JP2018019368A - Device and method for communication quality estimation, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform communication quality estimation which causes a low load to a communication network, using data obtainable in a user environment.SOLUTION: A communication quality estimation device which estimates the communication quality of mobile communication includes: an estimation equation generation unit which generates a communication quality estimation equation using regression analysis from the data of relationship between the number of radio interfaces of terminals, observed per unit time and obtained beforehand, and communication quality; an input unit which accepts the input of the number of the radio interfaces observed per unit time in an estimation target area; a communication quality estimation value calculation unit which calculates, from the number of the accepted radio interfaces, a communication quality estimation value using the generated estimation equation; and an output unit which outputs the calculated communication quality estimation value.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication quality estimation apparatus, a communication quality estimation method, and a program, and more particularly to a technique for estimating mobile communication quality using data that can be acquired in a user environment in a mobile communication quality estimation system.

  In order to grasp the communication quality, it is conventionally known to grasp the actual quality by active measurement (see Non-Patent Documents 1 and 2).

  Active measurement is a general term for a method of grasping quality in a communication network by actively transmitting and receiving data and observing how the data is affected in the communication network. In active measurement, data is inserted into the communication network in principle, so the state in the communication network is grasped by an erosive technique for the communication network.

  In mobile communication, it is known that the communication quality varies greatly depending on the user's environment, and in particular, the communication quality deteriorates when the users are extremely concentrated. Under such a situation where the communication quality is deteriorated, the load applied to the communication network is high in the erosive technique.

V. Raisanen, "RFC3432: Network performance measurement with periodic streams," RFC 3432, Nov., 2002. Jacob Strauss, Dina Katabi and Frans Kaashoek, "A Measurement Study of Available Bandwidth Estimation Tools," Proc. ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference '03, Miami, Florida, October 2003

  As described above, in mobile communication, it is known that the communication quality varies greatly depending on the user's environment, and in particular, the communication quality deteriorates when the user is extremely concentrated. Under such circumstances where the communication quality is degraded, it is not preferable to grasp the communication quality using an erosive method, and it is required to estimate the communication quality with a low load on the communication network. ing.

  An object of the present invention is to realize estimation of communication quality with a low load on a communication network using data that can be acquired in a user environment.

A communication quality estimation apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention
A communication quality estimation device for estimating communication quality of mobile communication,
From the data of the relationship between the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal observed per unit time and the communication quality acquired in advance, an estimation formula generation unit that generates an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis,
An input unit that receives an input of the number of wireless interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
From the received number of wireless interfaces, a communication quality estimated value calculation unit that calculates a communication quality estimated value using the generated estimation formula;
An output unit for outputting the calculated communication quality estimation value;
It is characterized by having.

Moreover, the communication quality estimation method according to an aspect of the present invention includes:
A communication quality estimation method in a communication quality estimation device for estimating communication quality of mobile communication,
From the data of the relationship between the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal observed per unit time and the communication quality acquired in advance, a step of generating an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis;
Receiving an input of the number of radio interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
Calculating a communication quality estimated value using the generated estimation formula from the accepted number of wireless interfaces;
Outputting the calculated communication quality estimate value;
It is characterized by having.

A program according to an aspect of the present invention is
A program for causing a computer to function as a communication quality estimation device for estimating the communication quality of mobile communication,
An estimation formula generation means for generating an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis from data of the relationship between the number of radio interfaces of terminals observed per unit time and communication quality acquired in advance,
An input means for receiving an input of the number of wireless interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
From the received number of received wireless interfaces, a communication quality estimation value calculation unit that calculates a communication quality estimation value using the generated estimation formula; and an output unit that outputs the calculated communication quality estimation value;
It is made to function as.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it becomes possible to implement | achieve communication quality estimation with a low load with respect to a communication network using the data which can be acquired in a user environment.

The block diagram which shows the communication quality estimation apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention. Flowchart of communication quality estimation method according to an embodiment of the present invention The figure which shows the experimental result by the communication quality estimation apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention. The figure which shows the hardware structural example of the communication quality estimation apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  In the embodiment of the present invention, a communication quality estimation apparatus for estimating the communication quality of mobile communication will be described. Mobile communication quality is strongly affected by degradation that occurs in the access section. In general, the communication quality is greatly influenced by two factors: the signal reception level determined from the signal strength and the amount of radio wave interference, and the resource allocation amount determined by the number of terminals connected to a specific base station. In an embodiment of the present invention, mobile communication quality is estimated by observing the number of radio interfaces (IF) of terminals that are expected to have a high correlation with the amount of radio wave interference and the number of connected terminals.

  The IF of the terminal is an interface that uses a wireless protocol such as a wireless local area network (LAN), Bluetooth (registered trademark), or Zigbee (registered trademark). The number of IFs of a terminal can be estimated, for example, by measuring the number of addresses of the terminal in a mode called packet monitoring mode. Therefore, the communication quality estimation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention can estimate the communication quality using the number of IFs of the terminal that can be acquired in the user environment, and thus is a technique with a low load on the communication network.

<Outline of communication quality estimation device>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a communication quality estimation apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The communication quality estimation apparatus 100 includes a measurement data storage unit 101, an estimation formula generation unit 102, an input unit 103, a communication quality estimated value calculation unit 104, and an output unit 105.

  The measurement data storage unit 101 stores data on the relationship between the number of IFs of terminals observed per unit time and communication quality, which is acquired in advance by pre-measurement. This data is stored for each communication environment such as the population density around the estimation target area having a high correlation with the number of IFs of the terminal.

  The estimation formula generation unit 102 generates an estimation formula for estimating communication quality from the data stored in the measurement data storage unit 101. A communication quality estimation formula is generated using regression analysis from data on the relationship between the number of IFs of terminals observed per unit time and communication quality. Specific examples of estimation equations will be described in detail below.

  The input unit 103 receives an input of the number of IFs observed per unit time in the estimation target area.

  Communication quality estimated value calculation section 104 calculates a communication quality estimated value from the number of IFs received by input section 103 using the estimation formula generated by estimation formula generation section 102.

  The output unit 105 outputs the communication quality estimated value calculated by the communication quality estimated value calculating unit 104.

  Next, details of each functional unit will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the communication quality estimation method according to the embodiment of the present invention.

<Generation of estimation formula>
In step S101, the estimation formula generation unit 102 generates an estimation formula for estimating communication quality.

The estimation formula generation unit 102 uses the quality reference value Q_0 and the quality factor α, and for the number of IFs of wireless LAN terminals observed within a certain unit time T (for example, the number of unique MAC addresses that transmitted Probe Request) x The communication quality Q is estimated as follows.
Q_0 <= Q <= Q_0 + αx + β (1)
This equation (1) is an estimation equation that represents the lower and upper limits of communication quality. In areas where the number of IFs of the wireless LAN terminal is small, the communication quality Q approaches the reference quality value Q_0 and the communication quality stabilizes. Show. Also, in areas where the number of IFs of wireless LAN terminals is large, there are terminals that can communicate with the communication quality Q being the reference quality value Q_0, while the communication quality Q is greater than the reference quality value Q_0 and the communication quality is not stable. Is shown. This equation (1) makes it possible to estimate the communication quality in the intermediate region from the lower limit value to the upper limit value of the communication quality.

  Here, the communication quality Q is RTT (Round Trip Time), throughput, Web reading time, etc., but refers to quality not limited to these.

  Note that the value of each coefficient may be given as an initial value at the start of estimation, or a different coefficient may be used depending on the communication environment. For example, a different coefficient may be used according to “the population density around the estimation target area and the percentage of people approaching the estimation target area measurement point” at an arbitrary timing.

  Q_0, α, and β are coefficients for estimating the range of communication quality, and different values may be used for each point where the number of wireless LAN terminals is observed, or the same value may be used throughout the system. In addition, for quality having a value that becomes smaller as the communication quality becomes lower, such as throughput, the reciprocal of the communication quality may be considered as Q.

  Note that the value of x may be the number of IFs of the wireless LAN terminal that are observed more than a specific signal strength in order to clarify the restriction of the range of interest.

Further, a polynomial such as equation (2) may be used as the estimation equation.
Q_0 <= Q <= Q_0 + αx + β / x + γ√x + δ (2)
The “number of IFs of the observed wireless LAN terminals” in the present embodiment may be the number of IFs using a wireless protocol such as Bluetooth (registered trademark) or Zigbee (registered trademark).

<Example 1 of how to give coefficients used for estimation>
In step S <b> 102, the estimation formula generation unit 102 determines a coefficient of the estimation formula from the data stored in the measurement data storage unit 101.

  Each coefficient of the estimation formula generated in step S101 can be determined as follows, for example.

By the prior measurement, data on the relationship between the number of IFs of the terminals observed per unit time and the communication quality is stored in the measurement data storage unit 101 for each communication environment. For example, it is assumed at the point of the estimation target area.Percentage of people approaching the measurement point with respect to the surrounding population density.Number of wireless LAN terminals held per person.Mobile communication network connection of the estimation target communication carrier per person. Under an environment where parameters such as the number of terminals to be performed are similar, the number x of wireless LAN terminals observed within a unit time T and the communication quality of the estimation target are measured in advance and stored in the measurement data storage unit 101.

  The estimation formula generation unit 102 performs, for example, regression analysis on the formula (1) using the data stored in the measurement data storage unit 101.

  The data set used for the regression is that the number of observed wireless LAN terminals x is expressed using a certain width d i × dx <= x <(i + 1) × dx (i = 1, 2,... N) (X_i, y_i) (i = 1, 2,... N) is created using the maximum value y_i of the measured communication quality value y for x of. Here, when x_max is set as the maximum number of wireless LAN terminals observed within a unit time, N is an integer satisfying (N−1) × d <x_max <N × d.

  Here, instead of the maximum value of the communication quality value, statistics such as the 95th percentile value and the median value may be given as y_i. In addition, before giving each y_i, the process of removing the abnormal value is not prevented.

  Let Q_0 be the zeroth-order regression coefficient of x and α be the first-order regression coefficient. Q_0 may be an intercept value of multiple regression, or may be a statistic such as a minimum observed value or a 5th percentile value.

  Note that the value of x may be the number of IFs of the wireless LAN terminal that are observed more than a specific signal strength in order to clarify the restriction of the range of interest.

  An estimation equation for estimating communication quality is generated using the coefficients Q_0 and α determined here.

<Estimation of communication quality>
In step S103, the input unit 103 receives an input of the number of IFs observed per unit time in the estimation target area.

  In step S104, the communication quality estimated value calculation unit 104 calculates the communication quality estimated value by substituting the accepted IF number into the above estimation formula.

  In step S105, the output unit 105 outputs the calculated communication quality estimated value.

<Example 2 of how to give coefficients used for estimation>
In the method of giving the coefficient described in step S102 above, it is necessary to accumulate measurement data in advance in the same environment as the estimation target. Here, a method for converting a coefficient used at an estimation target point based on a coefficient determined by measurement under different conditions will be described.

  The embodiment of the present invention is a method for performing estimation using the fact that the number of IFs of wireless LAN terminals observed per unit time has a strong correlation with the surrounding population density. Assuming that the number of wireless LAN terminals held per person is stochastically constant, the relationship between the assumed number of IFs of wireless LAN terminals and the surrounding population density can be estimated as a constant multiple. Also, due to differences in the assumed user age group and communication behavior, the number of wireless LAN terminals held per person and the number of terminals connected to the mobile communication network of the estimated target carrier per person are also a constant multiple. It can be assumed to be a relationship.

  Therefore, based on the difference in population density, that is, based on the difference between the population density around the area measured in advance and the population density around the estimation target area, each coefficient is a constant multiple that allows for the above change. By performing the correction, communication quality can be estimated using coefficients determined under different conditions.

<Experimental result>
FIG. 3 shows an experimental result by the communication quality estimation apparatus 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, an example in which RTT is used as an example of the quality of mobile communication in an actual environment is shown. In FIG. 3, the horizontal axis indicates the number of IFs of the wireless LAN terminal observed per unit time, and the vertical axis indicates the average value of RTT measured per unit time. In the figure, the upper limit value estimated from the measurement result is indicated by “upper”, and the lower limit value is indicated by “lower”. The upper limit “upper” was obtained by linear regression using the maximum value of RTT when there are two or more RTTs corresponding to the number of IFs of wireless LAN terminals observed per unit time.

From this data, RTT
37.84 <(communication quality) <37.84 + 0.69 × x
Can be estimated.

<Effect of the embodiment of the present invention>
According to the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to estimate mobile communication quality using data that can be acquired in a user environment without using data within a communication carrier.

  Conventional active measurement is an erosive technique for a communication network, and it is not preferable to grasp the communication quality using an erosive technique in a situation where the communication quality is deteriorated. In the embodiment of the present invention, paying attention to the relationship between the communication quality and the population density, the communication quality is estimated from the information on the number of IFs of the wireless LAN terminals observed per unit time. The communication quality can be estimated without giving it.

  In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention, the measurement necessary for estimating the quality of mobile communication is performed in advance measurement. Therefore, the measurement that controls the load applied to the communication network can be easily designed, and the measurement time desired at the time of estimation Data can be collected at a measurement interval longer than the interval, resulting in a non-erosive technique for the communication network rather than directly measuring communication quality.

<Hardware configuration example>
FIG. 3 shows a hardware configuration example of the communication quality estimation apparatus 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention. The communication quality estimation apparatus 100 may be a computer including a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 151, a memory device 152 such as a RAM (Random Access Memory) or ROM (Read Only Memory), a storage device 153 such as a hard disk, and the like. Good. For example, the functions and processes of the communication quality estimation apparatus 100 are realized by the CPU 151 executing data and programs stored in the storage device 153 or the memory device 152. Further, information necessary for the communication quality estimation apparatus 100 may be input from the input / output interface apparatus 154, and a result obtained in the communication quality estimation apparatus 100 may be output from the input / output interface apparatus 154.

<Supplement>
For convenience of explanation, the communication quality estimation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention is described using a functional block diagram. However, the communication quality estimation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention may be hardware, software, or their It may be realized in combination. For example, an embodiment of the present invention is a program that causes a computer to realize the function of the communication quality estimation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention, and a program that causes a computer to execute each procedure of the method according to the embodiment of the present invention. Or the like. In addition, the functional units may be used in combination as necessary. In addition, the method according to the embodiment of the present invention may be performed in an order different from the order shown in the embodiment.

  As described above, the method for realizing the estimation of the communication quality with a low load on the communication network using the data that can be acquired in the user environment has been described. However, the present invention is limited to the above embodiment. Rather, various modifications and applications are possible within the scope of the claims.

101 Measurement Data Storage Unit 102 Estimation Formula Generation Unit 103 Input Unit 104 Communication Quality Estimated Value Calculation Unit 105 Output Unit 151 CPU
152 Memory device 153 Storage device 154 Input / output interface device

Claims (7)

A communication quality estimation device for estimating communication quality of mobile communication,
From the data of the relationship between the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal observed per unit time and the communication quality acquired in advance, an estimation formula generation unit that generates an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis,
An input unit that receives an input of the number of wireless interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
From the received number of wireless interfaces, a communication quality estimated value calculation unit that calculates a communication quality estimated value using the generated estimation formula;
An output unit for outputting the calculated communication quality estimation value;
A communication quality estimation apparatus.   The communication quality estimation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the estimation formula generation unit generates an estimation formula representing an upper limit value and a lower limit value of communication quality using regression analysis.   The communication quality estimation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the estimation formula generation unit generates a communication quality estimation formula using coefficients that differ depending on a communication environment.   The communication quality estimation apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the estimation formula generation unit corrects the coefficient of the communication quality estimation formula by a constant multiple based on a difference in population density.   The communication quality estimation apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal is the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal having a specific signal strength or more. A communication quality estimation method in a communication quality estimation device for estimating communication quality of mobile communication,
From the data of the relationship between the number of wireless interfaces of the terminal observed per unit time and the communication quality acquired in advance, a step of generating an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis;
Receiving an input of the number of radio interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
Calculating a communication quality estimated value using the generated estimation formula from the accepted number of wireless interfaces;
Outputting the calculated communication quality estimate value;
A communication quality estimation method comprising: A program for causing a computer to function as a communication quality estimation device for estimating the communication quality of mobile communication,
An estimation formula generation means for generating an estimation formula of communication quality using regression analysis from data of the relationship between the number of radio interfaces of terminals observed per unit time and communication quality acquired in advance,
An input means for receiving an input of the number of wireless interfaces observed per unit time in the estimation target area;
From the received number of received wireless interfaces, a communication quality estimation value calculation unit that calculates a communication quality estimation value using the generated estimation formula; and an output unit that outputs the calculated communication quality estimation value;
Program to function as.

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