JP7209504B2 - wireless communication device - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a wireless communication device that connects to a network of a telecommunications carrier, and more particularly to a wireless communication device that can easily determine the cause of a communication disabled state and shorten the time until recovery.

[Description of prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art There are wireless communication modules (wireless modules) that perform wireless communication by connecting to networks of telecommunications carriers, and wireless communication devices incorporating such wireless modules.
Such a wireless communication device is provided with a plurality of LEDs to indicate the operating state of the wireless module, and the internal state can be known from the lighting/extinguishing pattern of these LEDs.

Conventionally, when a wireless communication device fails to register its location on a network and becomes incommunicable, an operator who is near the device usually only knows that the device is out of range from the command response and the lighting state of the LED. rice field.

Causes of communication failure include malfunction of the wireless module, malfunction of the wireless communication device equipped with the wireless module, radio wave environment at the location where the wireless communication device is installed, malfunction of the carrier's base station, and Communication restrictions, etc. can be considered.

Then, in order to determine which factor has caused the communication impossible state, the internal operation log of the wireless communication module is acquired and analyzed, and the operation of the module and the response from the network to the location registration request are confirmed. In order to do so, a worker with specialized skills from a telecommunications carrier or a manufacturer of wireless communication modules must go to the site with a PC installed with a dedicated tool and perform the operation log acquisition work. did not become.
[Related technology]

In addition, as conventional technologies related to wireless modules and wireless communication devices, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2016-072647 "Wireless communication system, communication method, wireless communication module" (Patent Document 1), Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2015-216488 "Wireless communication module (Patent Document 2), and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-064234 “Wireless Communication System and Wireless Communication Module” (Patent Document 3).

Patent Literature 1 describes a wireless communication module capable of performing data communication from a server without modifying the control software of the external device.
Patent Literature 2 describes a wireless communication module that uses one of two antennas corresponding to two receiving systems by appropriately switching between an external antenna and a built-in antenna according to the installation environment within the equipment to be mounted. It is
Patent Literature 3 describes a wireless communication system and a wireless communication module capable of averaging location information obtained by performing positioning in a location information service and obtaining location information with the positioning accuracy desired by the user. ing.

JP 2016-072647 A JP 2015-216488 A JP 2015-064234 A

As described above, with a conventional wireless communication device, when a state in which communication is not possible due to being out of range continues, the cause of the communication failure cannot be found at all until a specialized engineer arrives at the site and performs analysis work. There is a problem that it takes time to restore communication, which is inconvenient for the user of the wireless communication device.

In addition, in Patent Documents 1 to 3, when the control unit detects the operation state of a preset operation item and sets the analysis mode, the LED corresponding to the operation item is set to the detected operation state. It is not described to display the connection processing state to the network by lighting or extinguishing the light accordingly.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned actual situation, and enables even users of wireless communication devices who do not have expertise in communication technology to roughly isolate the cause of communication failure and shorten the time until communication is restored. It is an object of the present invention to provide a wireless communication device capable of

The present invention, which solves the problems of the conventional example, is a wireless communication device wirelessly connected to a base station of a network, and defines a plurality of LEDs indicating the wireless state by turning on/off and the display contents of the LEDs. A mode switch for setting a display mode, a wireless module for performing wireless connection processing, and a control unit for detecting the operating state of the wireless module for preset operation items. The control unit is provided correspondingly to whether or not the control unit is searching for a base station, whether or not a signal from the base station has been detected, whether or not a location registration request signal has been transmitted to the base station, and whether or not the location registration request signal has been transmitted to the base station. An analysis mode that detects the operating status of the wireless module for all operating items such as whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network in response to the registration request signal , and displays the connection processing status to the network using the mode selector switch. is set, the LED corresponding to each operation item is turned on or off according to the detected operation state to display the connection processing state.

Further, the present invention is a display method in a wireless communication apparatus having a wireless module that performs processing for wirelessly connecting to a base station of a network, wherein a control unit determines whether or not a base station is being searched for. Whether or not a signal has been detected, whether or not a location registration request signal has been transmitted to a base station, and whether or not a permission response has been received from the network in response to the location registration request signal . When the analysis mode for detecting the operating state of the module and displaying the connection processing state to the network is set, the LED corresponding to each operation item is lit or extinguished according to the detected operating state for connection. It is characterized by displaying the processing status.

According to the present invention, a wireless communication device wirelessly connected to a base station of a network includes a plurality of LEDs indicating a wireless state by turning on/off, and a mode changeover switch for setting a display mode defining display contents of the LEDs. , a wireless module that performs wireless connection processing, and a control unit that detects the operating state of the wireless module for preset operation items, and an LED is provided corresponding to each of the operation items. whether the unit is searching for a base station, whether it has detected a signal from a base station, whether it has transmitted a location registration request signal to the base station, and whether the network has given permission to the location registration request signal . The operation status of the wireless module is detected for all operation items such as whether or not a response has been received, and the analysis mode for displaying the connection processing status to the network is set by the mode selector switch. The wireless communication device displays the connection processing state by lighting or extinguishing the LEDs corresponding to each of them according to the detected operating state. Based on the lighting pattern of , the rough cause of communication failure can be isolated and estimated, and the time to restore communication can be shortened. There is an effect that it is possible to roughly determine whether it is caused by the base station apparatus or by the base station apparatus.

Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a display method in a wireless communication apparatus having a wireless module that performs processing for wirelessly connecting to a base station of a network, wherein a control unit determines whether or not a base station is being searched for. whether or not a signal has been detected from the base station, whether or not a location registration request signal has been transmitted to the base station, and whether or not a permission response has been received from the network in response to the location registration request signal . When the analysis mode for detecting the operation state of the wireless module and displaying the connection processing state to the network is set, the LED corresponding to each operation item is lit or extinguished according to the detected operation state. If the analysis mode is set when communication becomes impossible, the rough cause of communication failure can be isolated and guessed based on the LED lighting pattern, and communication can be restored. It is possible to shorten the time until communication is impossible, and it is possible to roughly determine whether the cause of communication failure is the wireless module, the radio wave environment, or the base station apparatus.

1 is a schematic configuration diagram of the wireless communication device; FIG. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a normal mode LED display table; FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an analysis mode LED display table; It is a flow chart which shows display processing of CPU in analysis mode.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[Outline of Embodiment]
In the wireless communication device according to the embodiment of the present invention (this wireless communication device), the control unit has a normal operation mode and an analysis mode as operation modes, and determines the operation state of the wireless module for preset operation items. When the analysis mode is set by the mode selector switch, the LED corresponding to each item is lit or extinguished according to the detected state. , By setting the analysis mode when communication is disabled, based on the lighting pattern of the LED, it is possible to isolate the rough cause of the communication failure and estimate it. It is something that can be done.

In addition, the wireless communication device determines whether or not it is searching for a base station, whether or not it has detected a signal from a base station, whether or not it is transmitting a location registration request signal to the base station, and whether it responds to a location registration request. By monitoring whether or not a permission response is received from the network, and turning on/off the LED according to the result, the cause of the communication failure is the wireless module or the radio wave environment. It is possible to make a rough judgment as to whether the error is caused by a fault or by the base station device.

[Schematic configuration of this wireless communication device: Fig. 1]
A schematic configuration of this wireless communication device will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of this wireless communication device.
This wireless communication device connects to an external device by wire, as in the conventional case, and performs wireless communication with the base station device of the carrier's network to connect the external device to the carrier's network. .

As shown in FIG. 1, this wireless communication device includes a housing 1 that constitutes the exterior of the main body, and a substrate 2 that is housed inside the housing 1 . The entire configuration including the housing 1 and the units provided inside and outside the housing 1 corresponds to this wireless communication device.
An external device connected to this wireless communication device is omitted.

A wireless module 20 and a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 21 are mounted on the board 2 . The radio module 20 has a baseband signal processing section 22 and an RF (Radio Frequency) signal processing section 23 .

In addition, the housing 1 includes five LEDs (also referred to as LEDs 11), LEDs 11a (LED (1)) to 11e (LED (5)), an antenna 12, and a characteristic portion of the present wireless communication device. and an operation mode changeover switch 13 .
The LED 11 and the operation mode switch 13 are connected to the CPU 21, and the antenna 12 is connected to the RF signal processing section 23 via an antenna cable.

The wireless module 20 implements wireless communication with the base station apparatus.
Although not shown, the wireless module 20 has a state monitoring unit that monitors the state of connection processing to the network.
The CPU 21 of this wireless communication device controls the entire wireless module to perform wireless communication, monitors the internal operating state (including the communication state), and controls the lighting/lighting out of the LED 11 .
Further, the CPU 21 internally holds the set operation mode. The operation mode is switched and set by the operation mode changeover switch 13 . The operation mode changeover switch 13 is manually operated.

Here, the "operation mode" defines the content indicated by each LED 11 in a lit or extinguished state, and corresponds to a display mode in the claims.
Alternatively, the CPU 21 may self-diagnose communication failure and automatically switch to the analysis mode.

As operation modes, there are a normal operation mode (normal mode) in which wireless communication is performed in the same manner as in the past, and an analysis mode in which, when wireless communication becomes impossible, a display is provided to investigate the cause. The normal mode is set in normal times.
Then, the CPU 21 operates according to a processing program corresponding to the set operation mode. Operations in analysis mode will be described later.

The baseband signal processing unit 22 also performs encoding, digital modulation, addition of error correction code, etc. on the input transmission baseband signal, and decoding, digital demodulation, and error correction processing on the reception baseband signal. etc.

The RF signal processing unit 23 up-converts the transmission signal to a high frequency and outputs it to the antenna 12 , down-converts the reception signal from the antenna 12 to a baseband signal, and outputs the baseband signal to the baseband signal processing unit 22 .

The antenna 12 transmits and receives high frequency signals.
The operation mode changeover switch 13 is a switch for switching the operation mode between "normal mode" and "analysis mode". The switch may be of any shape, such as a slide type or a push type. Whether the currently set operation mode is the normal mode or the analysis mode is determined visually by the state of the operation mode changeover switch 13 .

Although it is possible to switch the operation mode by connecting a dedicated PC to this wireless communication device and sending a command, here, even a general operator who does not have a dedicated PC can easily operate. An operation mode changeover switch 13 is provided so that the mode can be switched.

The LED 11 is turned on or off under the control of the CPU 21 . Each LED is preset to represent a particular operating state. Here, the operation of the LED 11 is lighting/extinguishing, but blinking may be used instead of lighting, and it is also possible to display three states of blinking/lit/extinguishing.

Furthermore, as a feature of this wireless communication device, the LED 11 indicates different states of operation items depending on whether the normal mode is set or the analysis mode is set.
The state indicated by each LED is stored in advance in the CPU 21 as an LED display table for each operation mode. That is, there is no need to provide an LED dedicated to the analysis mode.

[Status monitoring of CPU 21]
State monitoring by the CPU 21 will be described.
The CPU 21 monitors the operating state of the wireless communication device regardless of the operating mode, and controls the LED 11 to turn on or off based on the monitoring results of the operating items defined according to the operating mode.
The operation item displayed by the LED 11 in the analysis mode is the connection processing state to the network,
(1) Whether a base station search is being performed (2) As a result of performing a base station search, whether a signal from a base station has been received (3) As a result of receiving a signal from a base station, a location registration request signal has been transmitted (4) whether there is a response from the base station after transmitting the location registration request signal to the base station;

The CPU 21 monitors the state of connection with the network by inputting information indicating these states from the wireless module 20 .
The status monitoring unit of the wireless module 20 periodically outputs unsolicited results for the information (1) to (4) above, or provides a dedicated signal line to output various statuses to the CPU 21. may
The CPU 21 stores information indicating the state periodically output from the wireless module 20, and turns on/off the LED 11 based on the stored information when the analysis mode is set.

The unsolicited result is a response to the command, and is output according to the state change detected by the state monitoring unit.
In this radio communication apparatus, for example, when a signal from a base station is detected, the radio module 20 is set in advance to output an unsolicited result indicating that fact to the CPU 21, and the CPU 21 receives the unsolicited result in the analysis mode. Then, an operation for controlling the LED 11 is performed accordingly.

[Contents of LED display: Figures 2 and 3]
Here, the display contents of the LED 11 in this wireless communication device will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. FIG.
[Contents displayed in normal mode: Fig. 2]
First, the display contents of the LED 11 when the normal mode is set will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a normal mode LED display table.
As shown in FIG. 2, the normal mode LED display table (hereinafter referred to as normal mode table) stores the operation state in the normal mode and the ON/OFF state of each LED in association with each other. The normal mode table defines the display contents of the LEDs in the normal mode.

For example, in the normal mode, LED (1) (LED 11a) lights up when the device is starting up, and goes out when it is stopped. Also, LED (2) (LED 11b) lights up when within the communication range, and turns off when out of the communication range.
In other words, the CPU 21 monitors the operating state and controls to turn on the LED (2) if the device is within the communication range, and to turn off the LED (2) if the device is out of the communication range.

Similarly, for LEDs (3) to (5), the operating states and corresponding lighting or extinguishing are defined, and the CPU 21 controls the lighting or extinguishing of the LED 11 according to the normal mode table.

[Contents displayed in analysis mode: Fig. 3]
Next, the display contents of the LED 11 when the analysis mode is set will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an analysis mode LED display table.
As shown in FIG. 3, the analysis mode LED display table (hereinafter referred to as the analysis mode table) stores the operation state in the analysis mode and the lighting/light-out state of each LED in association with each other, and displays the LED 11 in the analysis mode. It defines the content.

LED (1) indicates whether the device is running or stopped as in the normal mode, but LEDs (2) to (5) indicate different contents in the analysis mode than in the normal mode. there is
For example, if analysis mode is set, LED (2) indicates whether it is searching for a base station.
Specifically, the CPU 21 monitors whether or not a base station search is being performed, and turns on the LED (2) when a base station search is being performed, and extinguishes it when not.

Similarly, in the analysis mode, LED (3) indicates presence/absence of signal detection from the base station, LED (4) indicates whether a location registration request signal is being transmitted, and LED (5) indicates whether a location registration request is received. The CPU 21 performs control so as to indicate whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network by lighting/extinguishing.
As described above, the CPU 21 monitors each state based on unsolicited results from the wireless module 20 .

Also, the display contents specified in the normal table and the analysis table are described in, for example, a manual or the like so that the user of the radio communication apparatus can recognize them.
Especially in the analysis mode, by looking at the pattern of lighting/lighting out of the LED 11, it is possible to separate and estimate the cause of the communication failure.

Furthermore, if the number of LEDs 11 is four or less, the number of information that can be displayed in the analysis mode is also reduced. Convenience in analyzing a communication failure event is improved.

[Isolating communication failure factors: Fig. 3]
Next, the ON/OFF pattern of the LED 11 and the isolation of the cause of communication failure will be described with reference to FIG. In the following explanation, it is assumed that the LED (1) is on.
First, when the LED (2) is turned off, it can be seen that the wireless module is not searching for a base station. From this, it is presumed that there is a problem in the operation of the wireless module.

When LED (2) is on and LED (3) is off, it is assumed that the wireless module has searched for a base station but has not received a signal from the base station. In this case, it is presumed that there is a problem with the radio wave environment at the location where the wireless communication device is installed, and that the radio waves from the base station have not reached the wireless communication device.

When LED (2) and LED (3) are lit and LED (4) is extinguished, it can be seen that the wireless module has not transmitted the location registration request signal in response to the signal from the base station. In this case, it can be estimated that there is a problem in the operation of the wireless module.

When LED (2), LED (3), and LED (4) are on and LED (5) is off, the location registration request signal transmitted by the wireless communication device has not reached the base station, and the radio wave environment is There is a possibility that the communication is unstable because the is a weak electric field.
In addition, when LED (2), LED (3), LED (4), and LED (5) are lit and a rejection response (Reject) is received, the base station side may If there is, etc.).

As a result, the user of the wireless communication device can roughly separate and estimate the cause of the communication failure from the pattern of lighting/lighting out of the LED 11 in the analysis mode, deal with the estimated cause, and temporarily ignore the other factors. It can be excluded.
In addition, the ON/OFF pattern of the LED 11 in the analysis mode can provide primary information even to a specialized engineer to facilitate analysis and shorten the time required to recover from a communication disabled state. It is.

[Display processing in analysis mode: Fig. 4]
Next, display processing in the analysis mode of the CPU 21 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing display processing of the CPU in the analysis mode.
In the normal mode, the CPU 21 monitors information from the baseband signal processing section 22 and stores the operating state. Note that the CPU 21 continues to monitor and store the operating state even after switching to the analysis mode.
When the operation mode switch 13 switches to the analysis mode, the CPU 21 turns off LED(2) to LED(5) (S11).

Based on the monitoring result, the CPU 21 determines whether or not a base station search is being performed (S12). If not (No), the process proceeds to step S14. If the base station search is being performed (Yes), the CPU 21 turns on the LED (2) (S13), and proceeds to processing S14.

Next, the CPU 21 determines whether or not a signal from the base station has been detected (S14), and if not detected, proceeds to processing S16. Further, in the process S14, when the signal from the base station is detected, the CPU 21 turns on the LED (3) (S15), and proceeds to the process S16.

In processing S16, the CPU 21 determines whether or not the location registration request signal has been transmitted (S16). Then (S17), the process proceeds to step S18.

In process S18, the CPU 21 determines whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network (S18). If not, the process proceeds to process S20. ) and go to process 20 .

Then, the CPU 21 determines whether or not an instruction to cancel the analysis mode (instruction to switch to the normal mode) has been input from the operation mode changeover switch 13. If no input (No), it waits. If Yes), shift to normal mode.
Thus, display processing in the analysis mode is performed.

[Effects of Embodiment]
According to this wireless communication device, an operation mode selector switch 13 for switching the operation mode (display mode) between a normal operation mode for normal communication and an analysis mode, and a plurality of LEDs 11 that indicate the wireless state of the wireless module 20 by turning on/off. When the CPU 21 detects the current state of a preset operation item and the analysis mode is set by the operation mode changeover switch 13, the LED 11 corresponding to the item and the detected state is turned on or off. The user of the wireless communication device operates the operation mode switching mode button 13 to turn on the LED without a professional engineer connecting a dedicated PC and analyzing the operation log. By visually recognizing the pattern, it is possible to isolate and estimate the rough cause of the communication failure state, improve convenience in analysis, and have the effect of shortening the time until communication is restored by taking appropriate measures. .

Further, according to this wireless communication device, the CPU 21 determines whether or not the CPU 21 is searching for a base station, whether or not a signal from a base station is detected, whether or not a location registration request signal is being transmitted, and whether or not a location registration request signal is being transmitted. , the status of connection processing to the network, such as whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network, is monitored, and the LED 11 is turned on/off according to the result, so communication is disabled. This has the effect of making it possible to roughly determine whether the cause is the wireless module, the radio wave environment, or the base station apparatus.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY According to the present invention, even a user of a wireless communication device who does not have specialized skills can roughly grasp the location of the cause of communication failure, improve convenience in analysis, and shorten the time until communication is restored. Suitable for wireless communication devices that can

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 housing 2 substrate 11 LED 12 antenna 13 operation mode switch 20 wireless module 21 CPU 22 baseband signal processor 23 RF signal processor

Claims (2)

A wireless communication device that wirelessly connects to a base station of a network,
a plurality of LEDs indicating the wireless state by turning on/off;
a mode changeover switch for setting a display mode that defines display contents of the LED;
a wireless module for processing wireless connections;
a control unit that detects an operating state of the wireless module for a preset operation item;
The LED is provided corresponding to each of the operation items,
whether or not the control unit is searching for the base station, whether or not a signal from the base station is detected, whether or not the control unit is transmitting a location registration request signal to the base station, and the location registration request signal ; detecting the operation state of the wireless module for all of the operation items including whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network, and displaying the connection processing state to the network by the mode changeover switch. When the analysis mode is set, the LED corresponding to each of the operation items is lit or extinguished according to the detected operation state to display the connection processing state. . A display method in a wireless communication device having a wireless module that performs processing for wirelessly connecting to a base station of a network,
Whether the control unit is searching for the base station, whether a signal from the base station has been detected, whether or not a location registration request signal has been transmitted to the base station, and whether the location registration request signal When an analysis mode is set to detect the operation status of the wireless module for all operation items such as whether or not an authorization response has been received from the network and to display the connection processing status to the network, the previous A display method comprising: displaying the connection processing state by lighting or extinguishing an LED corresponding to each of the operation items according to the detected operation state.

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