KR101243008B1 - Apparatus and method for selecting wireless network interface in mobile terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a device for selecting an air interface in a mobile terminal, comprising: a user profile collector configured to collect application program information, user profile information, and network environment information that is currently being used, and handoff using the information collected by the user profile collector; And a handoff determination unit for determining whether a handset is needed, and when a handoff is needed, a reference metric including a preferred network interface is generated based on the information collected by the user profile collector, and the handoff is determined through the generated reference metric. And a reference metric generation unit for determining whether or not it is possible to perform, and a mobile terminal communication control unit for performing a handoff by requesting the network layer to perform a handoff when handoff is possible.

Bidirectional, Unidirectional, Wireless Interface, Multimedia Services, Vertical Hand-off

Description

Apparatus and method for selecting a wireless interface in a mobile terminal {APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SELECTING WIRELESS NETWORK INTERFACE IN MOBILE TERMINAL}

1 is a block diagram of a conventional mobile terminal based on RSS (Received Signal Strength);

2 is a flowchart illustrating a handoff operation of a conventional RSS-based mobile terminal;

3 is a block diagram of a mobile terminal having a multimedia middleware according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of selecting an air interface in a wireless communication system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to a mobile communication system, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for selecting an air interface in a mobile terminal for providing an optimal network interface based on various context information of the mobile terminal.

In general, a mobile communication system providing a line-based voice service divides a frequency band determined according to the communication method into a plurality of channels and uses a frequency division multiple access (FDMA) using a frequency channel allocated to each subscriber. ), Time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme in which multiple subscribers divide time for one frequency channel, and multiple subscribers use the same frequency band in the same time zone, Is divided into a code division multiple access ("CDMA") system and the like for communication.

The mobile communication system represented by the CDMA has reached a stage of providing a high speed packet data service capable of transmitting a large amount of digital data such as an email, a still image or a video to a mobile terminal as well as a general voice service according to the rapid development of communication technology. .

The so-called third generation mobile communication system for providing the high speed packet data service is generally divided into a synchronous method adopted in the United States and the asynchronous method adopted in Europe and Japan. For example, the asynchronous scheme may include General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and the synchronous scheme may include CDMA 2000 1x, 1x Evolution Data Only (EV-DO), and 1x EV-DV ( Evolution of Data and Voice). The development of the mobile communication systems is rapidly progressing toward the next generation mobile communication system, synchronous IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunication 2000) and asynchronous UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems). The UMTS is also called Wide-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA).

The mobile communication system adopts a method of maximizing the life of a mobile terminal by dividing the state of the mobile terminal into an idle state and a connected state to reduce unnecessary transmission and reception of signals. The connection state section represents a section for transmitting and receiving packet data, and the standby state section represents all sections except for the section for transmitting and receiving packet data.

The mobile terminal can measure the state of the access point that is currently connected, that is, signal strength, by periodically checking the control signals. FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a conventional mobile terminal based on received signal strength (RSS).

Referring to FIG. 1, the mobile terminal includes a higher layer 100, a signal strength processing and connection point determiner 110, a first interface 120, and a second interface 130.

The upper layer 100 is a Kernel Protocol Stack that handles Layer 3 or more, and applications that implement actual services (eg, voice calls, file transfer protocol (FTP), Instant Message). It includes an application layer consisting of Broadcasting, Navigation.

The signal strength processing and connection point determination unit 110 determines a connection point according to a result of comparing the received signal strength with a threshold value. In addition, the signal strength processing and connection point determiner 110 changes the connection point when the received signal strength is greater than or equal to a threshold.

In addition, the first interface 120 and the second interface 130 periodically measure the signal strength of the connection point.

2 is a flowchart illustrating a handoff operation of a conventional RSS-based mobile terminal.

Referring to FIG. 2, each interface of the mobile terminal, that is, the first interface 120 and the second interface 130 periodically measures the received signal strength of the connection point in step 201.

A conventional mobile terminal may perform handoff based on received signal strength to access a network of a wireless environment that is better than present. To this end, the mobile terminal determines whether the received signal strength is greater than or equal to the threshold in step 203. If the received signal strength is greater than or equal to the threshold, the mobile terminal performs handoff to the corresponding interface in step 205. However, if the received signal strength is less than the threshold value, the process proceeds to step 201 without performing a handoff.

However, since this method only considers the received signal strength in determining the handoff, there is a problem in that the adaptability to various situations of the network and the mobile terminal is insufficient. That is, the technique based on the received signal strength has a problem in that it is not possible to adapt to dynamic changes due to obstacles in the actual wireless network environment because the scale that can be considered in performing the handoff is too limited. In addition, there is a problem that a user or an application cannot meet the desired performance by performing an unintended handoff.

Accordingly, the present invention provides various apparatuses and methods for selecting a wireless interface for providing an optimal interactive multimedia service that is context-adaptive based on context information of a user and environment information of a terminal in a wireless communication system.

In addition, the present invention defines a data channel of digital mobile broadcasting such as DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) as a unidirectional wireless communication interface, and proposes a convergence model of a wireless communication system and broadcasting. An apparatus and method for selecting an interface are provided.

In the apparatus for selecting an air interface in a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention, a user profile collector which collects application information, user profile information and network environment information currently being used, and information collected by the user profile collector A reference metric including a preferred network interface based on the information collected by the user profile collector and a handoff determination unit that determines whether a handoff is necessary, and when the handoff is required, and generates the generated reference metric. And a reference metric generator for determining whether handoff is possible through the mobile terminal, and a mobile terminal communication controller for performing a handoff by requesting the network layer to perform handoff when handoff is possible.

In the method of selecting a wireless interface in a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention, the process of collecting application information, user profile information and network environment information currently being used, and the application program information, user profile information and network environment information Determining whether a handoff is necessary, generating a reference metric including a preferred network interface based on the application information, the user profile information, and the network environment information when the handoff is needed; Determining whether the handoff is possible through the metric; and performing the handoff by requesting the network layer to perform the handoff when the handoff is possible.

In the following description of the present invention, a detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear. The following terms are defined in consideration of the functions of the present invention, and may be changed according to the intentions or customs of the user, the operator, and the like. Therefore, the definition should be based on the contents throughout this specification.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The present invention proposes an apparatus and method for selecting various air interfaces for providing an optimal interactive multimedia service that is context-adaptive based on context information of a user and environment information of a mobile terminal in a mobile situation. In addition, the present invention defines a data channel of a digital mobile broadcast such as DVB-H as a unidirectional wireless communication interface to propose a convergence model of a wireless communication network and a broadcast, and an apparatus and method for selecting an interface between a broadcast and a communication in such a situation. Suggest. To this end, the middleware layer determines whether to switch the network and generates a network switching metric according to the request information of the application program, and defines a middleware structure and an operation method for performing the corresponding operation.

3 is a block diagram of a mobile terminal having a multimedia middleware according to an embodiment of the present invention. Hereinafter, a structure and operation of a mobile terminal having a multimedia middleware will be described with reference to FIG. 3.

The mobile terminal may be a wired terminal or a wireless terminal, and the wired terminal may be, for example, a device such as a computer having a network connection means, and the wireless terminal may be, for example, a cellular phone, a PCS, a PDA, or an IMT-2000. , PDA phone, smart phone and the like.

The mobile terminal may include a mobile terminal controller 320, a mobile terminal communication controller 310, an application manager 330, a user profile manager 340, a user profile collector 350, a handoff determiner 360, and a reference. A reference metric generator 370 is included.

The mobile terminal controller 320 controls each component of the mobile terminal and controls the data flow.

The application program manager 330 stores and manages request information transmitted while the application program is executed, and uses a return channel for bidirectional service. In addition, the request information is used when determining network switching. The request information includes information such as a data reception type of the application program and a required bandwidth. In this case, the request information of the application program may be changed according to the usage situation of the application program, such as changed to DVB-H for data bypass when using a wireless wide area network (WWAN). Information related to the application program may be composed of items as shown in Table 1 below. Referring to <Table 1>, the Application suspend item is used to indicate whether the current application is still in use, and 0 if the application is still in use, and 1 if the application is suspended. .

In addition, the Application Name item represents an application program name, and may be, for example, File Transport Protocol (FTP), Instant Message, Broadcasting, Navigation, or the like.

Also, the Minimum Required Bandwidth item means the minimum bandwidth required by the application, and the Continuance Time means the usage time (duration time) of the application. The Total Continuance Time of the Continuance Time refers to the total usage time of the application, and Classified by Block refers to the network usage cycle of the application.

Item Contents Application Name Application name
eg eg Navigation, Broadcasting, Instant Message, FTP, etc. Application Suspend Whether the application is still in use Minimum Required Bandwidth Minimum bandwidth required by the application Continuance Time
-Total Continuance Time
-Classified by Block Application usage time (duration)
-Total usage time of the application
Application's network usage cycle

The user profile manager 340 analyzes and stores the application program usage pattern of the user. In addition, the user profile manager 340 collects and manages various pieces of information necessary to execute an application program by analyzing a user application program usage pattern, and determines and stores and provides an application program usage time of the user. The user profile may be composed of items as shown in Table 2 below.

Item Contents Application Name Application name
eg eg Navigation, Broadcasting, Instant Message, FTP, etc. Continuance Time
-Total Continuance Time Application usage time (duration)
-Total usage time of the application

The information in Table 2 is information about user usage information. Total Continuance Time in Table 1 refers to general information of an application (ie, some kind of statistical information such as "a specific application is generally used for a certain time"). Total Continuance Time refers to information about how long a user actually uses, that is, information of the user. It is the same parameter, but it is used according to the situation to distinguish and compare.

The mobile terminal communication control unit 310 transmits various types of information of the network environment currently being used and information of a network environment that may be used to the mobile terminal control unit 320. In addition, the mobile terminal communication control unit 310 may be applied to the network layer of the mobile terminal through the reference metric including the preferred network interface information transmitted from the reference metric generator 370 according to the execution result of the handoff determination unit 360. Request to perform network switch. That is, it requests a handoff. Handoff here means vertical handoff. In the following, network switching and handoff will be used interchangeably. In some cases, the network layer of the mobile terminal may perform network switching by its own determination.

The user profile collector 350 collects an application such as application request information, a user profile such as user constraints and policies, and network environment information currently in use. The collected information is provided from the application manager 330, the user profile manager 340, and the mobile terminal communication controller 310. The collected information is standardized into a specific type of metric and used to determine handoff. In this case, the standardization means that information of various different profiles is changed into a form for use by the handoff determination unit 360. In other words, it means that a certain type of metric used for handoff determination is changed.

The handoff determination unit 360 determines whether to continuously use or perform network switching by using request information of an application program currently being used and context information of a wireless environment connected thereto. The handoff determination unit 360 determines whether to perform a handoff based on the information collected from the user profile collector 350, and if it is determined that the handoff is to be performed, the request information of the application, user constraints, and the like. The policy information is transmitted to the reference metric generator 370.

The reference metric generation unit 370 generates a reference metric including a preferred network interface based on various information received from the handoff determining unit 360 and transmits the reference metric to the mobile terminal communication control unit 310 when determining network switching. The reference metric may be composed of items as shown in Table 3 below.

The preferred network in Table 3 below shows preferred network information selected based on an application program and a user profile.

Item Contents Application suspend Whether the application is still in use Preferred Network Preferred network information based on application / user profile Minimum Required Bandwidth Minimum bandwidth required by the application Continuance Time
-Total Continuance Time
-Classified by Block Application usage time (duration)
-Total usage time of the application
Application's network usage cycle

The operation of each of the above components will be described in more detail with reference to a flowchart to be described later.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of selecting an air interface in a wireless communication system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. A process of selecting an air interface in the apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. In particular, a description will be given of whether the mobile terminal performs the air interface switching according to the change of the situation when the application program is running, and the process of selecting the optimal air interface.

The mobile terminal is connected to the WWAN in the standby state. In step 401, the mobile terminal communication control unit 310 of the mobile terminal collects information on the network interface currently used and DVB-H information through a control channel from the network layer.

An example of the network interface information is shown in Table 4 below.

Network interface information Contents Network interface WWAN Provided Bandwidth 130 (kbps)
Continuance Time (Total) 10800 (s)

In step 403, the mobile terminal determines whether an application program is in use. If the application is not in use, the process returns to step 401. However, when the application program is in use, the application program manager 330 profiles and manages various information of the application program currently used in step 405.

An example of the application is shown in Table 5 below.

Various information of the application Contents Application Name Navigation Application suspend 0
Minimum Required Bandwidth 144 (kbps) Continuance Time (Total) 3600 (s)
Continuance Time (Classified by Block) 50 ~ 100 (ms)

When using an application program, the user profile manager 340 of the mobile terminal collects user information related to an application program currently used in step 407 and then profiles and manages it. An example of the user profile is shown in Table 6 below.

User profile example Contents Application Name Navigation Continuance Time (Total) 1800 (s)

It should be noted that since the process of collecting application information of step 405 and the process of collecting user information related to the currently used application of step 407 occur in parallel, the order may be changed.

In step 409, the user profile collecting unit 350 of the mobile terminal receives application request information, user constraints, and policies from the mobile terminal communication controller 310, the application manager 330, and the user profile manager 340. The network environment information currently being used is collected and standardized into a specific type of metric and transmitted to the handoff determination unit 360. In this case, the standardization means that information of various different profiles is changed into a form for use by the handoff determination unit 360. In other words, it means that a certain type of metric used for handoff determination is changed.

Then, the handoff determination unit 360 checks the request information such as bandwidth and use time (Lifetime) based on the information from the user profile collector 350 in step 411 to perform the application of the currently provided network information. If not, it is determined whether handoff is necessary.

For example, if the duration of the application is satisfied, but the bandwidth provided is 130 (kbps) while the required bandwidth is 144 (kbps), the handoff is determined.

If it is determined that handoff is not necessary, the mobile terminal returns to step 401. However, if it is determined that the handoff needs to be performed, the reference metric generator 370 generates a reference metric for the actual handoff in step 413 and transmits the reference metric to the mobile terminal communication controller 310.

,

)의 값 중 양의 수가 존재하는 경우에는 양의 수 중 가장 작은 값에 대한 인터페이스를 선택하고, 모두 음의 수인 경우에는 0에 가장 근접하는 값에 대한 인터페이스를 선택한다. 이때,

는 응용 프로그램의 최소 요구 대역폭을 나타내고,

는 일반적인 WWAN의 대역폭(128 kbps)을 나타내고,

는 일반적인 DVB-H의 대역폭(384 kbps)을 나타낸다.The preferred network value among the reference metrics is selected through the difference between the request information of the application and the characteristic value of each network stored in the reference metric generator 370. In other words, (

,

If there is a positive number among the values of), the interface for the smallest value of the positive number is selected. At this time,

Represents the minimum required bandwidth of the application,

Represents the bandwidth of a typical WWAN (128 kbps),

Denotes the bandwidth of the typical DVB-H (384 kbps).

값은 -16,

값은 240으로 선호 네트워크는 DVB-H가 선택된다.remind

Value is -16,

The value is 240 and DVB-H is selected as the preferred network.

An example of a reference metric is shown in Table 7 below.

Baseline Metric Example Contents Application suspen 0 Preferred Network DVB-H Minimum Required Bandwidth 144 (kbps) Continuance Time (Total) 1800 (s) Continuance Time (Classified by Block) 50 ~ 100 (ms)

The reference metric generator 370 determines whether handoff is possible through the reference metric generated in step 415. If the handoff cannot be performed, the mobile terminal returns to step 413. However, when handoff is possible, the reference metric generator 370 transmits the reference metric generated in step 415 to the mobile terminal communication controller 310. Then, in step 417, the mobile terminal communication controller 310 requests a network layer to perform a substantial network handoff through the reference metric transmitted from the reference metric generator 370.

Subsequently, the network layer performs a substantial handoff and transmits the result back to the mobile terminal communication control unit 310. That is, the mobile terminal communication control unit 310 switches the network in step 419.

After step 419, the process is repeated while the application is running.

In the above description, the present invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments, but the present invention is not necessarily limited thereto, and one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains may have various modifications without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. It will be readily appreciated that branch substitutions, modifications and variations are possible.

The mobile terminal according to the present invention can automatically provide a seamless service without user recognition through interaction with various various wireless network interfaces based on context information of a moving user and environment information of the mobile terminal.

Claims (5)

In the radio interface selection apparatus in a mobile terminal, A user profile manager for analyzing and storing a user's application usage pattern; A user profile collection unit which collects user profile information provided from the user profile manager, currently used application information, and network environment information; A handoff determination unit determining whether a handoff is necessary using the information collected by the user profile collector; A reference metric generator for generating a reference metric including a preferred network interface based on the information collected by the user profile collector and determining whether handoff is possible through the generated reference metric when a handoff is required; , And a mobile terminal communication control unit which performs a handoff by requesting the network layer to perform the handoff when the handoff is possible. The method of claim 1, The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an application manager for storing and managing request information transmitted while an application is executed. 3. The method of claim 2, And a mobile terminal controller for controlling operations of the application program manager, the user profile manager, the user profile collector, the handoff determiner, and the reference metric generator. In the method of selecting a wireless interface in a mobile terminal, Analyzing and storing user application usage patterns; Collecting application information, user profile information, and network environment information currently in use; Determining whether handoff is necessary using the application information, user profile information, and network environment information; Generating a reference metric including a preferred network interface based on the application information, user profile information, and network environment information when a handoff is required; Determining whether handoff is possible through the generated reference metric; And performing a handoff by requesting the network layer to perform the handoff when the handoff can be performed. 5. The method of claim 4, A method of selecting an air interface in a mobile terminal, the method comprising: storing and managing request information transmitted while an application is executed.

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