JP2024093299A - Wireless communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a wireless communication system of a SCPC system with high operability for a user.

SOLUTION: Wireless communication is performed between a plurality of radio terminals 10 and a base station 20. The wireless communication employs a SCPC system. In a wireless communication system 1, the radio terminals 10 are respectively connected to portable terminals 30. A user U operates the portable terminal 30, instead of directly operating the radio terminal 10. When the user U utters speech to the portable terminal 30, the portable terminal 30 instructs the corresponding radio terminal 10 to simulate that the user U pressed a transmission button of the radio terminal 10 while allowing the radio terminal to transmit the speech signal to the base station 20. The user U can use the wireless communication system 1 in the way just as usual communication using the potable terminal 30.

SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

COPYRIGHT: (C)2024,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system that uses wireless terminals and is used for commercial wireless communication, etc.

Wireless communication systems used for public services (police, fire departments, etc.) are required to have characteristics different from those of general public wireless communication systems that use mobile phones, etc., for their purpose. These characteristics include, for example, the ability to share information by transmitting common content from the base station to all wireless terminals simultaneously or in stages, the ability to connect immediately in case of an emergency, minimal congestion, and easy operation.

Patent Document 1 describes an example of such a wireless communication system. In this wireless communication system, the SCPC (Single Channel Per Carrier) method is used in consideration of the above requirements. In the SCPC method, basically only one-way communication can be performed at a time, so it is particularly required to properly recognize the sender of the voice signal. For this reason, press-to-talk communication is often adopted, in which only the state in which the send button is pressed on the sending side is recognized as the transmitting state, and the voice uttered by the sender in this state is transmitted as a voice signal.

JP 2013-70223 A

In the case of press-to-talk communication, there are restrictions such as the fact that both callers cannot speak at the same time and that a call cannot be made unless the send button is pressed, so the operation is significantly different from that of ordinary mobile phone communication. In addition, the action of continuously pressing the send button can be difficult depending on the caller's situation. For this reason, the operability of conventional wireless communication systems was not good for users who were familiar with using ordinary mobile phones, etc.

For this reason, there was a demand for an SCPC type wireless communication system that was easy for users to operate.

The present invention was developed in light of these circumstances, and aims to solve the above problems.

The wireless communication system of the present invention is a wireless communication system comprising a base station and a wireless terminal that performs wireless communication with the base station using the SCPC (Single Channel Per Carrier) method, and comprises a mobile terminal that communicates with the wireless terminal via short-range wireless communication different from the wireless communication, and the mobile terminal comprises a voice input recognition unit that recognizes the signal strength of voice input to the mobile terminal and recognizes the voice as a voice signal when the signal strength is above a certain value, and a voice signal transmission control unit that causes the recognized voice signal to be transmitted to the wireless terminal via the short-range wireless communication, and the wireless terminal comprises a communication control unit that controls the wireless communication with the base station and the short-range wireless communication with the mobile terminal, and when the wireless signal is received from the mobile terminal, causes the voice signal to be transmitted to the base station via the wireless communication.
In this case, the mobile terminal is equipped with a display unit that displays information related to the wireless communication and the short-range wireless communication, and a display control unit that sets and displays the content to be displayed on the display unit, and in the wireless terminal, the communication control unit, when it is not possible to transmit the voice signal to the base station, causes the mobile terminal to transmit a message that transmission is not possible via the short-range wireless communication, and in the mobile terminal, when it receives a message that transmission is not possible, causes the display unit to display the message that transmission is not possible.
Furthermore, in the wireless terminal, the communication control unit may determine that the wireless terminal is in a state in which it is unable to transmit the voice signal to the base station when the wireless terminal is receiving a signal from the base station.
Furthermore, when the mobile terminal receives a notification that the transmission is not possible, the mobile terminal may vibrate or issue an alarm.
Also, a short message composed of text information may be transmitted from the mobile terminal to the wireless terminal via the short-range wireless communication.

The present invention provides an SCPC type wireless communication system that is easy for users to operate.

1A is a diagram showing the configuration of a conventional wireless communication system, and FIG. 1B is a diagram showing the configuration of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a wireless terminal in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a mobile terminal in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment; 5 is a flowchart showing an operation relating to transmission of an audio signal in the wireless communication system according to the embodiment. 4 is a simplified sequence diagram showing operations related to transmission of an audio signal in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment. FIG. 11 is an example of a screen display displayed during an operation related to transmission of an audio signal in the wireless communication system according to the embodiment. 1 is a simplified sequence diagram showing operations related to the transmission of a short message in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a screen display displayed during an operation related to the transmission of a short message in the wireless communication system according to the embodiment.

Next, we will explain a wireless communication system that is a form for implementing the present invention. This wireless communication system is used, for example, in public services (police, fire departments, etc.), and uses a base station and multiple wireless terminals. The SCPC method is used between this base station and the wireless terminals, as in conventional wireless communication systems.

Fig. 1(a) shows the configuration of a conventional wireless communication system 9, and Fig. 1(b) shows the configuration of a wireless communication system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. In either case, wireless communication is performed between multiple wireless terminals 10 and a base station 20. In this wireless communication, the SCPC method is used, and the configuration related to this wireless communication is no different from that described in, for example, Patent Document 1.

In this wireless communication system 1, a mobile terminal 30 is connected to each wireless terminal 10. The mobile terminal 30 is, for example, a smartphone, and has at least a calling function and a function for performing short-range wireless communication (for example, Bluetooth: registered trademark) with the wireless terminal. In a conventional wireless communication system 9, a user U of each wireless terminal 10 directly operates the wireless terminal 10, whereas in this wireless communication system 1, at least during a call, the user U operates the corresponding mobile terminal 30 instead of directly operating the wireless terminal 10.

The wireless terminal 10 is provided with a voice input unit (microphone) and a transmit button, and voice uttered while the transmit button is pressed is input to the voice input unit, and this voice signal is transmitted to the base station 20 or another wireless terminal 10 via wireless communication. For this reason, in the conventional wireless communication system 9, the user U can only transmit from himself/herself when he/she is pressing the transmit button.

In contrast, in this wireless communication system 1, when a user U speaks toward a mobile terminal 30, the mobile terminal 30 instructs the corresponding wireless terminal 10 to simulate that the user U has pressed the transmission button of the wireless terminal 10, and at the same time causes the mobile terminal 30 to transmit the voice signal to the base station 20. This allows the user U to use this wireless communication system 1 in the same way as when making a normal call with a mobile terminal 30 (smartphone).

The configuration of the wireless terminal 10 and the mobile terminal 30 and the details of the above operation are described below. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the wireless terminal 10 used here. Here, only the components directly related to the present invention are described, and other components are omitted. In this wireless terminal 10, a main control unit 11 that controls the entire wireless terminal 10 is used. In addition, a wireless communication unit 12 is provided for wireless communication with the base station 20 using the SCPC method. Here, the wireless communication unit 12 includes a part that encodes a desired signal (such as a voice signal) in a desired format to generate a high-frequency signal to be transmitted from an antenna, a part that demodulates the received high-frequency signal to the desired signal, and the like. The function of the wireless communication unit 12 itself is the same as that used in conventional wireless terminals described in Patent Document 1 and the like.

Also provided are an operation unit 13 consisting of a number of operation buttons (operation keys) operated directly by the user U, and a display unit 14 which is a display that displays various information to the user U. A touch panel display in which the operation unit 13 and the display unit 14 are integrated may be used. Also provided are a voice input unit 15 having a microphone that converts the voice emitted by the user U into a voice signal which is an electrical signal, and a voice output unit 16 which is a speaker that outputs voice from the wireless terminal 10 side to the user U side. Also provided is a storage unit 17 in FIG. 2 which stores various information, signals, etc. required for operation. The storage unit 17 is composed of a hard disk or a non-volatile memory. Note that a memory which is composed of a volatile memory different from the storage unit 17 and is used during operation of the main control unit 11 is also provided, but here this memory is considered to be included in the main control unit 11.

The operation unit 13 is provided with a transmit button for transmitting an audio signal from the wireless terminal 10 to the base station 20 or to another wireless terminal 10. The main control unit 11 causes the wireless communication unit 12 to transmit the audio signal obtained from the audio input unit 15 only while the transmit button is pressed. For this reason, when the user U wants to transmit a message, it is necessary to keep the transmit button pressed. This operation is no different from that in conventional wireless communication systems.

However, this wireless terminal 10 is provided with a short-range wireless communication unit 18 that performs short-range wireless communication with the mobile terminal 30, in addition to the wireless communication unit 12 that communicates with the base station 20, etc. The communication method used here is one with a communication distance of within several tens of meters (about a few meters), such as Bluetooth (registered trademark), and in FIG. 1(b), the wireless terminal 10 and the mobile terminal 30 are in one-to-one correspondence, so that the user U can use the mobile terminal 30. For this reason, the main control unit 11 is provided with a communication control unit 111 that controls wireless communication with the base station 20 and short-range wireless communication with the mobile terminal 30. Note that as long as the same operation is possible, other short-range wireless communication methods than Bluetooth can be used as appropriate.

Figure 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the mobile terminal 30. As mentioned above, a commonly used smartphone can be used as the mobile terminal 30, and in Figure 3, only the parts directly related to the operation of the wireless communication system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention are shown. The mobile terminal 30 also includes a main control unit 31 that controls the entire mobile terminal 30, an operation unit 32 consisting of a plurality of operation buttons (operation keys), a display unit 33 (display), an audio input unit 34 (microphone), an audio output unit 35 (speaker), and a memory unit 36 (non-volatile memory). The operation unit 32 and the display unit 33 are actually integrated as a touch panel display.

The mobile terminal 30 also includes a short-range wireless communication unit 37 for communicating with the short-range wireless communication unit 18 on the wireless terminal 10 side, but does not include components corresponding to the wireless communication unit 12 for performing SCPC-type wireless communication with the base station 20 in the wireless terminal 10. Instead, it includes a wireless communication unit 38 for a mobile phone line for connecting to a mobile phone line when the mobile terminal 30 is used as a general mobile phone. However, the operation related to the wireless communication unit 38 for a mobile phone line is not related to the present invention. For this reason, communication between the mobile terminal 30 and the base station 20 is performed by short-range wireless communication between the mobile terminal 30 and the wireless terminal 10 using the short-range wireless communication unit 37 and the short-range wireless communication unit 18, and wireless communication between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 via the wireless communication unit 12.

As described above, this mobile terminal 30 is a commonly used smartphone, and is used as a normal mobile phone using a wireless communication unit 38 for a mobile phone line. For this reason, a call key is provided in the operation unit 32, and in a normal call with another mobile terminal 30 (or a mobile terminal unrelated to this wireless communication system 1), the user U can start a call by pressing this call key once, and the call operation is ended by pressing the call key thereafter. As is well known, the SCPC method is not used in this operation, and any voice uttered by the user U at any time during this period is transmitted to the call destination.

The main control unit 31 is provided with a voice input recognition unit 311 that recognizes the presence or absence of a voice signal based on the signal strength when a voice signal is input from the voice input unit 34. When the voice input recognition unit 311 recognizes that this signal strength is equal to or greater than a certain value for a certain period of time, it recognizes that the user U has spoken. To make this determination, the voice signal input from the voice input unit 34 is temporarily stored in the memory described above.

The main control unit 31 is provided with a voice signal transmission control unit 312 that, when the voice input recognition unit 311 recognizes that the user U has uttered a voice in this way, transmits this voice signal to the wireless terminal 10 via the short-range wireless communication unit 37. As a result, the main control unit 11 of the wireless terminal 10 that has received this voice signal performs the same operation as when the transmission button on the operation unit 13 is pressed and the voice signal is input from the voice input unit 15. In other words, the main control unit 11 transmits this voice signal to the base station 20, etc. via the wireless communication unit 12. The base station 20 transfers this voice signal to another wireless terminal 10 and also transmits it to another mobile terminal 30 (another user U) that corresponds to this wireless terminal 10.

Furthermore, after starting the operation of transmitting a voice signal in this manner, if the voice input recognition unit 311 recognizes that the signal strength of the voice signal input from the voice input unit 34 is less than a certain value for a certain period of time, it recognizes that the operation of emitting voice from the user U has ended. In this case, the voice signal transmission control unit 312 ends the operation of transmitting a voice signal from the wireless communication unit 12.

In addition, in this wireless communication system 1, the user U recognizes various information by looking at the display unit 33 of the mobile terminal 30. This information includes not only the status of short-range wireless communication between the user U and the wireless terminal 10, but also the status of wireless communication between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20. A display control unit 313 that controls the content displayed on the display unit 33 in this manner is provided in the main control unit 31.

The user U can obtain various information from the display unit 33 and the audio output unit 35 of the mobile terminal 30, but in order to allow the user U to recognize particularly important information in real time, the mobile terminal 30 is provided with an alarm unit 39. The alarm unit 39 performs operations such as vibrating the mobile terminal 30 itself and outputting an alarm sound from the audio output unit 35 separately from other audio outputs.

In addition, instead of transmitting a voice signal to the wireless terminal 10, the mobile terminal 30 can also transmit a short message consisting of a short sentence, similar to well-known short mail. When the wireless terminal 10 receives this short message, it transmits it to the base station 20 instead of the voice signal. In this case, the short message can also be used as a substitute for the voice signal.

The configuration in FIG. 3 is no different from the configuration of a normal smartphone capable of short-range wireless communication. Therefore, in practice, this mobile terminal 30 can be realized by installing software (applications) on a smartphone to perform the operations described below.

Therefore, in this wireless communication system 1, user U can transmit to base station 20 using only his/her own mobile terminal 30. Figure 4 shows a flowchart illustrating the operation in this case, particularly as seen from the mobile terminal 30 side, Figure 5 shows a simple sequence diagram corresponding to this operation, and Figure 6 shows an example of the display screen of display unit 33 (touch panel display) of mobile terminal 30 during this operation. Here, only the operation related to the transmission of the voice signal is described, and the operation of transmitting the short message is not described.

In FIG. 4, first, the display control unit 313 of the mobile terminal 30 causes the display unit 33 to display the initial screen shown in FIG. 6(a) (S1). In FIG. 6(a), to indicate that this is the initial screen related to the above operation, a wireless terminal icon IC1 indicating the wireless terminal 10, a wireless terminal status display IC2 indicating the identification number and connection status of this wireless terminal 10, a user icon IC3 indicating the user U operating this mobile terminal 30, and a short-range wireless connection key IC4 for starting or canceling the Bluetooth connection are displayed. In the wireless terminal status display IC2, the correspondence between the wireless terminal 10 and the mobile terminal 30 is predetermined, so it is assumed that pairing between them has been performed in advance.

Next, when the user U who wants to transmit operates the short-distance wireless connection key IC4 in FIG. 6(a) to start the operation (S2), the main control unit 31 (audio signal transmission control unit 312) controls the short-distance wireless communication unit 37 to start the operation for interconnection with the corresponding wireless terminal 10 (short-distance wireless communication unit 18) (S3). This operation is repeated (S4) until the connection is completed (S5). When the connection is completed, the display control unit 313 displays the main screen shown in FIG. 6(b) (a screen corresponding to the standby state of the transmission operation) on the display unit 33 (S6). Here, the wireless terminal status display IC2 displays the fact that the connection has been completed. At this time, it is preferable to display this fact by changing the color of the display on the wireless terminal icon IC1.

When the short-distance wireless connection key IC4 is operated in this state, the Bluetooth connection is released, and the display of the short-distance wireless connection key IC4 is changed to indicate this. Also, in this state, the short message key IC5 for sending the short message is displayed, and the operation related to this will be described later. During the above operation, no communication is performed between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20, or even if communication is performed between them, this communication is not related to the mobile terminal 30.

Next, the main control unit 31 (voice signal transmission control unit 312) checks whether the communication line between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 at this time is not in use via the main control unit 11 of the wireless terminal 10 (S7). Since the wireless terminal 10 has not yet transmitted to the base station 20, in use here means that the wireless terminal 10 is receiving from the base station 20. If it is in use (receiving) (S7: Yes), the display control unit 313 displays a screen indicating this on the display unit 33, as shown in FIG. 6(c). Here, the line status display IC6, which displays the current line status, displays that the line is in use and therefore cannot be sent at present (S8), and the above check (S7) is performed again after a certain time has passed. In addition, in order to more clearly show this state to the user U, a communication mark IC7 indicating that communication between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 is currently being performed is displayed in FIG. 6(c).

When voice transmission is currently not possible in this way (S8), the main control unit 31 preferably operates the alarm unit 39 in addition to the above display in order to quickly and clearly inform the user U of this fact. This allows the user U to recognize this fact through the vibration or alarm sound of the mobile terminal 30.

If the line is not in use (S7: No), the display control unit 313 causes the display unit 33 to display a screen indicating that voice transmission is possible, as shown in FIG. 6(d) (S9). Here, the line status display IC6 indicates that voice transmission is currently possible.

In this case, user U can then transmit speech to base station 20. Therefore, user U can emit speech to be transmitted to mobile terminal 30 (speech input unit 34). As described above, when the strength of the speech signal obtained from speech input unit 34 is recognized to be equal to or greater than a certain value for a certain period of time, speech input recognition unit 311 (main control unit 31) recognizes that user U has emitted speech (S10: Yes).

Figure 5 describes the operations that follow. Here, the operations that take place between the mobile terminal A (mobile terminal 30) from which the voice is transmitted, wireless terminal A (wireless terminal 10), base station 20, mobile terminal B (another mobile terminal 30) to which the voice content is to be sent, and wireless terminal B (another wireless terminal 10) are described, and it is assumed that the voice content is ultimately transmitted via base station 20 to a mobile terminal B other than mobile terminal A (or a user U other than user U who operates mobile terminal A).

When it is recognized that user U has made a speech (S10: Yes) (S101 in FIG. 5), in FIG. 5, the voice signal transmission control unit 312 transmits this voice signal to the short-range wireless communication unit 18 of wireless terminal A (wireless terminal 10) via the short-range wireless communication unit 37 (S102). As a result, the main control unit 11 of wireless terminal A (wireless terminal 10) recognizes that there is a request for voice transmission from the mobile terminal 30 corresponding to itself. Thereafter, the communication control unit 111 performs an operation to convey the presence of such a request for voice transmission to the base station 20 (S103).

At this time, wireless terminal A or base station 20 can check whether there is congestion in the communication between wireless terminal A and base station 20 (S104). If the base station 20 recognizes that there is congestion (S104: Yes), this is transmitted to wireless terminal A. In this case, or if wireless terminal A recognizes that there is congestion, the communication control unit 111 transmits this to mobile terminal A (mobile terminal 10) by short-range wireless communication. This allows the main control unit 31 of mobile terminal A to recognize that it has transmitted an audio signal to wireless terminal A and wireless terminal A has received it, but that the current state between wireless terminal A and base station 20 is congested, and therefore this audio signal cannot be transmitted to base station 20 (or further to wireless terminal B).

In FIG. 4, the main control unit 31 of the mobile terminal A can thus recognize that the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 are currently in a congested state (S11). If the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 are in a congested state (S11: No), the main control unit 31 causes the display unit 33 to display the fact that the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 are currently in a congested state, as shown in FIG. 6(e) (S12 in FIG. 4, S107 in FIG. 5). Here, instead of the communication mark IC7 in FIG. 6(c), a congestion state mark IC8 indicating the congestion state is displayed, and instead of the short-distance wireless connection key IC4 and the short message key IC5 in FIG. 6(c), a confirmation key IC9 for inputting that the user U has confirmed this state is displayed. In this case, it is preferable that the main control unit 31 operates the alarm unit 39, as in the case where the user U was unable to send a message because the message was being received (S8). When the user U operates the confirmation key IC9 (S13 in FIG. 4), the display control unit 313 causes the main screen to be displayed again (S6).

If the congestion state is not recognized (S11: Yes in FIG. 4, S104: Yes in FIG. 5), the base station 20 transmits to the wireless terminal A (mobile terminal A) a message indicating that the request to transmit from the mobile terminal A can be answered (S108 in FIG. 5), and the wireless terminal A transmits this message to the mobile terminal A (S109 in FIG. 5).

As a result, the main control unit 31 of mobile terminal A (mobile terminal 30) starts the operation to transmit the voice signal to the wireless terminal 10 (S14 in FIG. 4, S110 in FIG. 5). Here, as described above, the voice signal transmission control unit 312 transmits the voice signal that has been input to the voice input unit 34 and that has been recognized as having a signal strength equal to or greater than a certain value to the wireless terminal 10 via the short-range wireless communication unit 37 (S111 in FIG. 5). The communication control unit 111 of the wireless terminal 10 receives this and transmits the voice signal to the base station 20 via the wireless communication unit 12 (S112 in FIG. 5).

At this time, the display control unit 313 causes the display unit 33 to display a transmission in progress screen as shown in FIG. 6(f). Here, the line status display IC6 indicates that transmission is currently in progress, and a communication mark IC7 is displayed indicating that transmission is currently in progress from the wireless terminal 10 to the base station 20. This allows the user 10 to recognize that the voice that he or she is currently making is being transmitted to the base station 20. At this time, as shown in the figure, the part of the user icon IC3 that corresponds to the face may be displayed as if the mouth is open.

On the other hand, in FIG. 5, the base station 20 that receives this voice signal transmits the voice signal to wireless terminal B (another wireless terminal 10) that has a similar configuration to wireless terminal A (S113 in FIG. 5), and from there to mobile terminal B (another mobile terminal 30, or another user U) (S114 in FIG. 5).

In this case, since the configurations of wireless terminal B and mobile terminal B are the same as those of wireless terminal A and mobile terminal A, the screen shown in FIG. 6(c) is displayed on mobile terminal B, which finally receives the voice signal (S115). This allows user U of mobile terminal B to recognize that the voice signal has been received.

In FIG. 4, the transmission of the voice signal and the associated operations as described above continue as long as a voice signal of a certain strength or greater is recognized in the mobile terminal 10 (mobile terminal A in FIG. 5) for a certain period of time (S15: No). In other words, as long as the user U is uttering voice, this voice signal is transmitted to the base station 20.

When the voice signal input to the voice input unit 34 of the mobile terminal A (mobile terminal 10) becomes less than a certain strength for a certain period of time, the voice input recognition unit 311 recognizes that the user U's action of uttering a voice has ended (S15 in FIG. 4: Yes, S116 in FIG. 5). In this case, the voice signal transmission control unit 312 ends the output of the voice signal from the short-range wireless communication unit 37 (S16 in FIG. 4, S117 in FIG. 5). As a result, the main control unit 11 on the wireless terminal A (wireless terminal 10) side can recognize that the voice transmission from the mobile terminal A side has ended, and can transmit this fact to the base station 20 side (S118 in FIG. 5). The base station 20 that receives this can transmit this fact to the wireless terminal B (another wireless terminal 10) (S119 in FIG. 5), and can further transmit it to the mobile terminal B (another mobile terminal 10) (S120 in FIG. 5). When mobile device B receives this, the display changes from FIG. 6(c) to FIG. 6(d), and it becomes possible to transmit from mobile device B.

In the above operation, the user of the mobile terminal 10 can transmit voice to the base station 20 or another mobile terminal 10 simply by emitting voice, instead of operating the wireless terminal 10. By simply ending the operation of emitting voice, the transmission is automatically ended. This makes the operation of this wireless communication system 1 very easy. At this time, communication between the wireless terminal 10 and the base station 20 is performed by the SCPC method as in the conventional case.

Next, the operation related to the short message transmission will be described. In this wireless communication system 1, since the operation related to the transmission by the user U is simplified as described above, it is preferable that the operation related to the short message transmission is also simplified in the same way. This operation can be started when the short message key IC5 is displayed on the display unit 33 (FIGS. 6(b), (c), (d), (f)). Here, FIG. 6(b) corresponds to the standby state of the mobile terminal 10, FIG. 6(c) corresponds to the state in which the wireless terminal 10 is receiving, FIG. 6(d) corresponds to the standby state for transmission, and FIG. 6(f) corresponds to the state in which the mobile terminal 10 is transmitting. Generally, short messages (short mail) are transmitted and received using a mobile phone line in the mobile terminal 10 (smartphone), but the short message used here is different from such general short mail and is transmitted and received by short-distance wireless communication like a voice signal.

Figure 7 is a flow chart showing the operation of the mobile terminal 10 in relation to sending such a short message, and Figure 8 is an example of the screen on the display unit 33 in this case. In Figure 7, this operation starts when the short message key IC5 is operated (S21) in the state of Figures 6(b), (c), (d), or (f) as described above.

As a result, the display control unit 313 causes the display unit 33 to display the initial short message screen as shown in FIG. 8(a) (S22). Here, only information related to the short message transmission is displayed, not the voice transmission as described above. First, in the received short message display JC1, the contents of the short messages (three in the figure) most recently received by the mobile terminal 10 via the base station 20 are displayed together with the identification information of the wireless terminal 10 that issued them.

In the message selection display JC2 below, multiple types of content to be selected as the short message to be sent are displayed. Since the function related to this short message is mainly used in an emergency, it is preferable that the specific content is a simple fixed phrase that is frequently used in such emergency contact. Here, five types of such fixed phrases are set. Here, only three of these types are specifically exemplified as the fixed phrases: "Please report the current situation.", "No problem.", and "Understood." The user U can select the content by touching the desired fixed phrase in the message selection display JC2 (S23). Of these, the selected fixed phrase is displayed in the transmission short message display JC3 above, and the content is recognized as the one to be sent. In addition, in FIG. 8(a), a close button JC4 is displayed in the upper right, and when the close button JC4 is operated, the screen in FIG. 8(a) closes, returning to the previous screen, and no operation related to the short message is performed.

The display control unit 313 then causes the display unit 33 to display a confirmation screen as shown in FIG. 8(b) (S24). Here, a confirmation request display JC5 is displayed, allowing the selection of "Yes" or "No," and asks whether or not to send a short message with this content. If "No" is selected here (S25: No), the display control unit 313 causes the display unit 33 to display a short message screen (S22: FIG. 8(a)), and causes the same operation as above to be performed again.

If "Yes" is selected here (S25: Yes), the voice signal transmission control unit 312 performs an operation of transmitting this short message, for example as a text file, to the wireless terminal 10 by short-range wireless communication instead of a voice signal (S26). The main control unit 11 of the wireless terminal 10 that receives this causes the short message to be further transmitted to the base station 20 via the wireless communication unit 12. Since the data capacity of this short message is smaller than that of a voice signal, the short message can be transmitted more quickly. Therefore, even if the voice signal cannot be transmitted (S7: Yes, S11: No in FIG. 4), the short message can be transmitted in a shorter time than retransmitting the voice signal. Furthermore, since the content of the short message as described above can be set with only one operation of the message selection display JC2, it can be performed particularly quickly.

When the wireless terminal 10 confirms that the short message has been sent to the base station 20 (S27: Yes), the operation related to the short message transmission ends. On the other hand, when the short message cannot be sent to the base station 20 within a certain time (S27: No), the wireless terminal 10 (main control unit 11) transmits a message to the mobile terminal 30 (main control unit 31) by short-range wireless communication. In this case, the display control unit 313 causes the display unit 33 to display a transmission failure screen shown in FIG. 8(c) (S28). Here, a transmission failure display JC6 is displayed, which indicates that the transmission has failed and displays a confirmation key for requesting the user U to confirm the failure (S29). When the failure of the transmission is confirmed (S29), the main control unit 31 causes the display unit 33 to display the short message initial screen again (S22), and the subsequent operations are performed again.

In this way, in the event of an emergency, in this wireless communication system 1, a short message instead of a voice message can be sent from the user U to the base station 20 or to another user U (wireless terminal 10 or mobile terminal 30).

As shown in FIG. 1(a), the wireless terminal 10 can also be used as part of a conventional wireless communication system 9 that does not use a mobile terminal 30. In this case, the user U can transmit a voice signal to the base station 20 by uttering a voice while operating the operation unit 13 (transmission button).

On the other hand, the wireless communication system 1 can be realized simply by combining this with a mobile terminal 30. In this case, as described above, the mobile terminal 30 is not a device dedicated to this wireless communication system 1, but a commonly used smartphone can be used. Alternatively, a smartphone owned and carried by each user U can be used as the mobile terminal 10. This makes it easy to realize the wireless communication system 1.

In this case, the mobile terminal 30 and the wireless terminal 10 may be positioned so that they can be connected by short-range wireless communication. For example, the wireless terminal 10 may be fixed at one location in the workshop, and the user U may move around the workshop while carrying the mobile terminal 10, as long as short-range wireless communication is possible.

The present invention has been described above based on an embodiment. This embodiment is merely an example, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications are possible in the combination of the components, and that such modifications are also within the scope of the present invention.

1, 9 Wireless communication system 10 Wireless terminal 11, 31 Main control unit 12 Wireless communication unit 13, 32 Operation unit 14, 33 Display unit 15, 34 Voice input unit 16, 35 Voice output unit 17, 36 Memory unit 18, 38 Short-distance wireless communication unit 20 Base station 30 Portable terminal 37 Wireless communication unit for mobile phone line 39 Alarm unit 111 Communication control unit 311 Voice input recognition unit 312 Voice signal transmission control unit 313 Display control unit IC1 Wireless terminal icon IC2 Wireless terminal status display IC3 User icon IC4 Short-distance wireless connection key IC5 Short message key IC6 Line status display IC7 Communication mark IC8 Congestion status mark IC9 Confirmation key JC1 Received short message display JC2 Message selection display JC3 Transmitted short message display JC4 Close button JC5 Confirmation request display JC6 Transmission failure display U User

Claims (5)

A wireless communication system including a base station and a wireless terminal that performs wireless communication with the base station in a single channel per carrier (SCPC) system,
a mobile terminal that communicates with the wireless terminal by short-range wireless communication different from the wireless communication;
The mobile terminal includes:
a voice input recognition unit that recognizes a signal strength of a voice input thereto and recognizes the voice as a voice signal when the signal strength is equal to or greater than a certain value;
a voice signal transmission control unit that transmits the recognized voice signal to the wireless terminal by the short-range wireless communication;
Equipped with
The wireless terminal,
a communication control unit that controls the wireless communication with the base station and the short-range wireless communication with the mobile terminal, and when receiving the voice signal from the mobile terminal, transmits the voice signal to the base station by the wireless communication;
1. A wireless communication system comprising: The mobile terminal includes:
a display unit that displays information related to the wireless communication and the short-range wireless communication;
a display control unit that sets and displays contents to be displayed on the display unit;
Equipped with
In the wireless terminal, when the voice signal cannot be transmitted to the base station, the communication control unit causes the mobile terminal to transmit, via the short-range wireless communication, a message indicating that the voice signal cannot be transmitted to the base station;
The wireless communication system according to claim 1, characterized in that in the mobile terminal, when the display control unit receives a notification that the transmission is not possible, the display unit displays a message that the transmission is not possible. The wireless communication system according to claim 2, characterized in that in the wireless terminal, the communication control unit determines that the wireless terminal is in a state in which it cannot transmit the voice signal to the base station when the wireless terminal is receiving from the base station. The wireless communication system according to claim 3, characterized in that the mobile terminal vibrates or issues an alarm when the mobile terminal receives a notification that the transmission is not possible. The wireless communication system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that a short message consisting of text information is transmitted from the mobile terminal to the wireless terminal by the short-range wireless communication.

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