JP5925566B2 - Wireless communication system, base station, and mobile router - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a radio communication system, a base station in the radio communication system, and a mobile router.

  In recent years, mobile routers (MR) that perform wireless communication with a plurality of information devices and relay respective networks have been actively developed. For example, a PAN (Personal Area Network) is formed between an information device having a wireless communication function in a home (notebook PC, tablet PC, portable game machine, portable music player, digital camera, etc.) and a mobile router. It is assumed that it is connected to an external network through.

  As a wireless communication system in the PAN, short-range wireless communication standards such as Bluetooth (registered trademark), UWB (Ultra Wide Band), ZigBee, and the like have been researched and developed, but at present, when a wireless LAN is used. Is the majority. There are various wireless LAN standards such as IEEE802.11a / b / g / n, and QoS (Quality of Service) is defined in IEEE802.11e. In IEEE802.11e, as shown in FIG. 6 (a), four types of priority (audio / video / best effort / background) are assigned to the terminal, and the waiting time until transmission of a frame with high priority is lowered. A priority control method called EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Channel Access) is defined. Also, as shown in FIG. 6B, there is a band securing method called HCCA (Hybrid Coordination Function Controlled Channel Access) that allocates a time during which data can be transmitted exclusively to a terminal that wants to send a frame with a high priority. It is prescribed. HCCA is realized by a terminal notifying an access point scheduler of TSPEC (Traffic Specification) such as average data rate, frame size, necessary bandwidth, timing, and the like.

  On the other hand, the mobile router can be finally connected to the Internet network through a wireless LAN, WiMAX, 3G, HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), LTE (Long Term Evolution) line, or the like. The QoS in that case is defined by each standard. For example, in the case of LTE, as shown in Table 1 below, it is known to determine the presence / absence of bandwidth control, the allowable delay time, the packet loss rate, etc. according to nine stages of QCI (QoS Class Identifier) ( For example, refer nonpatent literature 1). When the QCI is 1 to 4, a GBR (Guaranteed Bit Rate) with a guaranteed bandwidth is set, and when the QCI is 5 to 9, a non-GBR with no bandwidth guaranteed is set. For example, in the case of an application such as voice (VoIP) that requires real-time performance, the priority is set high and the bandwidth is guaranteed. On the other hand, in the case of an application with a low real-time property such as Web browsing or e-mail, the priority is set low and the bandwidth is not guaranteed.

  The LTE system architecture and the bearer image throughout are disclosed in Non-Patent Document 2, for example.

“3GPP TS 23.203”, Release 10, 3GPP, 2011.06, p34-36 “3GPP TS 23.401”, Release 10, 3GPP, 2011.06, p16,61

  When connecting information devices in a PAN to a public wireless network through a mobile router, the QoS implementation method and communication speed differ depending on the communication method of the information terminal to the mobile router and the mobile router to the wireless base station. Ensuring consistent QoS when viewed in the end total session is not considered. For example, a wireless LAN communication method (for example, IEEE802.11g) that is mainly used in the PAN is faster than a 3G line but slower than an LTE line. If the QoS level corresponding to the line speed in the PAN is selected and the QoS of the radio part is determined accordingly, if the line speed on the public radio is faster than the PAN, the QoS that is too high is wasted. There is a risk.

  In addition, there are many cases where the radio wave conditions are different, but this is not also taken into consideration, and QoS control in cooperation with the total wireless section is not performed. For example, if the radio wave condition in the PAN is bad, no matter how much high-level QoS is implemented on the public wireless network side, there is a high possibility that it will be wasted in total.

  In applications that require high real-time performance, it is important to secure QoS. In the radio section where the bandwidth is limited and tends to be congested, IntServ (Integrated Service) is applied, and over-provisioning is performed. Although there is an idea that DiffServ (Differentiated Service) is used in a wired section having a relatively large margin, IntServ including RSVP (Resource reSerVation Protocol) is poorly expandable and is not easily distributed.

  Further, as far as intra-PAN communication is concerned, it can be considered that there is a relatively large amount of resources even in the wireless section, but there are many cases where the resources of the public wireless portion are tight. Unlike a private network, considering the acceptance of emergency calls as a public network, there is a desire to avoid unnecessary resource use.

  Furthermore, the actual communication speed depends not only on the line speed, but also on the processing capacity / performance and load status of the terminal and router (including the mobile router), and the processing of the terminal for the application cannot catch up. Even when a high speed is not required, QoS setting according to the application is performed, and high-level QoS is unnecessarily performed on the public radio, and resources may be consumed.

  In order to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a radio communication system, a base station, and a mobile router capable of avoiding wasteful use of resources and achieving effective use of frequencies.

In order to solve the above problems, a wireless communication system according to the present invention provides:
A wireless communication system comprising a base station and a mobile router,
The mobile router generates, for each application, information indicating an actual radio wave state of an information terminal communicating with the mobile router and information indicating a radio wave state necessary for the information terminal to communicate with the mobile router. the communication information including information Les a communication information notification unit configured to notify the base station,
The base station acquires the communication information from the mobile router, and changes the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer using the actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state generated for each application. And a scheduling unit that performs the processing.

Furthermore, in the wireless communication system according to the present invention,
When the actual radio wave condition is worse than the required radio wave condition, the base station allocates the radio bearer using the actual radio wave condition and the required radio wave condition generated for each application. The present invention is characterized in that a reduction processing of the amount of resource blocks that are being performed is performed.

Furthermore, in the wireless communication system according to the present invention,
If the actual radio wave condition is not worse than the required radio wave condition, the base station determines whether or not the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer has already been reduced, The resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer is restored only when the resource block amount reduction process has already been performed.

Further, the base station according to the present invention is:
A base station that communicates with a mobile router,
From the mobile router, information indicating an actual radio wave condition of an information terminal communicating with the mobile router and information indicating a radio wave condition required for the information terminal to communicate with the mobile router are generated for each application. A scheduling unit that acquires communication information including the information and changes the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer using the actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state generated for each application; It is characterized by that.

The mobile router according to the present invention is
A mobile router that communicates with a base station,
Information indicating the actual radio wave condition of the information terminal and information indicating the radio wave condition necessary for the information terminal to communicate with the mobile router are generated for each application, and communication information including each information is generated in the base A communication information notification unit for notifying a station is provided.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to effectively use the frequency by considering the radio wave state in the PAN. Therefore, it becomes easy to secure resources for communications such as emergency calls. Moreover, even if the communication status is highly likely to fluctuate and communication is performed via a plurality of wireless sections, it is possible to perform QoS control in cooperation with the total wireless section.

1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the information terminal in the radio | wireless communications system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the mobile router in the radio | wireless communications system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the base station in the radio | wireless communications system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a base station in a wireless communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure explaining EDCA and HCCA prescribed | regulated to IEEE802.11e.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the wireless communication system according to the present invention will be described by taking as an example a case where the communication system on the PAN side is a wireless LAN and the public wireless base station is an LTE base station.

(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a radio communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the wireless communication system 1 includes a base station 10, a mobile router 20, and an information terminal 30. In FIG. 1, a wireless LAN access point 10-1, a 3G base station 10-2, and an LTE base station 10-3 are shown as examples of the base station 10, and a portable music player or a portable game machine is shown as an example of the information terminal 30. 30-1, 30-3, tablet PC 30-2, notebook PC 30-4, and digital camera 30-5 are shown.

  The mobile router 20 and the information terminal 30 form a PAN. The mobile router 20 transmits and receives signals to and from the base station 10 and the information terminal 30, functions as a terminal for the base station 10, and functions as a wireless LAN access point for the information terminal 30. The base station 10 determines the priority of each bearer according to the QoS level, and performs radio scheduling. The QoS setting is performed by the public network side subject to the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) standard. Specifically, QoS is set by a PCRF (Policy and Charging Rules Function) via the MME / Serving-Gateway.

  Conventionally, when the mobile station (UE: User Equipment) is the mobile router 20, a guideline indicating the QoS level implemented in the communication method on the PAN side ahead of the mobile router 20 is sent from the mobile router 20 to the base station 10. It is assumed that equivalent QoS is also implemented on the LTE system. However, even if QoS is unified, the actual communication speed changes every moment according to the radio wave condition. Even if the radio wave condition between the mobile router 20 and the base station 10 is good, there is no need to increase the communication speed between the mobile router 20 and the base station 10 if the radio wave condition between the information terminal 30 and the mobile router 20 is bad. In this case, regardless of the QoS setting, it is possible to effectively use the resources by scheduling to use the resources of the mobile router 20 to the base station 10 elsewhere. Therefore, the radio communication system 1 of the present invention reflects the radio wave state on the PAN side (between the information terminal 30 and the mobile router 20) in the scheduling based on the QoS setting set by the public network side.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the information terminal 30 in the wireless communication system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the information terminal 30 includes a terminal control unit 31, a terminal radio transmission unit 32, and a terminal radio reception unit 33.

  The information terminal 30 forms a PAN with the mobile router 20, receives a signal from the mobile router 20 by the terminal radio reception unit 33, and transmits a signal to the mobile router 20 by the terminal radio transmission unit 32. The terminal control unit 31 controls operations of the terminal wireless transmission unit 32 and the terminal wireless reception unit 33. Further, the terminal control unit 31 includes a communication information generation unit 311.

  The communication information generation unit 311 receives the reference signal for radio wave state measurement from the mobile router 20 via the terminal radio reception unit 33, measures the reception level, and generates communication information. As the reception level of the wireless LAN, RSSI (Receive Signal Strength Indication), SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio), RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality), or the like can be used. Then, the communication information generation unit 311 monitors the fluctuation amount of the communication information and determines whether or not the fluctuation amount exceeds a predetermined value. Every time the fluctuation amount exceeds the predetermined value, the communication information is transmitted to the terminal wireless transmission unit 32. To the mobile router 20 via

  The communication information is information including the terminal ID of the information terminal 30, information indicating an actual radio wave state, and information indicating a required radio wave state. Note that the communication information may further include link speed and throughput information. In addition, the communication information generation unit 311 can generate information indicating an actual radio wave state and information indicating a necessary radio wave state for each application, and in that case, an application ID is further included as communication information. .

  Here, the “actual radio wave condition” is an index indicating the actual radio wave condition (reception sensitivity) of each information terminal 30 communicating with the mobile router 20. The “actual radio wave condition” may be a measured reception level value, or a value obtained by dividing the reception level value by the maximum reception level value on the specifications of the information terminal 30 or simply expressed in five stages. It may be a value.

  The “necessary radio wave condition” is an index indicating the radio wave condition required for each information terminal 30 to communicate with the mobile router 20. The “necessary radio wave state” can be obtained from, for example, the specifications of the communication method between the information terminal 30 and the mobile router 20 and the communication specifications necessary for the application executed by the information terminal 30. When the values are simply expressed in five levels, it is not necessary to use a very strict specification. For example, it can be obtained from the ratio of the maximum throughput on the communication specification and the throughput required for the target application. Further, the “necessary radio wave condition” may be uniquely determined by the information terminal 30 based on the communication status so far. For example, in the case of voice communication, a throughput of about 100 kbps is sufficient, but it is considered difficult to obtain an accurate “necessary radio wave condition” because of influences such as jitter. In that case, it is possible to store a radio wave state that can be communicated without any problem in the past communication state and set the value. In addition, in the case of a mail application, even if data is interrupted or retransmitted, it is considered that the effect is small, so the “required radio wave condition” is set to “2” out of 5 levels, etc. May be determined in advance.

  The actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state are not limited to the radio wave reception level, and may be other parameters that change due to the radio wave state. For example, the actual radio wave condition and the necessary radio wave condition may be the actual throughput and the necessary throughput (however, the throughput between the information terminal 30 and the mobile router 20), the number of actually allocated resource blocks, and It may be the number of necessary resource blocks.

  An example of communication information is shown in Table 2 below. In this example, the actual radio wave condition and the required radio wave condition are simply expressed in five levels, where 1 is very bad, 2 is bad, 3 is normal, 4 is good, and 5 is very much. It represents a good state.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the mobile router 20 in the wireless communication system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, the mobile router 20 includes an MR control unit 21, an MR wireless transmission unit 22, and an MR wireless reception unit 23.

  The mobile router 20 forms a PAN with the information terminal 30, receives a signal from the information terminal 30 by the MR wireless reception unit 23, and transmits a signal to the information terminal 30 by the MR wireless transmission unit 22. The mobile router 20 functions as a terminal for the base station 10, receives a signal from the base station 10 by the MR radio reception unit 23, and transmits a signal to the base station 10 by the MR radio transmission unit 22. The MR control unit 21 controls operations of the MR radio transmission unit 22 and the MR radio reception unit 23. Further, the MR control unit 21 includes a communication information notification unit 211.

  The communication information notification unit 211 acquires communication information from the information terminal 30 via the MR wireless reception unit 23 and transmits (transfers) the communication information to the base station 10 via the MR wireless transmission unit 22. The MR radio transmission unit 22 may transmit the communication information to the base station 10 only at the start of communication and when the communication information has changed, or may be transmitted to the base station 10 periodically. Note that the communication information notification unit 211 includes information on the resource allocation status from the mobile router 20 to the information terminal 30 and the number of information terminals 30 connected to the PAN (number of bearers) in the communication information acquired from the information terminal 30. In addition, it may be transmitted to the base station 10.

  FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the base station 10 in the wireless communication system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, the base station 10 includes a base station control unit 11, a base station radio transmission unit 12, and a base station radio reception unit 13.

  The base station 10 communicates with the mobile router 20 functioning as a terminal with respect to the base station 10, receives a signal from the mobile router 20 by the base station radio reception unit 13, and transmits a signal to the mobile router 20 by the base station radio transmission unit 12. Send. Further, the base station 10 receives a signal from the public network side by the base station radio reception unit 13 and transmits a signal to the public network side by the base station radio transmission unit 12. The base station control unit 11 controls the operations of the base station radio transmission unit 12 and the base station radio reception unit 13. The base station control unit 11 includes a scheduling unit 111.

  Here, as a known scheduling method, there are many scheduling methods such as Maximum CIR (Carrier to Interference Ration) method and MTA-ISIR (Minimum Throughput Assured Instantaneous-SIR) method which have good radio quality. As other scheduling methods, there are a round robin method and a proportional fairness method (control based on radio quality is performed, but also imparts fairness to users).

  It is assumed that the scheduling unit 111 adopts a scheme that performs scheduling with a high quality such as the former, or a scheme based on radio quality such as the Proportional fairness method among the latter. The scheduling unit 111 obtains communication information from the mobile router 20, and the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer from the viewpoint of effective use of radio resources according to the comparison result of the actual radio wave state and the required radio wave state To change.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation of the scheduling unit 111 of the base station 10 in the wireless communication system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The scheduling unit 111 allocates a resource block for each radio bearer according to the QoS value set by the PCRF via the MME / Serving-Gateway and the radio wave state on the public network side (step S101). Next, when communication information is acquired from the mobile router 20 via the base station radio reception unit 13 (step S102), the actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state included in the communication information are compared (step S103).

  When the actual radio wave condition is worse than the necessary radio wave condition (step S103-Yes), it is not necessary to allocate many resource blocks to the radio bearer. Therefore, the scheduling unit 111 performs a process of reducing the amount of resource blocks currently allocated by the wireless scheduler according to the degree of deterioration of the actual radio wave condition on the PAN side (step S104). For example, assuming that the current resource block allocation amount is R, the resource block allocation amount R ′ after reduction is obtained by the following equation (1).

R ′ = R × {1− (required radio wave state−actual radio wave state) / number of radio wave state steps} (1)
As in the example of Table 2, assuming that the number of radio wave state stages = 5, the required radio wave state = 3, and the actual radio wave state = 2, the resource block allocation amount R ′ after reduction is R × {1- (3- 2) / 5} = 4R / 5 (ie, a 20% reduction).

  However, this excludes the case where the amount of resource blocks allocated to the radio bearer does not satisfy the desired amount in the first place because the radio wave condition on the public network (LTE) side has deteriorated. Here, the desired amount of resource blocks for each radio bearer is recognized by the base station 10 from the PCRF via QoS notification via the P-GW, S-GW, and MME, and the base station 10 is wasted. It is assumed that there is no resource allocation control.

  On the other hand, if the actual radio wave condition is better than the required radio wave condition or if both are equal (step S103-No), the scheduling unit 111 has already performed the radio resource block reduction process in step S104. It is determined whether or not (step S105). If the reduction process is not performed in step S104 (step S105-No), the process is terminated. If the reduction process is performed in step S104 (step S105-Yes), the wireless scheduler currently assigns it. The resource block amount R being restored is restored (step S106). That is, the scheduling unit 111 allocates resource blocks according to the QoS value set by the PCRF and the radio wave state on the public network side, as in step S101.

  As described above, the mobile router 20 includes the communication information notification unit 211 that notifies the base station 10 of communication information including information indicating an actual radio wave state and a necessary radio wave state. The base station 10 includes a scheduling unit 111 that acquires communication information from the mobile router 20 and changes the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer according to the comparison result of the actual radio wave state and the required radio wave state. For this reason, according to the wireless communication system 1, the frequency can be effectively used.

  Although the above embodiments have been described as representative examples, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many changes and substitutions can be made within the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, the present invention should not be construed as being limited by the above-described embodiments, and various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the claims.

  For example, in the above-described embodiment, the mobile router 20 acquires communication information from the information terminal 30 and transmits the acquired communication information to the base station 10, but the mobile router 20 side knows the radio wave state to the information terminal 30. In this case, the mobile router 20 may generate communication information.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Wireless communication system 10 Base station 11 Base station control part 12 Base station radio | wireless transmission part 13 Base station radio | wireless reception part 20 Mobile router 21 MR control part 22 MR radio | wireless transmission part 23 MR radio | wireless reception part 30 Information terminal 31 Terminal control part 32 Terminal Wireless transmission unit 33 Terminal wireless reception unit 111 Scheduling unit 211 Communication information notification unit 311 Communication information generation unit

Claims (5)

A wireless communication system comprising a base station and a mobile router,
The mobile router generates, for each application, information indicating an actual radio wave state of an information terminal communicating with the mobile router and information indicating a radio wave state necessary for the information terminal to communicate with the mobile router. the communication information including information Les a communication information notification unit configured to notify the base station,
The base station acquires the communication information from the mobile router, and changes the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer using the actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state generated for each application. A wireless communication system comprising a scheduling unit for performing When the actual radio wave condition is worse than the required radio wave condition, the base station allocates the radio bearer using the actual radio wave condition and the required radio wave condition generated for each application. The wireless communication system according to claim 1, wherein processing for reducing the amount of the resource block being performed is performed.   If the actual radio wave condition is not worse than the required radio wave condition, the base station determines whether or not the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer has already been reduced, The radio communication system according to claim 2, wherein the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer is restored only when the resource block amount reduction processing has already been performed. A base station that communicates with a mobile router,
From the mobile router, information indicating an actual radio wave condition of an information terminal communicating with the mobile router and information indicating a radio wave condition required for the information terminal to communicate with the mobile router are generated for each application. A scheduling unit that acquires communication information including the information and changes the resource block amount allocated to the radio bearer using the actual radio wave state and the necessary radio wave state generated for each application; A base station characterized by that. A mobile router that communicates with a base station,
Generates information indicating the actual radio conditions of the information terminal, the information to which the information terminal indicates a signal strength necessary for communication with the mobile router for each application, the communication information comprising information Zorezore base A mobile router comprising a communication information notification unit for notifying a station.

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