JP4170802B2 - Information distribution method and information distribution system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an information distribution system capable of distributing a wide range of inexpensive information and selectively collecting information by forming a wireless network and sequentially receiving and distributing information by a plurality of wireless terminals. It is.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is an information notification type wireless communication system in which a distribution wireless terminal installed in a store or the like distributes information such as advertisements closely related to a region to a wireless terminal carried by a passerby walking in the vicinity of the terminal ( For example, see Patent Document 1.)
[0003]
As shown in FIG. 1, the information broadcasting wireless communication system described above distributes information to a plurality of distribution wireless terminals connected to a wired network such as the Internet, and each distribution terminal device For example, information is distributed to the wireless terminal according to a preset rule such as every certain time interval.
[0004]
However, wireless communication standards such as wireless LAN and Bluetooth (registered trademark) have a communication reach range of about 10 to 100 m, and when distributing information in a shopping street or a shopping mall, a large number of wireless networks for distribution are used. There is a problem that it is necessary to arrange terminals and connect them to a network, which requires equipment costs.
[0005]
In order to solve such a problem, each wireless terminal sequentially distributes information received from a distribution wireless terminal to another wireless terminal in the vicinity in a bucket relay manner, so that the above-described information notification wireless communication system There is a relay control method capable of distributing information over a wide range with a few distribution wireless terminals (see, for example, Non-Patent Document 1).
[0006]
In the relay control method described above, as shown in FIG. 2, the wireless terminal transmits again (that is, relays) the information received from the distribution wireless terminal to surrounding wireless terminals. As a result, it is possible to distribute information even to a wireless terminal in a place where radio waves of the distribution wireless terminal do not reach.
[0007]
However, with the simple method as described above, since the traffic cannot be controlled, there remains a problem that the traffic increases without limit.
[0008]
In the above-described information broadcast type wireless communication system and relay control method, the information transmission possible range is limited to a specific range, and the information receiver does not carry the wireless terminal near the distribution wireless terminal or the relay wireless terminal. As long as there is a problem that the information cannot be obtained.
[0009]
In addition, since the distribution of information in the information broadcast type wireless communication method and the relay control method described above is generally performed in the vicinity of the place where the current location is, information on a specific range scheduled to go to the future is There is also the problem that you can't get without going to that place.
[0010]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2002-176403 A [Non-Patent Document 1]
Kitagishi Yumiko, Uehara Hideyuki, Yamamoto Ryo, Yokoyama Mitsuo, Ito Daio, “Relay Control Method Based on Priority Areas in Multi-hop Wireless Networks”, Science Studies (B), December 2002, Vol. J85B, no. 12, p. 2119-2128
[0011]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and has a wide range of information such as advertisements related to a specific category or a specific area, at a low equipment cost, beyond the reach of normal wireless communication. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information distribution method and an information distribution system that can be distributed to a network and that traffic does not increase without limit.
[0012]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention is an information distribution method for forming a wireless network and distributing information held by a distribution terminal to a wireless terminal, the wireless terminal receiving the information Accumulate information, monitor the number of information received within a certain period of time and the number of other wireless terminals around the terminal, and after a certain period of time has elapsed in advance, the wireless terminal receives within a certain period of time If the number of pieces of information does not exceed a preset threshold and the number of wireless terminals exceeds a preset threshold, the stored information is transmitted to other wireless terminals around the terminal and, each of the plurality of wireless terminals, receiving information, storing, and by sequentially performing the recall, in which the distribution terminal is to deliver a wide range of information to be retained.
[0013]
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the number of information received by the wireless terminal within a predetermined time is monitored, the number of other wireless terminals existing around the terminal is monitored, and the number of information If the number of wireless terminals does not exceed a preset threshold and the number of wireless terminals exceeds a preset threshold, information stored in the wireless terminals is transmitted to other wireless terminals so that the amount of information distribution is autonomous Optimized so that traffic does not grow endlessly .
[0014]
A second aspect of the present invention is an information distribution method according to the first embodiment described above, when sending the information to the other wireless terminals existing around the own terminal, the radio terminal has accumulated Information corresponding to the number of transmissions per time set in advance is selected from the information and transmitted.
[0015]
According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the information delivery method according to the first or second aspect described above, the wireless terminal selectively stores only information that matches a preset collection condition. is there.
[0016]
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the information delivery method according to the first to third aspects described above, the wireless terminal receives the same information as the information within a predetermined time when the information is received. If the number of relays included in the information is 1 or more, the same information can be relayed forever by subtracting 1 from the number of relays included in the information and then transmitting the information. In order to prevent traffic from increasing without limit.
[0017]
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the information distribution system for forming the wireless network and distributing the information held by the distribution terminal to the wireless terminal, the wireless terminal is a storage area for the distributed information and management information. An information storage unit, a collection rule editing unit for setting information collection conditions in advance,
When the information is received, the information is accumulated in the information accumulation unit, and when a predetermined time has elapsed, the number of information received within the certain time and the number of other wireless terminals existing around the own terminal are monitored, When the number of information does not exceed a preset threshold and the number of wireless terminals exceeds a preset threshold, the stored information is transmitted to other wireless terminals existing around the terminal. A transmission / reception processing unit is provided.
[0019]
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the information distribution system according to the fifth aspect described above, when the information is transmitted to other wireless terminals existing around the terminal, the transmission / reception processing unit stores the information. The information corresponding to the number of transmissions per time set in advance is selected from the above-mentioned information and transmitted.
[0020]
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the information distribution system according to the fifth or sixth aspect described above, the transmission / reception processing means selectively stores only information that matches a preset collection condition. It is a thing.
[0021]
According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, in the information delivery system according to the fifth to seventh aspects described above, the transmission / reception processing unit receives the same information as the information within a predetermined time when the information is received. If the number of relays included in the information is 1 or more, the same information continues to be relayed forever by subtracting 1 from the number of relays included in the information and then transmitting the information This prevents the traffic from increasing without limit.
[0022]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, the present invention will be described based on the illustrated embodiments. FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of the information distribution system of the present invention.
[0023]
In the information distribution system, the information distributed from the wireless terminal for distribution is out of the reach of radio waves of the wireless terminal for distribution in the wireless network of group A by the wireless terminal that received the distribution stores and relays the information. It is also distributed to wireless terminals in
[0024]
Further, an arbitrary wireless terminal moves to another group, transmits the accumulated information, and the wireless terminals in the group perform accumulation and relay, so that the information distributed by the group A distribution wireless terminal is transmitted. Thus, it becomes possible to distribute to group B and group C beyond the normal communicable range.
[0025]
4 and 5 show the configuration of the information distribution system of the present invention that enables distribution of the information shown in FIG. Hereinafter, in order to distinguish from various types of control information, information such as distributed advertisements will be referred to as “content”.
[0026]
FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of the wireless terminal 1. The wireless terminal 1 includes a transmission / reception processing unit 2, a collection rule editing unit 3, an information display control unit 4, an information storage unit 5, a transmission / reception control information holding unit 6, a display 7, an antenna 8, and an input device 9.
[0027]
The transmission / reception processing unit 2 stores the received content in the information storage unit 5 and determines whether or not to relay (transmit to another wireless terminal), or transmits the stored content itself. is there.
[0028]
The collection rule editing unit 3 uses the input device 9 to input content classification, keywords, and the like, and sets content collection rules in advance.
[0029]
The information display control unit 4 performs control for appropriately displaying a list of content stored in the information storage unit 5 and the content itself according to an instruction from the input device.
[0030]
As shown in FIG. 5, the information storage unit 5 stores the received content itself and a management table 10 for managing the content.
[0031]
In FIG. 5, “content (n)” represents the substance of the content, and has additional information such as a content ID assigned at the time of production, content expiration date, content attribute information indicating region and classification, and the number of hops. Realized as a text file or binary file.
[0032]
Here, the number of hops indicates how many wireless terminals the content has been distributed from the distribution wireless terminal and reached, and an initial value such as “5” is set in the distribution wireless terminal, It decreases by “1” for each relay.
[0033]
The management table 10 is a table that holds a content ID, content expiration date, content attribute information, a collection flag indicating the collection state of the content, a collection flag update time, an access path to the content entity, etc. Realized as a file.
[0034]
The transmission / reception control information holding unit 6 controls the relay, accumulation, and transmission processing, the transmission period of the presence notification signal, the threshold of the number of adjacent wireless terminals, the threshold of the number of received contents, the number of transmission contents per time, collection Stores parameters such as valid time for which the flag is undetermined, collection flag is valid for discard, content attribute definition, and collection rule.
[0035]
The collection flag is set to “undecided” immediately after receiving content from another wireless terminal or a distribution wireless terminal. “Undetermined” transitions to “collection” or “discard” after the valid time when the collection flag held by the transmission / reception control information collection unit 6 is undecided has elapsed after reception. At the same time, the number of hops that is the content ancillary information is reset to an original value, for example, “5”.
[0036]
The transmission / reception processing unit 2 changes the collection flag from “undecided” to “collection” when the collected content matches the collection rule, and allows the content to be discarded when the collected content does not match the collection rule. Therefore, the collection flag is changed from “undecided” to “discard”.
[0037]
After the collection flag becomes “discarded”, the transmission / reception processing unit 2 determines that the collection flag held by the transmission / reception control information collection unit 6 has expired or the content expiration date has passed, The content entity is deleted from the information storage unit 5.
[0038]
The display 7 is a liquid crystal display that displays a list of contents, contents, control information, and the like.
[0039]
The antenna 8 performs wireless transmission / reception between the wireless terminal for distribution and the wireless terminal, or between the wireless terminal and the wireless terminal, and is actually an antenna for wireless communication such as a wireless LAN or Bluetooth.
[0040]
In Bluetooth or the like, each terminal transmits a presence notification signal for notifying the other terminal of its presence at a preset period, and other terminals that can transmit and receive within a certain range (for example, 10 m) around the terminal. If the presence of another terminal is recognized, a connection is established between the devices and transmission / reception is performed.
[0041]
The input device 9 is a pointing device such as a keyboard or a pen for inputting information or giving a command to the wireless terminal.
[0042]
Next, the distribution wireless terminal 11 will be described. The distribution wireless terminal 11 includes a transmission control unit 12, a transmission information storage unit 13, and a transmission control information holding unit 14, as shown in FIG.
[0043]
The transmission control unit 12 sends the content stored in the transmission information storage unit 13 to the wireless terminal according to the rules described in the transmission control information holding unit 14 (for example, the transmission cycle, the number of transmission contents per time). To be delivered.
[0044]
As shown in FIG. 7, the transmission information storage unit 13 stores the content itself to be transmitted and a management table 15 for managing the content.
[0045]
In FIG. 7, “content (n)” represents the substance of the content, has additional information such as a content ID, content expiration date, content attribute information, and hop count, and is realized as a text file or a binary file. .
[0046]
The management table 15 is a table that holds content IDs, content expiration dates, content attribute information, access paths to content entities, and the like, and is realized as, for example, a CSV file.
[0047]
Next, the operation of the information distribution system of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 8 is a state transition diagram showing the state of the processing process inside the wireless terminal 1.
[0048]
First, when an information transmission / reception application is activated, the wireless terminal 1 enters a “relay” state and waits in a state where the number of surrounding wireless terminals and the number of received contents are constantly monitored.
[0049]
Next, in the “relay” state, when it is determined that the “transmission” is possible, the “transmission” state is entered, and all or a part of the content stored in the wireless terminal is transmitted to the surroundings. When the transmission is finished, the state returns to the “relay” state.
[0050]
FIG. 9 is a state transition diagram showing the state of the processing process in the “relay” state of the wireless terminal 1. In FIG. 9, the upper part represents the process of periodically transmitting the presence notification signal, and the lower part waits for reception of the signal, and determines whether the received signal is the presence notification signal of other equipment or the content. In the case of content, this represents a process of retransmitting for relay.
[0051]
Here, the determination of whether or not to retransmit the received content is: 1) Do not relay the received content with 0 hops. 2) Use the same content ID as the received content and the collection flag is “Undetermined. "If the content in the""state is stored in its own terminal, the relay is not performed. 3) In other cases, the relay is performed.
[0052]
FIG. 10 is a state transition diagram showing the state of the processing process in the “transmission” state of the wireless terminal 1. If it is determined from the “relay” state that transmission is possible, the “transmission content selection” state is set. The determination of whether or not transmission is possible is performed as follows.
[0053]
Based on the number of received contents and the threshold of the number of adjacent wireless terminals in the immediately preceding presence notification cycle, the number of received contents is equal to or less than the threshold and the number of adjacent wireless terminals (the number of presence notifications received from other terminals) is When it is equal to or greater than the threshold, the state transits to the “transmission content selection” state.
[0054]
In the “transmission content selection” state, the content to be distributed is selected in accordance with the number of transmission contents per transmission held in the transmission / reception control information holding unit 6 at random, and the content corresponding to the number of transmission contents per transmission is selected. In the “content transmission” state, the selected content is actually transmitted. When finished, it returns to the “relay” state again.
[0055]
As described above, the present invention has been described in detail on the basis of the embodiment. However, the information distribution system according to the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various types can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. Of course, it is possible to change this.
[0056]
For example, by providing a wireless terminal with the function of a wireless terminal for distribution, contents whose collection flag is “collected” are stored in the wireless terminal in advance, and the contents are transmitted to other wireless terminals. Thus, the wireless terminal may be used as a distribution wireless terminal.
[0057]
As a result, for example, the content can be transmitted only when a certain number of other wireless terminals exist in the surrounding area, instead of constantly transmitting the content at regular time intervals. , Can reduce power consumption. This is effective when the distribution wireless terminal is a portable terminal.
[0058]
It is also possible to generate a content ID from the content body, content expiration date, content attribute information, etc. using a hash algorithm. Thereby, even when content produced by a plurality of content distributors is distributed by each management system, it is possible to reduce time and effort for managing content IDs.
[0059]
When the content ID is generated by a hash algorithm, data used for calculating the hash value is extracted from the received content, the hash value is calculated, and compared with the content ID to verify whether they match. By adding the process to the transmission / reception processing unit, it becomes possible to detect alteration of the content.
[0060]
In the embodiment of the present specification, the user needs to edit the collection rule for each wireless terminal, but the feature of the collected content is indexed, and the similarity between the received content and the stored content It is also possible to use a method of evaluating the content and collecting similar contents.
[0061]
This is because when the angle formed between the feature value vector of the received content and the feature value vector of the collected content is counted smaller than a specified value θ ° and becomes larger than a specified value N. A feature vector extraction unit that calculates a set of both feature vectors, such as collecting, and a feature vector evaluation unit that compares feature vectors, evaluates the degree of conformity, and determines whether or not to collect It is provided in the transmission / reception means.
[0062]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the information distribution system of the present invention, the wireless terminal transmits the accumulated information to other wireless terminals around the terminal after a certain period of time. Thus, it becomes possible to distribute information that exceeds the normal communicable range of the distribution wireless terminal.
[0063]
In addition, even in a wireless terminal that exists outside the communicable range of the distribution wireless terminal, the information can be received from the wireless terminal by being carried around, without going to the periphery of the distribution wireless terminal, It becomes possible to collect information.
[0064]
In addition, because the number of information received and the number of wireless terminals in the vicinity, the information distribution amount is small, and only when a certain number of wireless terminals exist in the surrounding area, information is transmitted by itself. The amount of information distribution is optimized autonomously, and traffic can be prevented from increasing without limit.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of a conventional information notification type wireless communication system.
FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a conventional relay control method.
FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of an information distribution system according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a wireless terminal according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of an information storage unit according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of a distribution wireless terminal according to the present invention.
FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a transmission information storage unit of the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a state transition diagram of a processing process inside the wireless terminal of the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a state transition diagram of a relay processing process of a wireless terminal according to the present invention.
FIG. 10 is a state transition diagram of a calling process of a wireless terminal according to the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Wireless terminal 2 Transmission / reception processing part 3 Collection rule edit part 4 Information display control part 5 Information storage part 6 Transmission / reception control information holding part 7 Display 8 Antenna 9 Input device 10 Management table 11 Distribution wireless terminal 12 Transmission control part 13 Transmission information storage Unit 14 transmission control information holding unit 15 management table

Claims (8)

An information distribution method for forming a wireless network and distributing information held by a distribution terminal to a wireless terminal,
The wireless terminal, stores the received information to monitor the number of other wireless terminals existing around the number of information and own terminal received during a predetermined time,
Stored when the number of pieces of information received by the wireless terminal within a certain period of time does not exceed a preset threshold and the number of wireless terminals exceeds a preset threshold after a predetermined period of time has elapsed. The information being sent to other wireless terminals around the terminal,
Each of the plurality of wireless terminals distributes information held by the distribution terminal in a wide range by sequentially receiving, storing, and retransmitting information.
An information delivery method characterized by the above. The information delivery method according to claim 1,
When transmitting the information to other wireless terminals existing around the terminal, the wireless terminal selects and transmits information corresponding to the preset number of transmissions from the stored information. ,
An information delivery method characterized by the above. The information distribution method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the wireless terminal selectively stores only information that matches a preset collection condition.
An information delivery method characterized by the above. 4. The information distribution method according to claim 1, wherein the wireless terminal has not received the same information as the information within a predetermined time when the information is received, and When the number of relays included in the information is 1 or more, the information is transmitted after subtracting 1 from the number of relays included in the information.
An information delivery method characterized by the above. An information distribution system that forms a wireless network and distributes information held by a distribution terminal to a wireless terminal,
The wireless terminal is
An information storage unit that is an area for storing distributed information and management information;
A collection rule editor that sets information collection conditions in advance;
When the information is received, it is stored in the information storage unit,
When a predetermined time has elapsed, the number of information received within the predetermined time and the number of other wireless terminals existing around the own terminal are monitored, and the information number does not exceed a preset threshold, and When the number of wireless terminals exceeds a preset threshold value, a transmission / reception processing unit that transmits accumulated information to other wireless terminals existing around the terminal,
An information distribution system comprising: The information distribution system according to claim 5,
When the transmission / reception processing means transmits the information to other wireless terminals existing around the terminal,
From the stored information, select and send information for a preset number of outgoing calls,
An information distribution system characterized by that. The information distribution system according to claim 5 or 6,
The transmission / reception processing means is
Selectively accumulate only information that matches pre-set collection conditions,
An information distribution system characterized by that. The information distribution system according to any one of claims 5 to 7,
The transmission / reception processor is
If the same information as the information is not received within a predetermined time when the information is received and if the number of relays included in the information is 1 or more, 1 is calculated from the number of relays included in the information. Send the information after subtraction,
An information distribution system characterized by that.

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