JP3190790B2 - Communication control device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication control apparatus for forming a group by a plurality of portable information devices and communicating with each other.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, when information is transferred to another device, a datagram in a packet is transmitted by attaching an identifier addressed to the device to a header. In this case, it is necessary to know in advance all the identifiers of other devices that desire to transmit.

[0003] In a large-scale wired network or the like, the identifier is necessary to specify a device. For example, between devices at short distances for performing wireless communication, positional information indicating that a user of the device is close to the device is required. Even when the information is held, it is necessary to specify the same identifier as the device specification in the large-scale network to specify the partner device. Also, when a plurality of devices are used in close proximity to each other, even if some of those devices need to be broadcasted, they completely constitute one network unit. Broadcasting can be easily performed when there is a broadcast function such as when only nearby devices are connected to one wireless LAN base station or one Ethernet segment, but such a case is special. In general, broadcasting to neighboring devices is realized by specifying and transmitting the identifiers of those devices, or by realizing that the user negotiates a group identifier between those devices. As a result, users tend to be burdened with reduced communication efficiency and equipment designation procedures.

In addition, when an infrared communication function mounted on a portable information device in recent years is used, a technique is adopted in which an identifier of the device is not selected each time and the data is transmitted to a device at a short distance. Although it was possible to transfer information to the other device, the receiving side knows who sent the information, but since the sender does not take the procedure to send the information to whom, the information is actually sent to whom. There was a problem of not knowing. In the case of wireless communication using infrared or radio waves, such as distributed pairing of shared media as described above, if the transmitting device and the receiving device cannot communicate with each other, they become hidden terminals and control access such as CSMA / CA. Even if it does, the transmission to the receiving device may collide with each other and cause a transmission error, leading to a decrease in throughput. To avoid the problem, a method of avoiding it by controlling it at the media access level has been realized. However, when it is implemented in a portable information device with a low processing capability, the load is increased due to the complexity of the process. was there.

[0005] As described above, according to the method processed by the conventional apparatus, it is necessary to specify the identifier of the transmission destination each time in the communication between adjacent devices performing wireless communication, Similarly, when other devices are used in close proximity, the communication efficiency is reduced, such as by specifying the respective identifiers or transmitting after negotiating, and the procedure for specifying the devices is complicated. There was. In the case of wireless communication such as a distributed pair in which a hidden terminal occurs, there is a problem that the throughput is reduced without complicated control.

[0006]

As described above, in the conventional communication control apparatus, a procedure for designating another terminal with which communication is to be performed is complicated, and complicated control is required to avoid a hidden terminal. There was a disadvantage of becoming. An object of the present invention is to provide a communication control device that simplifies a procedure for information transmission and can avoid occurrence of a hidden terminal.

[0007]

According to the present invention, there is provided means for transmitting communication terminal identification information of a terminal, means for receiving communication terminal identification information from another terminal, and the other terminal according to the received communication terminal identification information. Means for recognizing as a terminal capable of communicating with the own terminal, a communicable terminal information storage means for storing communicable terminal information recognized by this means, a means for transmitting communicable terminal information of this storage means, Means for receiving communicable terminal information from the terminal, other terminal information storage means for storing communicable terminal information from the received other terminal,
According to the communicable terminal information of the own terminal and the communicable terminal information from another terminal, a terminal group which can communicate with the own terminal and which can mutually communicate among all the terminals belonging thereto is specified as a communicable terminal group. Communicable terminal group specifying means, communicable terminal group storage means for storing communicable terminal group information specified by the means, and means for communicating with other terminals corresponding to the communicable terminal group information in the storage means It is characterized by having.

[0008]

According to the present invention, in a device group forming a group, a device group capable of completely communicating with each other is selected as much as possible, a group identifier is assigned to them, and a default group is selected. If the device group specified by the user can be grouped by similar processing, the information is stored by performing grouping processing. The user can efficiently transfer information and simplify the transmission procedure simply by selecting the group for the device to which information is to be transferred from multiple groups without any procedure if the default is specified, and the performance of information transfer from the user level can be improved. Leads to improvement.

In generating a group, radio waves of the same frequency, which may cause a hidden terminal, are used. Even in the case of a wireless system having a shared media peer-to-peer architecture, devices that have hidden terminals due to their mutually owned device information that can communicate with their own device and device information that their own devices can communicate with other devices Can be removed from the grouping target, thereby making it possible to avoid transmission errors due to the influence of hidden terminals of some devices during broadcasting, and to achieve stable individual or broadcast communication to devices in the group. Becomes possible.

[0010]

【Example】

Embodiment 1 An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, which is composed of a user information processing unit 101 for executing a so-called application and a communication control unit 102 for performing communication control.

The communication terminal identification information transmitting section 16 periodically reads out the communication terminal identification information of its own terminal from the communication terminal identification information storage section 15 and outputs it to the header generation section. Also, the communicable terminal information sending unit 17 periodically reads the identifier of the terminal that can communicate with the terminal itself from the communicable terminal information storage unit 13 and outputs the identifier to the header generation unit as communicable terminal information. Header generation unit 21
Then, a header indicating the type of the information is added to the input information and transmitted to the communication network.

On the other hand, when information from another terminal is received by the receiving unit 24, it is determined in the header identifying unit 22 whether the received information is addressed to the own terminal, and information not addressed to the own terminal is discarded. . The type of information addressed to the own terminal is also determined by the header identification unit 22.
The information addressed to the user is determined by the user information processing unit 1
01, the communication terminal identification information is transmitted to the communicable terminal information
Then, the communicable terminal information is output to the other terminal information acquisition unit 20, respectively.

When the communicable terminal recognition unit 19 repeatedly receives the communication terminal identification information within a certain fixed time, it determines that communication with the terminal that transmitted the information is possible, and identifies the identifier of the terminal as a communicable terminal. The information is stored in the information storage unit 13. Also,
The communicable terminal recognition unit 19 also monitors whether or not the terminal identification information stored in the communicable terminal information storage unit 13 is periodically transmitted, and the communication terminal identification information is completely received during a predetermined time. When it is exhausted, it is determined that communication is impossible, and the terminal is removed from the communicable terminal information storage unit 13.

The communicable terminal group specifying unit 11 specifies a mutually communicable terminal group based on the information stored in the communicable terminal information storage unit 13 and the other terminal information storage unit 14 and communicates the terminal group. It is stored in the terminal group storage unit 12.

When transmitting data, the user information processing section 101 outputs to the header generating section 21 a signal designating a group indicating a transmission destination together with transmission user information. The header generation unit acquires the identification information of the partner terminal belonging to the specified group from the communicable terminal group identification unit 11, adds the partner terminal identification information to the transmission user information as a header, and
Output to 23.

Next, the processing performed by the communicable terminal group specifying unit 11 in the apparatus of the first embodiment will be described with reference to the situation shown in FIG. 2 as an example. Four terminal from the communication terminal C ₁ in FIG. 2 to C ₄ are present. In the figure, terminals that can communicate directly with each other are distinguished by surrounding them with a line.
That is, terminals C ₁ , C ₂ , and C ₃ can directly communicate with each other, but, for example, terminals C ₁ and C ₄ cannot perform direct communication.

FIG. 3 shows the correspondence between the terminals shown in FIG. 2 and the identifiers of the terminals. Figure 4 shows an example of the configuration of the other terminal information holding another terminal information storage unit 17 of the terminal C ₃ is. The other terminal information includes a terminal field 401 describing an identifier of a terminal capable of directly communicating with the terminal itself and a communicable terminal field 402 describing an identifier of a terminal capable of directly communicating with the terminal having the identifier.

The communicable terminal group specifying section specifies a terminal group including a plurality of terminals including its own terminal such that all terminals included in the terminal group can communicate with each other.
The terminal group is stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit as a communicable terminal group.

The procedure for creating a communicable terminal group will be described with reference to FIG. The creation procedure shown in the flowchart in FIG. 5 is as follows. (501) Start creation of a communicable terminal group. At this time, only the terminal itself is registered as a member in the communicable terminal group to be created.

(502) From the terminals that can communicate with the own terminal,
It is checked by referring to the other terminal information stored in the other terminal information storage unit 14 whether there is a terminal that satisfies the condition of being able to communicate with all the terminals belonging to the communicable terminal group being created. 503 if there is a terminal that satisfies the above conditions
Move on to If not, go to 504.

(503) One terminal is arbitrarily selected from the terminals satisfying the condition in 502, the selected terminal is added to the communicable terminal group being created, and the process returns to 502. (504) When there is no terminal that satisfies the condition in 502, the creation of the communicable terminal group is completed. The completed communicable terminal group is stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit, and the process proceeds to 505.

(505) It is checked whether there is a terminal that can communicate with its own terminal and that satisfies the condition that it does not belong to any of the communicable terminal groups stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit by 504. If there is a terminal that satisfies the above conditions
Returning to 501, the creation of a communicable terminal group is started again. If there is no terminal that satisfies the above condition, all the processing ends.

Taking the terminal C ₃ as an example, the processing performed by the communicable terminal group specifying unit provided in the terminal C ₃ is described above with reference to 501 to
This will be described in association with 505. (501) first create a communication group comprising only the own terminal C _3.

[0024] (502) capable of communicating terminal and the terminal C ₃ are present. (Terminals C ₁ , C ₂ ) Therefore, the processing shifts to 503. (503) selects one arbitrarily from the available communication terminal with the terminal C _3. Here is to select a terminal C _1, to add a communicable terminal group. As a result, the members of the communicable terminal group are the terminals C ₁ and C ₃ .

(504) There are terminals that can communicate with both the terminal C ₁ and the terminal C ₃ . (From the other terminal information shown in FIG. 4, the terminal C ₂ it is seen to be able to communicate with the terminal _{C 1, C 3.) (} 503) to add to the terminal C ₂ communicable terminal group. As a result, the members of the communicable terminal group are the terminals C ₁ and C
₂ and C ₃ .

(502) Since there is no terminal that can communicate with all of the terminals C ₁ , C ₂ and C ₃ , the process proceeds to 504. (504) Completion of the communicable terminal group. (The members of the completed group are terminals C ₁ , C ₂ and C _3. )
This group is stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit.
Return to 01.

The subsequent processing is omitted. In this way, a communicable terminal group is created. 6 is a configuration example of a group table communicable terminal group storage unit of the terminal C ₃ holds. The group table includes a communicable terminal group identifier field 601, a terminal number field 602 recording the number of terminals belonging to the communicable terminal group, and a terminal identifier field 603 recording all the identifiers of the terminals belonging to the communicable terminal group. .

When a plurality of communicable terminal groups are created by the communicable terminal group specifying unit, it is necessary to determine which communicable terminal group is to be used. This causes the user to feel troublesome. From the viewpoint of simplification of the procedure, it is desirable to automatically perform not only the setting of the group but also the selection of the group without inquiring the user. Therefore, the communicable terminal group identification unit 11 selects one of the plurality of communicable terminal groups stored in the group table as a default group according to a predetermined criterion, and the user particularly designates a group to be transmitted. If not, the header generation unit is notified of the default group as a transmission target. As a selection criterion of the default group, for example, a group having the largest number of terminals belonging to the plurality of communicable terminal groups is selected.

Embodiment 2 In Embodiment 2, a method of setting a group stored in the communicable terminal group storage means will be described based on the operation of the communicable terminal group specifying unit 11.

The communicable terminal group specifying unit performs communication according to the following procedure based on the information stored in the communicable terminal information storage unit 13 and the other terminal information storage unit 14 in the same procedure as in the first embodiment. The terminal group as the partner is limited, and the terminal group is stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit 12 as a communicable terminal group.

The processing performed by the communicable terminal group identification unit 11 will be described with reference to the situation shown in FIG. 2 as in the first embodiment. The communication purulent terminal group identification unit 11 stores, for the terminal itself and all the terminals that can directly communicate with the terminal, a list in which the identifiers of the terminals and the identifiers of the terminals that can directly communicate with the terminal are recorded. And stores the list in a communicable terminal table provided in the communication network setting unit for storing the list.

Here, the communicable terminal list of the own terminal is created by referring to the communicable terminal information storage unit 13. The communicable terminal list of the other terminal is created by referring to the other terminal information storage unit 14.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the configuration of the other terminal information other terminal information storage unit 14 of the terminal C ₁ is retained. The other terminal information includes a terminal field 701 describing an identifier of a terminal capable of directly communicating with the terminal itself and a communicable terminal field 702 describing an identifier of a terminal capable of directly communicating with the terminal having the identifier.

[0034] FIG. 8 is a configuration example of a communication terminal capable table communicable terminal group specifier of the terminal C ₁ is retained. The communicable terminal table includes a terminal field 801 in which an identifier of a terminal is described and a communicable terminal list field 802 in which a communicable terminal list of terminals having the identifier is described.

The communicable terminal group specifying unit 11 compares the communicable terminal list of the own terminal with the communicable terminal list of another terminal, and has the same communicable terminal list as the communicable terminal list of the own terminal. A terminal group consisting of terminals is created as a communicable terminal group, and a communicable terminal group storage unit
Store 12.

A terminal having a communicable terminal list different from the communicable terminal list of the own terminal is a terminal that can directly communicate with a terminal that cannot directly communicate with the own terminal, and is not included in the communicable terminal group.

In the example used in the [0037] present description, communicable terminal group specifier of terminal C ₁ refers to the communication capable terminal table shown in FIG. 8, the same communication capable terminal list and communicable terminal list of terminal C ₁ since the terminal is a C ₂ having,
Stored in the communication terminal group storage unit a group of terminal C ₁ and the terminal C ₂ as the communication capable terminal groups.

According to the above procedure, the communicable terminal group specifying unit 11
Can communicate directly with each other in the group of terminals recorded in
In addition, since terminals that can communicate with terminals that cannot communicate with the own terminal are excluded from the terminal group, communication between terminals that are not included in the terminal group by communication performed between terminals included in the terminal group. Not hinder. That is, it is possible to avoid the occurrence of a transmission error due to the influence of the hidden terminal, and it is possible to perform stable broadcast communication to the terminals in the group.

Embodiment 3 The user information processing unit 101 is a group to be transmitted from a plurality of communicable terminal groups stored in the communicable terminal group storage unit 12 according to the procedure described in the first or second embodiment. Can be selected and used. The procedure for selecting a group by the user information processing unit will be described below.

The user information processing section inputs the group information request signal to the communicable terminal group specifying section. The communicable terminal group specifying unit creates a list indicating the correspondence between the group identifier and the identifiers of the terminals belonging to the group by referring to the communicable terminal group storage unit, and outputs the list to the user information processing unit.

When the user information processing unit transmits data, it selects a group to be transmitted based on the list received from the communicable terminal group specifying unit, and transmits a header together with user information for transmitting an identifier of the selected group. Output to the generator. The header generation unit adds the identification information of the communication partner terminal belonging to the group input from the user information processing unit to the user information as a header, outputs the information to the transmission unit, and outputs the information only to the terminals belonging to the group specified by the user information processing unit. The user information is broadcast.

Embodiment 4 The user information processing unit 101 sets a group of terminals that the user wants to communicate with in addition to a group set in advance in the communicable terminal group storage unit by the communicable terminal group specifying unit 11. It can be set and used as a group in the communicable terminal group storage unit. The setting procedure of the user setting group will be described below.

The user information processing section selects one or a plurality of terminals that desire communication from the communicable terminals stored in the communicable terminal information storage section,
Along with the group setting request signal, a list of identifiers of terminals that desire communication is output. The communicable terminal group identification unit is
When a group setting request signal is received, it is determined whether or not a group consisting of terminals described in the input list can be set, and the determination result is notified to the user information processing unit. further,
When determining that the group requested by the user can be set, the communicable terminal group specifying unit assigns an identifier to the group and stores the identifier in the communicable terminal group storage unit.

The determination as to whether or not a group can be set is performed using the procedure described below, which is similar to the procedure described in the first embodiment. (501) A new group including only the own terminal as a member is created as a communicable terminal group.

(502) It is stored in the other terminal information storage unit 14 whether or not there is a terminal that satisfies the condition that it can communicate with all members of the communicable terminal group being created from among the terminals that desire communication. Check by referring to other terminal information. If there is a terminal that satisfies the above condition, the process proceeds to 503. If it does not exist, the creation of the communicable terminal group is completed, and the procedure moves to 504.

(503) One terminal is arbitrarily selected from the terminals satisfying the condition in 502, the selected terminal is added to the communicable terminal group being created, and the process returns to 502. (504) It is checked whether the communicable terminal group created by 502 and 503 satisfies the condition that the user includes all the terminals that the user wants to communicate with. If the above conditions are met,
Allow creation of user setting groups.

In addition, the group setting is determined according to the second embodiment.
And a communicable terminal table stored in the communicable terminal group specifying unit may be used.
In this case, the communicable terminal group identification unit 11 compares the communicable terminal list of the own terminal with the communicable terminal list of the partner terminal with which the user wants to communicate, and finds that all the terminals with which the user wants to communicate are In the case where the terminal has the same communicable terminal list as the communicable terminal list of the own terminal, the user is permitted to create a user setting group including terminals that the user desires to communicate with.

Embodiment 5 A communication terminal according to the present invention can have a relay function of transmitting information to another terminal when receiving information from another terminal. Hereinafter, a method of realizing the relay function will be described.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of this embodiment having the relay function. In this embodiment, a relay control unit 30 is added to the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 to realize a relay function. The operation of the relay control unit will be described below by taking the situation shown in FIG. 2 as an example.

The relay control unit operates in the same procedure as in the first embodiment, and the communicable terminal information storage unit 13 and the other terminal information storage unit 14
By referring to the information stored in the terminal, it is checked whether there is a terminal group including terminals that can directly communicate with the terminal itself, and terminals included in the terminal group cannot directly communicate with each other. If a terminal group exists, it is determined that relaying is to be performed in order to enable communication between terminals belonging to the terminal group, and a terminal that can communicate with the terminal belonging to the terminal group through its own relay is determined. The identifier is transmitted as relay information.

For example, in the situation shown in FIG. 2, terminal C ₃ knows that terminal C ₁ and terminal C ₄ cannot communicate directly with each other by referring to other terminal information held by the terminal C ₃ , is against the terminal C ₁ transmits the relay information indicating that it is possible to communicate with the terminal C ₄ by the relay of the terminal itself, the terminal C ₁ by the relay of the own terminal to the terminal C ₄
And relay information indicating that communication is possible.

When the relay unit receives the relay information, it is determined in the header identification that the received information is the relay information, and the relay information is output to the relay control unit. The relay control unit knows from the received relay information that communication is possible with the terminal that cannot directly communicate, and the relay terminal table provided in the relay control unit has the identifier of the terminal performing the relay and the relay of the terminal. Register the identifier of the terminal that can communicate with the terminal.

[0053] FIG. 10 is a configuration example of the relay station table held terminal C _4. The relay station table is the destination table 121
And a relay station table 122. To realize the relay function, a destination field and a transfer destination field are provided in a header added to transmission information. Each field is used as follows.

When transmitting information, the header generation unit 12 refers to the relay station table provided in the relay control unit, and if it is determined that the information can be delivered directly to the destination terminal without relaying, the header generation unit 12 , Enter the address of the destination terminal in the destination field, leave the destination field empty, and send. If it is determined that relaying is required, the address of the relay station is entered in the destination field in the header, and the address of the destination terminal is entered in the transfer destination field and transmitted.

When the relay station receives the information transmitted by another terminal, first, the transfer destination field is checked, and if the field is empty, it is determined that the information is addressed to the relay station. If the transfer destination address is described in this field, the relay station table is referred to, and if it is determined that the information can be delivered directly to the transfer destination device without requiring relay, the transfer destination address is set in the destination field of the header. Fill in the device address,
Leave the destination field empty and send. If it is determined that relaying is required, enter the address of the relay station described in the relay station table in the destination field in the header,
The destination field is transmitted without rewriting.

For example, when the terminal C ₄ transmits information to the terminal C ₁ , the header generation unit of the terminal C ₄ refers to the relay station table provided in the relay control unit, so that the terminal C 4 Knowing that terminal C ₃ needs to be relayed for transmission to ₁ , the address of terminal C ₃ is described in the destination field of the header of the packet to be transmitted, and the address of terminal C ₁ is described in the transfer destination field. Send out. Terminal C
₃ receives the packet transmitted from the terminal C ₄ because the address of the own terminal is described in the destination field,
From the address described in the destination field, the received packet is determined to be addressed to the terminal C _1, it rewrites the destination field of the header of the packet to the address of the terminal C _1, and the destination field empty, the terminal C It is transmitted to the _1. In the terminal C _1, recognizes the address of the terminal in the destination field of the header of the packet is described, since the further transfer destination field of the header is empty, the packet to be addressed to its own terminal. Thus, terminal C
₄ the transmission of information to the terminal C ₁ from completing.

According to the above means, the information transmitted by the own terminal is transferred by the terminal capable of directly communicating with the own terminal, and reaches the terminal which cannot directly communicate with the own terminal. Can be performed.

[0058]

According to the present invention, a group of devices that can communicate with each other is specified based on the information collected by the terminals, and is set and stored as a group. If there is, transmission can be performed only by selecting a group, the procedure required for transmission is simplified, and efficient communication becomes possible. Furthermore, it is possible to avoid the occurrence of transmission errors due to the influence of hidden terminals,
Stable communication to the terminals in the group becomes possible.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a use situation of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing correspondence between terminals and their identifiers;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of other terminal information according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for specifying a communication partner according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a communicable terminal group according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of other terminal information according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a communicable terminal table for specifying a communication partner according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a configuration diagram of a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a relay station table according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

11: communicable terminal group specifying section 12: communicable terminal group storage section 13: communicable terminal information storage section 14: other terminal information storage section 15: communication terminal identification information storage section 16: communication terminal identification information transmission section 17: communication Possible terminal information transmission unit 18 Communication-capable terminal information acquisition unit 19 Communication-possible terminal recognition unit 20 Other terminal information acquisition unit 21 Header generation unit 22 Header identification unit 23 Transmission unit 24 Reception unit 30 Relay control unit 101
… User information processing unit 102… Communication control unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04B ^7/ 24-7/26 102 H04Q ^7/ 00-7/38

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A means for transmitting communication terminal identification information of its own terminal, a means for receiving communication terminal identification information from another terminal, and a terminal capable of communicating with another terminal according to the received communication terminal identification information Means, the communicable terminal information storage means for storing the communicable terminal information recognized by the means, the means for transmitting the communicable terminal information of the storage means, and the communicable terminal information from another terminal. Receiving means, other terminal information storage means for storing received communicable terminal information from another terminal, and a terminal group capable of communicating with the own terminal according to the communicable terminal information of the own terminal and the communicable terminal information from the other terminal A communicable terminal group specifying means for specifying a group of terminals capable of communicating with each other as a communicable terminal group, and a communicable terminal group specified by this means. A communication control device comprising: a communicable terminal group storage means for storing group information; and a means for communicating with other terminals in accordance with the communicable terminal group information in the storage means. 2. The communication control device according to claim 1, wherein the communicable terminal group specifying means excludes terminals belonging to a communicable terminal group and communicable with terminals outside the group. 3. The communication means selects a communicable terminal group as a transmission destination when a plurality of communicable terminal group information is stored in the communicable terminal group storage means. Item 2. The communication control device according to Item 1. 4. The communicable terminal group specifying means, wherein when a user specifies a terminal group to which communication is desired, a communicable terminal group according to the communicable terminal information of the own terminal and the communicable terminal information from another terminal. The communication control device according to claim 2, wherein it is determined whether or not the communication is recognized. 5. An information relay means for transmitting received information from another terminal to another terminal which cannot directly communicate with the other terminal, wherein the communicable terminal group specifying means comprises a plurality of terminal groups including the own terminal. 2. When there is a combination that cannot be directly communicated with different terminals belonging to respective terminal groups, relay information indicating that communication is possible by relaying the terminal to the combination of the terminals is transmitted. Communication control device.