 is connected to a plurality of base stations 10, receives an alarm from the base station 10, and transmits a confirmation request to the base station 10.

  When receiving the alarm, the control unit 22 creates a confirmation request. First, a base station 10 that may cause a silent failure due to an alarm is determined as a target base station. A single or a plurality of base stations 10 that partially overlap the target base station and the range in which radio waves reach are determined as surrounding base stations.

  The confirmation request is a request for causing the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b) capable of performing wireless communication with surrounding base stations to perform a specific operation. The specific operation is that the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b) transmit a call request to the target base station, and the actual wireless communication execution result between the target base station and the wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b), that is, the actual operation. This is a transmission to the monitoring device 20 as a result of whether or not wireless communication can be executed.

  The created confirmation request is transmitted to surrounding base stations. As described above, the base station 10 that has received the confirmation request selects the specific wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b), and transmits the confirmation request to the selected wireless communication terminals 3a and (3b). Further, as described above, the surrounding base stations receive the wireless communication execution results from the wireless communication terminals 3 a and (3 b) and transmit them to the monitoring device 20.

  Based on the wireless communication execution result, the control unit 22 determines whether or not a silent failure has occurred in the base station of interest. Note that the confirmation request may be transmitted to the plurality of wireless communication terminals 3a and 3b, and the execution result of the wireless communication in the plurality of wireless communication terminals 3a and 3b may be received. Therefore, the control unit 22 determines whether or not a silent failure has occurred based on the success rate or the number of successes of wireless communication.

  If it is determined that a silent failure has occurred, the base station 10 in which the silent failure has occurred is displayed on the monitor 23 and can be notified to the operator.

  Next, the operation of the wireless communication system according to the present embodiment shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the sequence diagram of FIG.

  In FIG. 3, the first and second base stations 10a and 10b are arranged in a similar environment adjacent to or close to each other, and have the same performance. Moreover, the radio wave reach ranges of the first and second base stations 10a and 10b are partially overlapped.

  Each of the first and second base stations 10a and 10b creates determination data and periodically performs data communication with each other (see reference sign “s1”). In addition, the first and second base stations 10a and 10b determine whether or not there is a possibility of silent failure by comparing the determination data created by itself with the received determination data.

  When it is determined that there is a possibility of a silent failure occurring in the first base station 10a (see symbol “s2”), an alarm is notified from the first base station 10a to the monitoring device 20 (see symbol “s3”). ). Upon receiving the alarm, the monitoring device 20 sends a call request from any wireless communication terminal 3a to the first base station 10a and a confirmation request for executing communication execution result transmission from the wireless communication terminal 3a to the monitoring device 20. Create The created confirmation request is transmitted to the second base station 10b (see symbol “s4”).

  When receiving the confirmation request, the second base station 10b searches for the wireless communication terminal 3a as described above, and transmits the confirmation request to the searched wireless communication terminal 3a (see reference numeral “s5”). The wireless communication terminal 3a that has received the confirmation request transmits a call request to the first base station 10a (see reference numeral “s6”).

  When a silent failure has occurred in the first base station 10a, there is a high possibility that wireless communication with the wireless communication terminal 3a is not possible. When no silent failure has occurred, wireless communication with the wireless communication terminal 3a is not possible. It becomes possible. The wireless communication terminal 3a transmits, as an execution result, whether or not the first base station 10a connects communication in response to the call request to the monitoring device via the second base station 10b (see symbol “s7”). ).

  The monitoring device 20 determines whether a silent failure has occurred in the first base station 10a based on the execution result. When a silent failure has occurred, the fact that a silent failure has occurred in the first base station 10a is displayed on the monitor 23 (see symbol “s8”).

  Next, the preliminary determination process executed by the control unit 16 of each base station 10 will be described using the flowchart of FIG.

  In step S <b> 101, the control unit 16 causes the data generation unit 14 to generate determination data. After the determination data is generated, the process proceeds to step S102.

  In step S <b> 102, the control unit 16 transmits the determination data to another predetermined base station 10 and receives the determination data generated in the other base station 10. After the determination data is transmitted and received, the process proceeds to step S103.

  In step S103, the control unit 16 causes the determination unit 14 to calculate an average value of the determination data received in step S102. When the average value is calculated, the process proceeds to step S104.

  In step S104, the control unit 16 compares the difference between the determination data generated in step S101 and the average value calculated in step S103 with the first threshold value. If the difference is less than or equal to the first threshold, the process returns to step S101. If the difference exceeds the threshold, the process proceeds to step S105.

  In step S105, the control unit 16 adds 1 to the counter. After adding the counter, the process proceeds to step S106.

  In step S106, the control unit 16 determines whether or not the number of times measured by the counter exceeds the second threshold value. If it is less than or equal to the second threshold, the process returns to step S101. If it exceeds the second threshold, the process proceeds to step S107.

  In step S <b> 107, the control unit 16 causes the monitoring device communication unit 13 to send an alarm to the monitoring device 20. After sending the alarm, the process proceeds to step S108.

  In step S108, the control unit 16 resets the counter value in the counter to zero. After resetting the counter value, the process returns to step S101. Thereafter, the same processing is repeated, and the possibility of the occurrence of a silent failure in its own base station 10 is determined.

  According to the wireless communication system of the present embodiment configured as described above, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the preliminary determination. This effect will be briefly described below.

  As described above, the determination data generated based on the current state is generated for each base station 10. In many cases, the determination data can be regarded as statistically the same between base stations arranged in similar environments, in particular, base stations having the same performance.

  Therefore, when the determination data has a statistically significant difference from the determination data of such surrounding base stations, there is a high possibility that a communication failure has occurred in the own base station 10. Therefore, when there is a significant difference in the difference between the determination data in its own base station 10 and the average value of the determination data received from a plurality of other base stations 10, it is determined that there is a possibility of silent failure. Thus, it is possible to determine with higher accuracy than in the past.

  It should be noted that a silent failure may naturally occur in another base station 10 without occurring in its own base station 10. Therefore, when the determination data is received from the other single base station 10 in the comparison of the determination data, there is a possibility that a silent failure may occur in the base station 10 even in the above case. There is a possibility of determining that there is. However, according to the present embodiment, the determination data received from a plurality of base stations 10 is compared with the determination data of its own base station 10 as a population, thus further reducing the possibility of such erroneous determination. Is possible.

  Furthermore, since the accuracy of the preliminary determination is improved, the number of alarm transmissions from the base station 10 that is less likely to cause a silent injury compared to the conventional wireless communication system is reduced compared to the conventional wireless communication system. Therefore, since the data communication volume is reduced, the communication load between the base station 10 and the monitoring device 20 can be reduced.

  Further, since the determination data in the actual current state are compared between the base stations 10, it is not necessary to store past data. Therefore, the capacity of the storage device (not shown) of the entire wireless communication system including the monitoring device 20 can be reduced.

  Although the present invention has been described based on the drawings and examples, it should be noted that those skilled in the art can easily make various modifications and corrections based on the present disclosure. Therefore, it should be noted that these variations and modifications are included in the scope of the present invention.

  For example, in the above embodiment, the secondary determination is performed by the monitoring device 20 transmitting a confirmation request based on the alarm notification by the preliminary determination in the base station 10, but after the preliminary determination, any processing is performed. May be performed. For example, the configuration may be such that the operator performs analysis processing such as normality diagnosis on the base station 10 that has transmitted the alarm using the monitoring device 20. Even with such a configuration, it is possible to obtain the above-described effects, and only the base station 10 that is actually highly likely to cause a silent failure is transmitted an alarm by preliminary determination, so that the analysis by the operator It is possible to reduce the burden of processing. Furthermore, the preliminary determination itself may be a determination of the occurrence of a silent failure.

  In the present embodiment, the determination data is transmitted to and received from a plurality of base stations 10, but a single base station 10 may be used. By comparing with determination data received from a single base station 10, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the preliminary determination as compared with the conventional wireless communication system.

  In the present embodiment, a plurality of pieces of determination data received from a plurality of base stations 10 are averaged and compared with the determination data generated by the base station 10 itself. May be. If this method is a method for determining whether there is a statistically significant difference between the determination data generated by the base station 10 and a plurality of determination data as a population, with respect to the population, Similar effects can be obtained.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Wireless communication system 2 Communication network 3 Wireless communication terminal 10 Base station 14 Data generation part 15 Determination part 16 Control part 20 Monitoring apparatus 22 Control part

Claims (4)

A wireless communication system including a plurality of base stations connected to each other via a network,
The base station
Based on the information acquired by the base station, a data generation unit that generates data for determining the occurrence of a silent failure;
A controller that transmits and receives the determination data to and from another predetermined base station;
Based on the comparison between the determination data generated by the data generation unit and the determination data received from the predetermined other base station, there is a possibility that a silent failure has occurred in its own base station. A wireless communication system, comprising: a determination unit that determines this.   The wireless communication system according to claim 1, further comprising a monitoring device that monitors a communication status of the base station, wherein the determination unit generates an alarm when determining that there is a possibility that the silent failure has occurred. To the monitoring device. The wireless communication system according to claim 2,
The monitoring device
When the alarm is notified, a radio that can wirelessly communicate with the surrounding base station with respect to the surrounding base station that is the base station arranged around the base station of interest that is the base station that has issued the alarm A confirmation request for causing a communication terminal to execute wireless communication to the target base station and notification of the result of wireless communication to the surrounding base station is transmitted to the wireless communication terminal,
A wireless communication system, wherein it is determined whether or not the silent failure has occurred in the base station of interest based on an execution result of the wireless communication notified to the surrounding base stations. A silent failure detection method in a wireless communication system including a plurality of base stations connected to each other via a network,
A data generation step for causing the base station to generate data for determining the occurrence of silent failure for each base station based on information acquired by the base station;
A communication step of mutually transmitting and receiving the determination data generated by the plurality of base stations between the other predetermined base stations connected via the network;
Based on the comparison between the determination data generated by the data generation unit and the determination data received from the predetermined other base station, there is a possibility that a silent failure has occurred in its own base station. And a determination step for causing the base station to determine this.

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