WO2013149428A1

WO2013149428A1 - Method for realizing switching to device-to-device communication mode, network apparatus and user equipment

Info

Publication number: WO2013149428A1
Application number: PCT/CN2012/076062
Authority: WO
Inventors: 王曼
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2012-04-06
Filing date: 2012-05-25
Publication date: 2013-10-10
Also published as: CN103369604B; CN103369604A

Abstract

A method for realizing switching to a direct device-to-device communication (D2D) mode, a network apparatus and user equipment, which shorten the communication time and save network resources. A network side executes the steps of: the network side acquiring location information about current user equipment and location information about a D2D object of the current user equipment (110); and when the network side judges that the current user equipment is capable of establishing a direct communication with the D2D object according to the acquired location information, notifying the current user equipment (120). The user equipment executes the steps of: the user equipment reporting a D2D object list to the network side (210); and after the user equipment receives a notification sent by the network side that this user equipment is capable of establishing a direct communication with the D2D object, confirming whether to establish the direct communication (220). A network-side apparatus comprises a location information acquisition module, a judgment module and a notification module. The user equipment comprises a reporting module, a receiving module and a confirmation module. When two pieces of user equipment are very close to each other, a direct communication between the two pieces of user equipment can be realized, thus saving the time for interaction with an upper layer, and greatly saving network resources.

Description

Method, network device and terminal for realizing switching to communication mode between devices

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of wireless communications, and in particular, to a method, a network device, and a terminal for implementing a mode of switching to an inter-device communication mode.

Background technique

With the development of mobile communications, many new forms of communication have emerged, such as ad-hoc (peer-to-peer) networks, the Internet of Things, and so on. The network form is more and more abundant, and the networking is more and more free and random, which is less and less constrained by time, space and network quality. However, in the current communication network architecture, the communication network structure and communication mode in any way are, in essence, traditional communication methods. That is to say, the terminal (UE, or user equipment) performs any communication activity with the outside world, and any command must be transmitted through the system side (or network side) to interact with the system side. Even in the case of being close to the object to be communicated, communication between the terminal and the communication object is still to be performed through the system side. This is true for both ad-hoc networks and the Internet of Things. In essence, any short communication requires a series of signaling interactions between the terminal and the system.

If the two terminals are close together, even if the two people of the handheld terminal communicate face to face, the communication link is still implemented by "terminal-system-system-terminal". This is undoubtedly a waste of network resources. Summary of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a method, a network device and a terminal for realizing switching to an inter-device communication mode, which shortens communication time, simplifies communication flow, and saves network resources.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention provides a method for switching to a direct communication (D2D) mode between devices, and the network side performs the following processing:

The network side acquires location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal;

Determining, by the network side, that the current terminal is capable of interacting with the D2D object according to the acquired location information When establishing direct communication, notify the current terminal.

Preferably, before the acquiring the location information, the method further includes: the network side receiving the current terminal to report the D2D object list to the network side.

Preferably, the D2D object of the current terminal is one or more D2D objects in the D2D object list.

Preferably, the acquiring, by the network side, the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, the network side periodically acquiring the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, or After receiving the request sent by the current terminal, the network side acquires the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the terminal.

Preferably, the current terminal being able to establish direct communication with the D2D object means that the distance between the current terminal and the D2D object is sufficient to establish direct communication that meets a preset communication indicator.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention further provides a network side device for implementing a terminal to switch to a direct communication between devices (D2D) mode, comprising a location information acquisition module, a determination module and a notification module, wherein:

The location information obtaining module is configured to: obtain location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal;

The determining module is configured to: determine, according to the location information acquired by the acquiring module, whether the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object;

The notification module is configured to notify the current terminal when the determining module determines that the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object.

Preferably, the network side device further includes a receiving module, configured to: receive the current terminal to report the D2D object list to the network side device.

Preferably, the location information obtaining module is configured to: obtain the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal in the following manner: periodically acquiring the location information of the current terminal and the location of the D2D object of the current terminal. Information, or received at the network side device After obtaining the request sent by the current terminal, the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the terminal are obtained.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention also provides a method for switching to a direct communication (D2D) mode between devices, and the terminal performs the following processing:

The terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side;

After receiving the notification that the terminal transmitted by the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object, the terminal confirms whether direct communication is established.

Preferably, the terminal reporting the D2D object list to the network side includes: when the terminal accesses the network, the terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side or sends the D2D object list to the network side after accessing the network.

Preferably, the method further includes: the terminal initiating a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after reporting the D2D object list to the network side.

Preferably, the terminal carries the target D2D object information in the request for establishing direct communication initiated by the network side.

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention further provides a terminal for implementing a direct communication to device (D2D) mode, including a reporting module, a receiving module, and a confirmation module, where:

The reporting module is configured to: report a D2D object list to the network side;

The receiving module is configured to: receive a notification that the terminal sent by the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object;

The confirmation module is configured to: after the receiving module receives the notification that the terminal sent by the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object, confirm whether to establish direct communication.

Preferably, the upper module is configured to: </ br></RTI></RTI></RTI></RTI></RTI></RTI></RTI></RTI> After the terminal accesses the network, the D2D object list is reported to the network side.

Preferably, the reporting module is further configured to: initiate a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after reporting the D2D object list to the network side.

Preferably, the reporting module is configured to: carry the target D2D object information in the request for establishing direct communication initiated by the network side.

By using the method, the device and the terminal of the embodiment of the present invention, when the two terminals are close to each other, direct communication between the terminals can be realized, that is, the communication between the terminals directly passes through a "terminal-terminal" such direct communication. The mode is realized, which will undoubtedly save time for interaction with the upper layer, simplify the communication process, and greatly save network resources. This direct communication mode is more meaningful, especially when it is necessary to transfer large amounts of data between two directly communicating terminals. The scenario in which the present invention can be applied may be, for example, a scenario in which a voice call is required at an airport or a station; or in the case of data transmission, when the two parties of the communication are close to each other (for example, when the two parties are in the same office building), data or big data needs to be exchanged with each other. The scene of information transmission. BRIEF abstract

1 is a flow chart of operation on the network side according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention;

2 is a schematic structural diagram of a network side device according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

3 is a flowchart of operation of a terminal side according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

4 is a schematic structural diagram of a terminal side according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a direct communication mode switching between devices according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention. Preferred embodiment of the invention

The following describes how to switch the terminal from the traditional communication mode to the direct communication mode between the terminals through the signaling process when the distance between the two terminals is very close. Finally, the communication between the terminals is no longer performed through interaction with the network side.

Simply put, when the terminal communicates normally in the communication system, the network side informs that it has D2D. The (Device to Device) object (hereinafter referred to as the D2D object) is in the vicinity, and the direct connection mode can be established. The terminal confirms and establishes a direct connection with the D2D object to perform direct communication between devices.

In order to make the objects, the technical solutions and the advantages of the present invention more clearly, the embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that, in the case of no conflict, the features in the embodiments and the embodiments of the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other.

The terminal described herein refers to a terminal that has and has turned on the direct communication function. The network refers to a communication system other than a terminal, for example, including an access network (e.g., a base station).

Example 1

This embodiment describes how to implement the direct communication mode switching between devices on the network side. As shown in FIG. 1 , the following steps are included:

Step 110: The network side acquires location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal.

The D2D object of the current terminal can be reported to the network side by the terminal through the D2D object list. At this time, the D2D object that needs to obtain the location information on the network side is all D2D objects in the D2D object list. In addition, the D2D object of the current terminal can also be directly notified to the network side device by the current terminal. At this time, the network side only needs to acquire the location information of the target D2D object notified by the terminal. When the terminal has a D2D object list, the terminal notifies the D2D object on the network side that it is part of the D2D object list by a message.

The network side may periodically obtain the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, or may obtain the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the terminal after receiving the request (or notification) sent by the current terminal. The location information of the D2D object.

Step 120: The network side notifies the current terminal when the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object according to the acquired location information.

The fact that the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object means that the distance between the current terminal and the D2D object is sufficient to establish direct communication that satisfies the preset communication indicator. The preset communication indicators include, for example, a bit error rate and/or a system throughput. The network side device that implements the foregoing method, as shown in FIG. 2, includes: a location information acquiring module, a determining module, and a notification module, where:

The location information obtaining module is configured to acquire location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal;

The determining module is configured to determine, according to the location information acquired by the acquiring module, whether the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object;

Preferably, the network side device may further include a receiving module, configured to receive the current terminal to report the D2D object list to the network side device. The D2D object of the current terminal described above is one or more D2D objects in the D2D object list.

The location information obtaining module is configured to acquire location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal in the following manner: periodically acquiring location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, or After receiving the request sent by the current terminal, the network side device acquires location information of the current terminal and location information of the D2D object of the terminal.

Example 2

This embodiment describes how the terminal implements the direct communication mode switching between devices. As shown in FIG. 3, the following steps are included:

Step 210: The terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side.

Specifically, the terminal may report the D2D object list to the network side when accessing the network or report the D2D object list to the network side after accessing the network.

Preferably, the terminal initiates a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after the D2D object list is sent to the network side. The target D2D object information can be carried in the request.

Step 220: After receiving the notification that the local terminal sent by the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object, the terminal confirms whether to establish direct communication. The terminal that implements the foregoing method, as shown in FIG. 4, includes: a reporting module, a receiving module, and a confirming module, where:

The reporting module is configured to report a D2D object list to the network side;

The receiving module is configured to receive, by the network side, a notification that the terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object;

The confirmation module is configured to confirm whether the direct communication is established after the receiving module receives the notification that the terminal sent by the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object.

Specifically, the reporting module is configured to report the D2D object list to the network side in the following manner: when the terminal accesses the network, report the D2D object list of the terminal to the network side, or list the D2D object after the terminal accesses the network. Reported to the network side.

Preferably, the reporting module is further configured to initiate a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after reporting the D2D object list to the network side. The target D2D object information can be carried in the request.

Example 3

In this embodiment, the network side operation and the terminal side operation are combined to be described. As shown in FIG. 5, the following steps are included:

Step 310: The terminal reports the D2D object list to the network.

The D2D object list can be used as a group in the address book or it can exist separately. The objects stored in the D2D object list are objects that the current communication party may need to transmit large amounts of data, and are usually communication objects that need to be closely contacted frequently, such as friends of the communication party, family members, and closely-connected business partners.

The terminal may report the D2D object list to the network in the process of accessing the network, or report the D2D object list to the network after accessing the network (for example, when the D2D object list is updated), so that the network can query the D2D object. Relevant information can be sent in time when nearby.

This step can be omitted when the terminal directly sends a direct communication to the network side with the target D2D object. Step 320: The network side acquires location information of the terminal and location information of the terminal D2D object.

Specifically, the network side may periodically acquire location information of the terminal or location information of all D2D objects in the D2D object list, or acquire the request after receiving the terminal. If the target D2D object is carried in the request of the terminal, the network side may only obtain the location information of the target D2D object without acquiring the location information of all D2D objects in the D2D object list.

The network side can obtain the location information of the terminal or the D2D object terminal in any of the following ways:

Acquiring the location information of the terminal according to the self-positioning information reported by the terminal (including the current terminal and the D2D target terminal) that has the positioning function (for example, the satellite navigation system is turned on);

The network side can determine the location information of the terminal (including the current terminal and the D2D object terminal) through a plurality of (for example, three or more) base stations.

Step 330: The network side notifies the terminal when it is determined that the terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object according to the obtained location information.

The terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object, that is, the distance between the terminal and the D2D object is sufficient to establish direct communication that satisfies the preset communication indicator. Communication indicators here include, for example, bit error rate and/or system throughput.

Step 340: The terminal confirms whether direct communication is established. If established, the terminal enters the direct communication mode with the D2D object, and if not, continues the normal process or ends.

Specifically, the network side may send an acknowledgement message to the terminal at the same time as the terminal is notified, and let the terminal confirm whether the direct communication mode needs to be established. If the terminal confirms, the terminal enters the direct communication mode to establish a connection between the terminal and the D2D object. Or the network side can also use the inquiry menu to remind the terminal user whether to establish direct communication. If so, the terminal establishes direct communication with the D2D object.

There are several ways to implement direct communication between a terminal (the current communication side) and a D2D object. For example, the terminal can utilize the interference signal of the cellular network as a useful signal in communication to implement direct communication between the UE and the D2D object.

When the terminal establishes direct communication with the D2D object, the terminal and the network side also maintain a normal communication state, and the terminal does not miss any message on the network side due to direct communication with the D2D object. Application example 1

The scenario of this example is that when the UE is greatly interfered by the cellular system and cannot communicate normally with the communication object, it selects to enter the D2D direct communication mode, and establishes a direct communication mode with the D2D communication object to communicate.

For example, in a place where communication links are relatively dense, such as in an office building or a shopping mall, the UE receives relatively large interference from other links. Especially when the UE is at the edge of the cellular network, the interference from the terminal with strong signal will be relatively large. At this time, the UE that is greatly interfered cannot communicate well with the communication object in the building in its own cellular network. Moreover, the communication in these buildings is generally dense, and the data to be transmitted is relatively large. At this time, the communication mode can be switched.

Step 1: The UE reports the D2D object list to the network side.

Step 2, the UE periodically evaluates the received interference, if it is less than the self-interference acceptance threshold, then maintains the existing communication state, and continues to step 2, if the received interference is greater than the self-interference acceptance threshold, then proceeds to step 3;

Step 3: The UE informs the network side that the D2D communication mode needs to be established, and after receiving the notification that the network side can establish direct communication with the D2D object, enters the direct communication program with the D2D object.

In other embodiments, step 2 may be performed first. After determining that the interference is greater than the interference acceptance threshold, the UE reports the D2D object list to the network side, and informs the network side that the D2D communication mode needs to be established. At this time, the network side acquires the UE. The location information and the location information of each D2D object in the D2D object list of the UE to determine whether the UE can establish direct communication.

In addition, the UE may also notify the network side of the target D2D object while notifying the network side that the D2D communication mode needs to be established. The network side may directly determine whether direct communication can be established according to the current location of the UE and the current location of the target D2D object.

Application example 2

The scenario for this example is: Learn to have friends at the airport and take different flights. In different terminals, you need to establish direct communication with your friends and share the large-capacity photo information when you travel together. Specific steps:

Step 1: Add a friend to the D2D object list, and report the updated D2D object list to the network side;

Step 2: The UE informs the network side that the D2D communication mode needs to be established with the friend, and receives the prompt message sent by the network side: Is the communication connection established with the **D2D object? Alternatively, the terminal establishes a D2D communication connection with the friend.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or a portion of the above steps may be accomplished by a program instructing the associated hardware, such as a read-only memory, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk. Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may also be implemented using one or more integrated circuits. Correspondingly, each module/unit in the above embodiment may be implemented in the form of hardware or in the form of a software function module. The invention is not limited to any specific form of combination of hardware and software.

It is a matter of course that the invention may be embodied in various other forms and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Industrial Applicability The method, the device and the terminal of the embodiment of the present invention can realize direct communication between terminals when the two terminals are close to each other, that is, the communication between the terminals directly passes through the "terminal-terminal". A direct communication mode to achieve, will undoubtedly save time with the upper layer, simplify the communication process, and greatly save network resources. This direct communication mode is more meaningful, especially when it is necessary to transfer large amounts of data between two directly communicating terminals. The scenario in which the present invention can be applied may be, for example, a scenario in which a voice call is required at an airport or a station; or in the case of data transmission, when the two parties of the communication are close to each other (for example, when the two parties are in the same office building), data or big data needs to be exchanged with each other. The scene of information transmission.

Claims

Claim

1. A method of switching to the direct communication (D2D) mode between devices, the network side performs the following processing:

The network side notifies the current terminal when it is determined that the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object according to the acquired location information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein

Before the network side obtains the location information, the method further includes: receiving, by the network side, the current terminal to report the D2D object list to the network side.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein

The D2D object of the current terminal is one or more D2D objects in the D2D object list.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein

The acquiring, by the network side, the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal includes:

The network side periodically acquires the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, or the network side acquires the location information of the current terminal and the D2D of the terminal after receiving the request sent by the current terminal. The location information of the object.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein

The fact that the current terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object means that the distance between the current terminal and the D2D object is sufficient to establish direct communication that meets the preset communication indicator.

6. A network side device for implementing a terminal to switch to a direct communication (D2D) mode between devices, comprising a location information acquisition module, a determination module, and a notification module, wherein:

The determining module is configured to: determine the current end according to the location information acquired by the acquiring module Whether the terminal can establish direct communication with the D2D object;

7. The network side device according to claim 6, wherein

The network side device further includes a receiving module, configured to: receive the current terminal to report the D2D object list to the network side device.

8. The network side device according to claim 7, wherein

9. The network side device according to claim 6, wherein

The location information obtaining module is configured to: obtain the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal in the following manner:

Obtaining the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the current terminal, or acquiring the location information of the current terminal and the location information of the D2D object of the terminal after the network side device receives the request sent by the current terminal. .

The network side device according to any one of claims 6-9, wherein the direct connection between the current terminal and the D2D object is that the distance between the current terminal and the D2D object is sufficient to establish a pre-preparation. Set up direct communication of communication indicators.

11. A method of switching to a direct communication (D2D) mode between devices, the terminal performing the following processing:

The terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side;

12. The method of claim 11 wherein

The terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side, including:

When the terminal accesses the network, the terminal reports the D2D object list to the network side or reports the D2D object list to the network side after accessing the network.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein

The method further includes: the terminal initiating a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after the D2D object list is sent to the network side.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein

The terminal carries the target D2D object information in the request for establishing direct communication initiated by the network side.

15. A terminal for switching to a direct communication between devices (D2D) mode, comprising a reporting module, a receiving module, and a confirmation module, wherein:

16. The terminal of claim 15, wherein

The reporting module is configured to: report the D2D object list to the network side in the following manner: report the D2D object list of the terminal to the network side when the terminal accesses the network, or report the D2D object list after the terminal accesses the network Give the network side.

17. The terminal of claim 15, wherein

The reporting module is further configured to: initiate a request to establish direct communication to the network side before or after reporting the D2D object list to the network side.

18. The terminal of claim 17, wherein

The reporting module is further configured to: carry the target D2D object information in the request for establishing direct communication initiated by the network side.