WO2022219669A1

WO2022219669A1 - Station site design assisting device and station site design assisting method

Info

Publication number: WO2022219669A1
Application number: PCT/JP2021/015125
Authority: WO
Inventors: 秀幸坪井; 和人後藤; 秀紀俊長; 直樹北
Original assignee: 日本電信電話株式会社
Priority date: 2021-04-12
Filing date: 2021-04-12
Publication date: 2022-10-20
Also published as: JPWO2022219669A1

Abstract

This station site design assisting device comprises: a generation unit that generates a first combination candidate group which is a set of combinations of installation candidate positions for a first wireless station and installation candidate positions for a second wireless station, which performs communication with the first wireless station, in an assessment target area; a first determination unit that, for each of the combinations included in the first combination candidate group, determines whether there is a line-of-sight between an installation candidate position for the first wireless station and an installation candidate position for the second wireless station, on the basis of first environmental information including information indicating the plane position and the height of an object that is present in the assessment target area and that can block or reflect radio waves; a second determination unit that, for each of combinations for which the first determination unit has determined that there is the line-of-sight, determines whether there is a line-of-sight between an installation candidate position for the the first wireless station and an installation candidate position for the the second wireless station, on the basis of second environmental information including a greater amount of information than the first environmental information; and an output unit that outputs a second combination candidate group which is a set of combinations for which the second determination unit has determined that there is the line-of-sight.

Description

Station placement design support device and station placement design support method

The present invention relates to a station placement design support device and a station placement design support method.

Many of the drop cables, which are overhead cables for drawing optical lines from utility poles to each building, have been installed for a long time. Since it is expected that a large amount of man-hours and costs will be incurred in order to replace the old drop cable with a new one, the use of wireless drop cables has been widely promoted in recent years. In order to make the drop cable wireless, design the layout of the installation positions of the wireless base station equipment installed on the utility pole and the installation positions of the wireless terminal station equipment installed in each building. Station placement design is required.

Figure 40 is based on a use case proposed by mmWave Networks in TIP (Telecom Infra Project) (main members: Facebook, Deutsche Telecom, Intel, NOKIA, etc.), a consortium that promotes open specifications for communication network equipment in general. It is the figure which modified and modeled a part. mmWave Networks is one of the TIP project groups, and aims to build a network that is faster and cheaper than laying optical fiber using unlicensed band millimeter-wave radio.

Terminal station devices (hereinafter referred to as "terminal stations") are installed on the walls of buildings such as buildings 800 to 801 and houses 810 to 812 shown in FIG. Base station devices (hereinafter referred to as “base stations”) are installed on utility poles 821 to 826 shown in FIG. Base stations 830 to 834 and terminal stations 840 to 844 shown in FIG. 40 are devices called mmWave DNs (Distribution Nodes).

The base stations 830-834 are connected to communication devices provided in station buildings (Fiber PoP (Point of Presence)) 850-851 via optical fibers 900-901, respectively. These communication devices are connected to the provider's communication network. Between terminal stations 840 to 844 and base stations 830 to 834, mmWave Link, that is, millimeter wave radio is performed. In FIG. 40, a millimeter-wave radio link is indicated by a dashed line.

In the form of a communication network in which base stations 830 to 834 are installed on utility poles 821 to 826, terminal stations 840 to 844 are installed on the walls of buildings, respectively, and communication is performed between these stations by millimeter wave radio, the base stations 830 to 834 Selection of candidate positions for installing 834 and terminal stations 840 to 844 is called station placement design.

There is a method that uses three-dimensional point cloud data obtained by imaging the space as a method for station placement design. In this method, for example, first, a mobile object such as a vehicle equipped with an MMS (Mobile Mapping System) is driven along the roads around the evaluation target area such as a residential area to obtain 3D point cloud data. to get Next, wireless communication between base stations 830-834 and terminal stations 840-844 is evaluated using the acquired point cloud data.

As evaluation means, there are means to determine the line of sight between the two stations in three dimensions, and means to calculate the shielding rate. Here, the “shielding rate” is an index indicating how much an object (shielding object) existing between the base stations 830 to 834 and the terminal stations 840 to 844 affects wireless communication. It can also be called "transmittance". In order to implement such an evaluation means, point cloud data of all objects existing in the evaluation target area including the installation candidate positions of the base stations 830 to 834 and the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations 840 to 844 are prepared. must be

JP 2020-107955 A Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2020-113826 Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2020-120161

As described above, when attempting to cover an area such as a city by means of a communication network in which base stations are installed on utility poles and terminal stations are installed on the walls of buildings, wireless communication carriers need to cover a wide area, for example, several hundred meters square. There are times when station placement design must be performed with the area of In such a case, if candidate base station installation locations (e.g., all utility pole locations) and terminal station installation candidate locations (e.g., at least one location on the walls of all buildings) within the evaluation target area If the visibility determination process and the shielding rate calculation process are performed for all combinations of , the amount of calculation becomes enormous. Therefore, there is a problem that it is necessary to reduce the number of combinations of installation candidate positions of both stations to be evaluated to a number that allows the evaluation to be completed within a realistic calculation time.

In view of the above circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide a technology capable of appropriately presenting a combination of installation candidate positions for communication stations while suppressing an increase in the amount of calculation.

One aspect of the present invention is a first combination that is a set of combinations of a candidate installation position of a first radio station and a candidate installation position of a second radio station that communicates with the first radio station in an evaluation target area. a generating unit that generates a group of candidates; and information indicating, for each of the combinations included in the first candidate combination group, the position and height on a plane of an object that is present in the evaluation target area and that can block or reflect radio waves. a first determination unit that determines whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the first radio station and the candidate installation position of the second radio station, based on the first environment information included in the first environment information; For each combination determined to have the prospect, the installation candidate position of the first wireless station and the installation of the second wireless station are based on the second environment information having a larger amount of information than the first environment information. a second determination unit that determines whether or not there is a line of sight to a candidate position; and an output unit that outputs a second combination candidate group, which is a set of combinations determined to have the line of sight by the second determination unit. It is a station placement design support device provided.

One aspect of the present invention is a first combination that is a set of combinations of a candidate installation position of a first radio station and a candidate installation position of a second radio station that communicates with the first radio station in an evaluation target area. a generation step of generating a group of candidates; and information indicating the planar position and height of an object that can block or reflect radio waves existing in the evaluation target area for each of the combinations included in the first combination candidate group. a first determination step of determining whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the first radio station and the candidate installation position of the second radio station, based on the first environmental information included in the first environment information; for each combination determined to have a line of sight, based on the second environment information having a larger amount of information than the first environment information, the installation candidate position of the first wireless station and the installation of the second wireless station a second determination step of determining whether there is a line of sight between the candidate position and an output step of outputting a second combination candidate group, which is a set of combinations determined to have the line of sight in the second determination step; It is a station placement design support method.

According to the present invention, it is possible to appropriately present combinations of candidate installation positions for communication stations while suppressing an increase in the amount of calculation.

1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a station placement design support device 1 according to a first embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention; 4 is a flowchart showing an example of operation of outlook determination processing by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the first embodiment of the present invention; 4 is a flow chart showing an example of operation of outlook determination processing by a point cloud outlook determination unit 23 according to the first embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the calculation amount reduction effect of the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining determination of line-of-sight and reflection line-of-sight determination on a horizontal plane by the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining visibility determination and reflected visibility determination on a vertical section by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; 10 is a flow chart showing an example of operation of outlook determination processing by a map outlook determination unit 16 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing an example of operation of outlook determination processing by a map outlook determination unit 16 according to the third embodiment of the present invention; FIG. FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 31 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the fourth embodiment of this invention. FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 14 is a flowchart showing an example of operation of outlook determination processing by a map outlook determination unit 16 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention; FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining four possible cases as a result of line-of-sight determination; FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the relationship between the result of visibility determination on a horizontal plane and the result of visibility determination on a vertical cross section, and whether or not it is an object of visibility determination based on point cloud data. FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the relationship between the result of reflected visibility determination on a horizontal plane, the result of reflected visibility determination on a vertical cross section, and whether or not an object is an object of visibility determination based on point cloud data. It is a figure which shows an example of the use case which TIP proposes.

The station placement design support device and station placement design support method of the embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings.

<First embodiment>
The station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment will be described below. A station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment is a device for supporting station placement design that determines the installation positions of base stations installed on utility poles and the installation positions of terminal stations installed in each building. be.

The station placement design support device 1 determines whether or not communication is possible for each combination of at least one base station candidate installation position and at least one terminal station candidate installation position. In this embodiment, the station placement design support apparatus 1 determines whether or not communication is possible by determining whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations, or by calculating the shielding rate. .

Here, the presence or absence of line of sight means that when the base station and the terminal station are installed at the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station, transmission and reception are performed between the base station and the terminal station. It indicates whether or not there is a shield that blocks the propagation of the radio wave on the propagation path of the radio wave. If there is no obstruction that blocks the radio waves on the radio wave propagation path between the base station and the terminal station, it is said to be "line-of-sight", and the radio wave propagation path between the base station and the terminal station is said to be "line-of-sight." If there is a shield that shields the radio waves, it is said to be "no line of sight".

　Hereinafter, the determination of whether or not there is a line of sight and the determination of whether or not communication is possible based on the calculation of the shielding rate are collectively referred to as "line of sight determination". The station placement design support apparatus 1 provides station placement design support by presenting a set of appropriate combination candidates (hereinafter referred to as "combination candidate group") of the installation candidate positions of both stations specified by the line-of-sight determination. .

It should be noted that the combination candidate group presented by station placement design support by the station placement design support device 1 is used in the subsequent station placement design. The station placement design device that designs the station placement evaluates the communication state of each of the combination candidates included in the combination candidate group presented by the station placement design support device 1 by performing, for example, radio wave propagation simulation. The station placement design device determines the installation positions of the base stations and the installation positions of the terminal stations based on the evaluation results.

The station placement design support device 1 first narrows down the combination candidate group in advance by performing visibility determination using low-density data representing the positions of objects such as shields existing in the evaluation target area. The shield here is an object that may block the propagation of radio waves transmitted and received between the base station and the terminal station. Examples of shields include buildings (buildings) such as dwelling units and buildings, structures such as residential walls and elevated roads, structures such as road signs and signboards, plants such as roadside trees and garden trees, and raised ground. All objects that can block the propagation of radio waves are included.

Low-density data (first environmental information) is data with a relatively small amount of information. It is three-dimensional map information (hereinafter simply referred to as "map information") to which the height information is added. Height information in this embodiment is information indicating the height of the highest point of each building.

The map information in this embodiment is not a map generated based on point cloud data (hereinafter simply referred to as "point cloud data") obtained by MMS or the like, but is generated by a map creator (for example, surveying). ) is information based on general maps such as produced residential maps. Therefore, the map information in the present embodiment includes, for example, information indicating the outline and height of buildings, but does not relate to the positions of objects other than buildings (for example, the above-mentioned structures, structures, plants, etc.). Information may not be included. In outlook determination using low-density data, determination accuracy is relatively low, but the amount of calculation required for determination processing is relatively small.

After that, the station placement design support apparatus 1 generates high-density data representing the positions of objects such as shields existing in the evaluation target area for each of the combination candidates narrowed down by the visibility determination based on the low-density data. Use it to determine line of sight.

High-density data (second environmental information) is data with a relatively large amount of information, and in this embodiment, is three-dimensional point cloud data obtained by MMS or the like, for example. The point cloud data includes information indicating the three-dimensional positions of all objects that can be shields, including not only buildings but objects other than buildings that are not included in the above map information. Therefore, the point cloud data has much more information than the above map information. In line-of-sight determination using high-density data, determination accuracy is relatively high, but the amount of calculation required for determination processing is relatively large.

In this way, the station placement design support apparatus 1 of the present embodiment performs line-of-sight determination in advance using low-density data, so that combination candidates of installation candidate positions of both stations with a low possibility of being able to communicate are determined in advance. exclude. After that, the station placement design support device 1 performs detailed outlook determination using high-density data only for the narrowed-down combination candidates. As a result, the station placement design support apparatus 1 can present a group of suitable combination candidates of the candidate installation positions of the base stations and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations with a smaller amount of calculation while suppressing deterioration in determination accuracy. can.

[Functional configuration of station placement design support device]
The functional configuration of the station placement design support device 1 will be described below. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of a station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the station placement design support apparatus 1 includes a facility information acquisition unit 11, a base station candidate position extraction unit 12, a map information acquisition unit 13, a terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14, a combination candidate A group generation unit 15, a map outlook determination unit 16, a point cloud data acquisition unit 21, a data matching unit 22, a point cloud outlook determination unit 23, a storage unit 30, and a combination candidate group output unit 40. consists of The station placement design support device 1 is, for example, an information processing device such as a general-purpose computer.

The facility information acquisition unit 11 acquires facility information from, for example, an external device. The equipment information here includes information indicating the planar position and height of outdoor equipment such as a utility pole on which a base station can be installed. The facility information acquisition unit 11 outputs the acquired facility information to the base station candidate position extraction unit 12 .

The "planar position" here refers to two-dimensional coordinates that do not include coordinates in the height direction (vertical direction). Further, in the following description, unless otherwise specified, "position" refers to three-dimensional coordinates including coordinates in the height direction (vertical direction).

Note that the facility information acquisition unit 11 may acquire facility information from an external storage device or from an external device via a communication network. Alternatively, the facility information may be stored in the storage section 30 in advance, and the facility information acquisition section 11 may acquire the facility information from the storage section 30 .

The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 acquires the facility information output from the facility information acquisition unit 11. The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 extracts installation candidate positions of base stations based on the acquired equipment information. The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 outputs information indicating the extracted installation candidate positions of the base stations and facility information to the combination candidate group generation unit 15 .

The map information acquisition unit 13 acquires map information from, for example, an external device. The map information here includes, for example, information indicating the planar position and height of outlines of buildings such as houses and buildings. The map information acquisition unit 13 outputs the acquired map information to the terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 and the data matching unit 22 .

Note that the map information acquisition unit 13 may acquire map information from an external storage device, or may acquire map information from an external device via a communication network. Alternatively, the map information may be stored in the storage unit 30 in advance, and the map information acquisition unit 13 may acquire the map information from the storage unit 30 .

The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 acquires map information output from the map information acquisition unit 13 . The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 extracts installation candidate positions of the terminal station based on the acquired map information. The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 outputs information indicating the extracted installation candidate positions of the terminal stations and map information to the combination candidate group generation unit 15 .

The combination candidate group generating unit 15 (generating unit) acquires information indicating the installation candidate positions of the base stations extracted by the base station candidate position extracting unit 12 and facility information. Further, the combination candidate group generation unit 15 acquires information indicating the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations extracted by the terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 and map information. Based on the acquired information, the combination candidate group generation unit 15 generates installation candidates for both stations based on the candidate installation positions of the base station (first wireless station) and the candidate installation positions of the terminal station (second wireless station). A set of position combination candidates (first combination candidate group) is generated. The combination candidate group generation unit 15 causes the storage unit 30 to store information indicating the generated combination candidate group, facility information, and map information.

The map outlook determination unit 16 (first determination unit) acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map visibility determination unit 16 performs visibility determination for each of the acquired combination candidate groups. As described above, the line-of-sight determination in the present embodiment is a determination of whether or not communication is possible based on the determination of the presence or absence of line-of-sight between the base station and the terminal station or the calculation of the shielding rate. The details of the outlook determination processing by the map outlook determination unit 16 will be described later.

The map outlook determination unit 16 extracts only combination candidates determined to be communicable. The map outlook determination unit 16 overwrites and updates the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 with the combination candidate group determined to be communicable by the determination using the map information. In addition, instead of performing overwriting update as described above, the map outlook determination unit 16 provides information indicating whether or not each of the combination candidates included in the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 has been determined to have a view. (For example, a visibility determination result flag) may be assigned to each.

The point cloud data acquisition unit 21 acquires point cloud data, for example, from an external device or the like. The point cloud data referred to here is three-dimensional point cloud data obtained by imaging a space. For example, the point cloud data is obtained by driving a mobile object such as a vehicle equipped with an MMS along a road around a residential area to be evaluated. The facility information acquisition unit 11 outputs the acquired point cloud data to the data matching unit 22 .

Note that the point cloud data acquisition unit 21 may acquire the point cloud data from an external storage device or from an external device via a communication network. Alternatively, point cloud data may be stored in the storage unit 30 in advance, and the point cloud data acquisition unit 21 may acquire the point cloud data from the storage unit 30 .

The data matching unit 22 acquires the map information output from the map information acquiring unit 13. The data matching unit 22 also acquires the point cloud data output from the point cloud data acquiring unit 21 . The data matching unit 22 matches the coordinate system of the map information and the coordinate system of the point cloud data, and matches the positions (coordinates) included in the map information and the positions (coordinates) included in the point cloud data. The data matching unit 22 corrects the positions included in the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 as necessary so that the positions are based on the coordinate system of the point cloud data. The data matching unit 22 causes the storage unit 30 to store the acquired point cloud data.

In general, since a common coordinate system such as the world geodetic system is often used for the coordinate system of the map information and the coordinate system of the point cloud data, the coordinate matching by the data matching unit 22 is performed. It is considered that there are many cases in which no treatment is required.

The point cloud outlook determination unit 23 (second determination unit) acquires information indicating the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 and point cloud data. The point cloud view determination unit 23 performs view determination for each of the acquired combination candidates. As described above, the line-of-sight determination in the present embodiment is a determination of whether or not communication is possible based on the determination of the presence or absence of line-of-sight between the base station and the terminal station or the calculation of the shielding rate. Any conventional technology can be used for the outlook determination processing by the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 .

The point cloud outlook determination unit 23 extracts only combination candidates determined to be communicable. The map outlook determination unit 16 overwrites and updates the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 with the combination candidate group determined to be communicable by the determination using the point cloud data. Note that, instead of overwriting and updating as described above, the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 provides information indicating whether or not the outlook is determined to be rational for each of the combination candidates stored in the storage unit 30 (for example, outlook determination result flag) may be updated.

The storage unit 30 stores the combination candidate group, facility information, map information, and point cloud data described above. Note that the storage unit 30 does not need to store all the facility information, all the map information, and all the point cloud data. At least the point cloud data necessary for the determination processing by the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 should be stored.

The storage unit 30 includes, for example, a HDD (Hard Disk Drive), flash memory, EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), RAM (Random Access read/write Memory), ROM (Read Only Memory). memory), or any combination of these storage media.

Note that, for example, the base station candidate position extraction unit 12, the terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14, the combination candidate group generation unit 15, the map outlook determination unit 16, the data matching unit 22, and the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 are one control unit. It may be configured as a component of a unit (not shown). In this case, the controller is implemented by a hardware processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) executing a program (software). Alternatively, the control unit may be realized by cooperation of software and hardware. The program read by the CPU may be stored in advance in a storage medium such as the storage unit 30 provided in the station placement design support apparatus 1, for example.

A combination candidate group output unit 40 (output unit) is a combination candidate group generated by the combination candidate group generation unit 15, and then determined by the map outlook determination unit 16 and the point cloud outlook determination unit 23. Information indicating the narrowed-down combination candidate group (second combination candidate group) is acquired from the storage unit 30 . The combination candidate group output unit 40 outputs information indicating the acquired combination candidate group to an external device.

The combination candidate group output unit 40 includes, for example, a communication interface for outputting information indicating the combination candidate group to an external device. The combination candidate group output unit 40 may function as a display unit that displays the combination candidate group. In this case, the combination candidate group output unit 40 includes a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or an organic EL (Electroluminescence) display.

[Operation of station placement design support device]
An example of the operation of the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment will be described below. FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

The facility information acquisition unit 11 acquires facility information from, for example, an external device (step S1). The facility information acquisition unit 11 outputs the acquired facility information to the base station candidate position extraction unit 12 .

The map information acquisition unit 13 acquires map information from, for example, an external device. The map information acquisition unit 13 outputs the acquired map information to the terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 and the data matching unit 22 (step S2).

The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 acquires the facility information output from the facility information acquisition unit 11. The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 extracts installation candidate positions of the base station based on the acquired equipment information (step S3). The base station candidate position extraction unit 12 outputs information indicating the extracted installation candidate positions of the base stations and facility information to the combination candidate group generation unit 15 .

The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 acquires map information output from the map information acquisition unit 13 . The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 extracts installation candidate positions of the terminal station based on the acquired map information (step S4). The terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 outputs information indicating the extracted installation candidate positions of the terminal stations and map information to the combination candidate group generation unit 15 .

The combination candidate group generation unit 15 acquires information indicating the installation candidate positions of the base stations extracted by the base station candidate position extraction unit 12 and facility information. Further, the combination candidate group generation unit 15 acquires information indicating the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations extracted by the terminal station candidate position extraction unit 14 and map information. A combination candidate group generation unit 15 generates a combination candidate group, which is a set of candidates for a combination of the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal station, based on the acquired information. is generated (step S5). The combination candidate group generation unit 15 causes the storage unit 30 to store information indicating the generated combination candidate group, facility information, and map information.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map visibility determination unit 16 performs visibility determination for each of the acquired combination candidate groups. The map outlook determination unit 16 narrows down the combination candidate group by the outlook determination based on the map information by extracting only the combination candidates determined to have visibility (step S6).

The map outlook determination unit 16 outputs information indicating the combination candidate group narrowed down based on the map information to the storage unit 30 (step S7). As a result, the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 is overwritten and updated with the combination candidate group made up of the combination candidates determined to have visibility by the visibility determination using the map information. Note that the map outlook determination unit 16 may output information indicating a combination candidate group narrowed down based on the map information to an external device. Details of the operation of step S6 will be described later with reference to FIG.

The data matching unit 22 receives the combination candidate group narrowed down based on the map information output in step S7, and the base station installation candidate positions and the terminal station installation candidate positions included in the combination candidate group. Information indicating the coordinates is input from the storage unit 30 (step S8). Note that the information may be input to the data matching unit 22 from an external device.

It should be noted that, for example, the station placement design support device 1 may be a device that separately has a device that performs visibility determination based on the above map information and a device that performs visibility determination based on the point cloud data described below. In addition, in the flowchart of FIG. 2, the visibility determination based on the map information and the visibility determination based on the point cloud data are performed in a series of operations. However, the outlook determination based on the map information and the outlook determination based on the point cloud data may be performed separately.

The point cloud data acquisition unit 21 acquires point cloud data from, for example, an external device (step S9). The point cloud data acquisition unit 21 outputs the acquired point cloud data to the data matching unit 22 .

The data matching unit 22 acquires the point cloud data output from the point cloud data acquisition unit 21. The data matching unit 22 matches the coordinate system of the map information and the coordinate system of the point cloud data, and matches the positions (coordinates) included in the map information and the positions (coordinates) included in the point cloud data. The data matching unit 22 causes the storage unit 30 to store the acquired point cloud data.

The point cloud outlook determining unit 23 acquires information indicating the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 and point cloud data. The point cloud view determination unit 23 performs view determination for each of the combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group. The point cloud visibility determination unit 23 extracts only combination candidates determined to have visibility. The map outlook determination unit 16 overwrites and updates the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 with the combination candidate group consisting of the combination candidates determined to have visibility by the outlook determination using the point cloud data. The candidates are narrowed down (step S10). Details of the operation of step S10 will be described later with reference to FIG.

The combination candidate group output unit 40 acquires from the storage unit 30 information indicating the combination candidate group narrowed down by the outlook determination by the map outlook determination unit 16 and the outlook determination by the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 . The combination candidate group output unit 40 outputs information indicating the acquired combination candidate group to an external device (step S11). Thus, the operation of the station placement design support device 1 shown in the flowchart of FIG. 2 is completed.

The operation of the map outlook determination unit 16 in step S6 of the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 will be described in more detail below. FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map outlook determination unit 16 selects one combination candidate for which outlook determination has not yet been performed from among the acquired combination candidate group (step S601).

The map visibility determination unit 16 performs visibility determination between the installation candidate positions of the base stations and the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations indicated by the selected combination candidates (step S602). When it is determined that there is no visibility as a result of the visibility determination (step S602, NO), the map outlook determination unit 16 deletes the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group (step S603).

The map outlook determination unit 16 repeats the operations from step S601 to step S603 until the outlook is determined for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S604). If outlook determination has been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S604, YES), the flow proceeds to step S7 of the flowchart shown in FIG.

The operation of the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 in step S10 of the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 will be described in more detail below. FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

The point cloud outlook determining unit 23 acquires information indicating the combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30 and point cloud data. The point cloud view determination unit 23 selects one combination candidate for which view determination has not yet been performed from the acquired combination candidate group (step S1001).

The point cloud view determination unit 23 performs view determination between the installation candidate positions of the base stations and the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations indicated by the selected combination candidates (step S1002). When it is determined that there is no view as a result of the view determination (step S1002, NO), the point cloud view determination unit 23 deletes the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group (step S1003).

The point cloud outlook determining unit 23 repeats the operations from step S1001 to step S1003 until the outlook is determined for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S1004). If outlook determination has been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S1004, YES), the process proceeds to step S11 of the flowchart shown in FIG.

As a result of the line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 of this embodiment, four cases as shown in FIG. 37 are conceivable. FIG. 37 is a diagram for explaining four possible cases as a result of line-of-sight determination.

As shown in FIG. 37, the four cases that can be considered as the result of the line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 are the case where the result of the line-of-sight determination based on the map information is "with line of sight" and the case where the result is "no line of sight". A combination of a case where there is a line of sight, a case where the result of the line of sight determination based on the point cloud data is "with line of sight" and a case where it is "no line of sight".

As shown in FIG. 37, here, the case where the result of the visibility determination based on the map information is "with visibility" and the result of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data is "with visibility" is defined as "Case (1 )”. Further, the case where the result of the visibility determination based on the map information is also "with visibility" and the result of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data is "no visibility" is referred to as "Case (2)". Further, the case where the result of the visibility determination based on the map information is "no visibility" and the result of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data is "with visibility" is referred to as "Case (3)". Further, a case where the result of the visibility determination based on the map information is "no visibility" and the result of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data is also "no visibility" is referred to as "Case (4)".

[Calculation amount reduction effect]
Hereinafter, the effect of reducing the amount of calculation by narrowing down the combination candidates in advance using the map information will be described. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the calculation amount reduction effect of the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

(A) and (B) of FIG. 5 show the visibility determination based on the map information by the map visibility determination unit 16. FIG. On the other hand, (C) and (D) of FIG. 5 show visibility determination based on point cloud data by the point cloud visibility determining unit 23 .

As shown, in (A) and (B) of FIG. 5, since the visibility is determined based on the map information, the existence of residential walls, roadside trees, traffic signs, etc., which are not included in the map information. is not considered in line of sight determination. On the other hand, in (C) and (D) of FIG. 5, since the visibility judgment is based on the point cloud data, the existence of the fence of the house, the roadside tree, the road sign, etc. included in the point cloud data , are taken into account in the line-of-sight determination.

(A) to (D) of FIG. 5 all show examples of combination candidates when one wall surface of the house h1 is set as a candidate installation position for the terminal station.

(A) of FIG. 5 shows a case where the outlook is determined based on the map information, with the utility pole p1 as the candidate installation position for the base station. In this case, as shown in the figure, since the line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station is blocked by the house h2, the result of the line of sight determination is "no line of sight".

On the other hand, (B) of FIG. 5 shows a case where the line-of-sight determination is performed based on the map information, with the utility pole p2 as the candidate position for installing the base station. In this case, as shown in the figure, since the line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station is not blocked by the house h2 or the like, the result of the line of sight determination is "with line of sight". .

(C) of FIG. 5 shows a case where the line of sight determination is performed based on the point cloud data, with the utility pole p1 as the candidate position for installing the base station. In this case, as shown in the figure, since the line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station is blocked by the house h2, the result of the line of sight determination is "no line of sight".

On the other hand, (D) of FIG. 5 shows a case where the line of sight determination is performed based on the point cloud data with the utility pole p2 as the candidate position for installing the base station. In this case, as shown in the figure, the line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station may be blocked by, for example, the house h2, the wall of the house h2, roadside trees, and road signs. Therefore, the result of line-of-sight determination is "with line-of-sight".

The reason why the station placement design support apparatus 1 of the present embodiment has the effect of reducing the amount of calculation is that most of the situations in the actual environment are case (1) or case (4) shown in FIG. Based on expectations. For example, in a situation where it is determined that there is visibility based on the visibility determination based on the map information, as in the case of FIG. There is a high possibility that it is a situation where it is determined that there is. Similarly, for example, in a situation where it is determined that there is no visibility by the visibility determination based on the map information as in the case of FIG. There is a high possibility that it will be determined that there is no prospect for the future.

However, although the possibility is not high, a situation such as case (2) shown in FIG. 37 is also possible. For example, even in a situation where it is determined that there is a line of sight by the line of sight determination based on the map information as in the case of FIG. There may be situations where it is determined that there is no line of sight. For example, structures such as residential walls and elevated roads, structures such as road signs and billboards, plants such as roadside trees and garden trees, and raised ground that are not included in the map information can block the propagation of radio waves. Any object other than a building may block the line-of-sight between the candidate installation location of the base station and the candidate installation location of the terminal station. Therefore, the station placement design support device 1 in the present embodiment performs outlook determination based on point cloud data for combination candidates that have been determined to have visibility by the outlook determination based on the map information.

Further, although the possibility is not high, there is also a situation like case (3) shown in FIG. For example, when line-of-sight determination is performed based on map information in which the height of the highest point of a building is assigned to information indicating the outline of a building included in two-dimensional map information, another building becomes an obstruction. line of sight between candidate locations for base stations and candidate locations for terminal stations. For example, in the situations shown in FIGS. 10 and 13, which will be described later, it is determined that there is no visibility (based on the height of the highest point of the building) according to the visibility determination based on the map information, but the point cloud data Based on the line-of-sight determination, it may be determined that there is line-of-sight (actually, there is line-of-sight).

Here, the determination times required for visibility determination in the cases of (A), (B), (C), and (D) in FIG. 5 are represented by ta, tb, tc, and td, respectively. In this case, the map information is relatively low-density data (small amount of information) compared to the point cloud data. This time is significantly shorter than the determination times tc and td for the visibility determination based on the above.

In addition, regardless of the presence or absence of visibility, the determination time for the visibility determination based on the map information for each combination candidate is approximately the same length, so ta and tb have approximately the same length of determination time. . Similarly, regardless of the presence or absence of visibility, the determination time for visibility determination based on point cloud data for each combination candidate is about the same length, so tc and td are about the same length. It's time.

From the above, it can be said that the relationship shown in formula (1) below holds true.

　　　ta≈tb<<tc≈td (1)

Here, let M be the total number of combinations of all candidate installation positions for base stations and all candidate installation positions for terminal stations in the evaluation target area. Also, among the M combination candidates, n represents the number of combinations in which there is a line of sight between the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations.

The station placement design support device 1 in this embodiment first narrows down the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group by outlook determination based on map information, and then, based on the point cloud data for each of the narrowed down combination candidates. Since the visibility determination is performed, it is possible to complete the visibility determination in approximately the determination time shown in the following equation (2).

ta×n+tb×(M−n)+tc×n
Here, if ta = tb,
ta×M+tc×n (2)

On the other hand, when line-of-sight determination is performed based on point cloud data for combinations of all candidate installation positions of base stations and all candidate installation positions of terminal stations in an evaluation target area, as in the conventional technology, roughly: It takes a determination time as shown in the following equation (3).

tc×n+td×(M−n)
Here, if tc=td,
tc×M (3)

As described above, since ta<<tc, it can be said that the station placement design support apparatus 1 in this embodiment can shorten the determination time by about tc×(M−n). .

As described above, the map information in this embodiment is obtained by adding information indicating the height of each building to each piece of building position information included in the two-dimensional map data. In general, coordinate information based on two-dimensional map information is coordinate information consisting of coordinates at intervals of several meters, and coordinate information based on two-dimensional point cloud data is coordinate information consisting of coordinates at intervals of several centimeters. be. Therefore, the amount of coordinate information based on two-dimensional point cloud data is about 10,000 (=100 ² ) times as much as that of coordinate information based on two-dimensional map information.

As described above, the station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention prepares in advance low-density data (three-dimensional map information) representing the positions of shields existing in the evaluation target area. Use to determine line of sight. As a result, the station placement design support apparatus 1 can narrow down the combination candidates by excluding combinations of installation candidate positions of both stations that are presumed to have no clear line of sight. After that, the station placement design support apparatus 1 uses high-density data (three-dimensional point cloud data) representing the positions of shielding objects existing in the evaluation target area for each of the narrowed-down combination candidates to obtain more detailed information. Make a clear line of sight judgment. As a result, the station placement design support device 1 identifies prospective combination candidates.

In this way, the station placement design support device 1 of the present invention performs line-of-sight determination in advance using low-density data, thereby reducing the number of detailed line-of-sight determinations using high-density data. can.

By providing such a configuration, the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention suppresses an increase in the amount of calculation in line-of-sight determination, and determines the candidate installation positions of the base stations and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations. combination candidates can be presented appropriately.

<Second embodiment>
The station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment will be described below. In general, even if there is no line of sight between a base station and a terminal station, the propagation path of the radio waves may be secured by reflecting the radio waves on the wall of a building, for example, and communication may be possible. The station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment, even if it is determined that there is no line of sight between the installation candidate position of the base station and the installation candidate position of the terminal station by line-of-sight determination based on the map information, The map information is used to further determine whether or not there is a line of sight that allows reflection of radio waves from walls and the like.

Hereafter, the line of sight that allows the reflection of radio waves by walls, etc. is referred to as "reflected line of sight", and the determination of whether or not there is a reflected line of sight is referred to as "reflected line of sight determination". The station placement design support device 1 of the second embodiment presents more combination candidates including not only combination candidates determined to have a line of sight but also combination candidates determined to have a reflected line of sight. can be done.

[Determination of visibility based on map information]
The outlook determination based on the map information by the station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment will be described below. The station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment first performs visibility determination and reflected visibility determination on a horizontal plane, and then performs visibility determination and reflected visibility determination on a vertical cross section.

The line-of-sight determination and reflected line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 will be described below. FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the line-of-sight determination and reflection line-of-sight determination on a horizontal plane by the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 6 also shows a wall surface position h11-1, which is the center position of one wall surface of the house h11, which is a candidate installation position of the terminal station, and a wall surface position h11-2, which is the end position of one wall surface of the house h11. , and the respective terminal stations t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1 and the wall surface position h11-2. FIG. 6 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

The map view determination unit 16 first determines the view on the horizontal plane between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station, and the wall surface of the house h11, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station. As shown in FIG. 6, for example, the line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall position h11-1 is blocked by the house h12, so it can be said that there is no line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the house h11. In this case, the map view determination unit 16 determines the reflection view on the horizontal plane between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station, and the wall surface of the house h11, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station.

As shown in FIG. 6, when one wall surface of the house h13 is a reflecting surface m11 that reflects radio waves, the position of the mirror image of the utility pole p11 when viewed from the wall surface position h11-2 is the position of the mirror image p11m. . Further, the intersection of the straight line connecting the wall surface position h11-2 and the mirror image p11m and the reflection surface m11 is the reflection point r11 where radio waves are reflected.

Based on the fact that there is a line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the reflection point r11 and that there is also a line of sight between the reflection point r11 and the wall surface position h11-2, the map line-of-sight determination unit 16 determines the line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-2. Between h11-2, it is determined that there is a reflection line of sight on the horizontal plane.

Next, the map visibility determining unit 16 determines visibility on the vertical section between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station, and the wall surface of the house h11, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining line-of-sight determination and reflected line-of-sight determination on a vertical section by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

(A) of FIG. 7 shows the line-of-sight determination on the vertical section between the utility pole p11 and the wall position h11-1. On the other hand, (B) of FIG. 7 shows reflection line-of-sight determination on a vertical section between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-2.

(A) and (B) of FIG. 7 show a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. 7A and 7B show a wall surface position h11-1, which is the center position of one wall surface of the house h11, which is a candidate installation position of the terminal station, and an end portion of one wall surface of the house h11. The wall position h11-2, which is the position, and the terminal stations t11 when installed at the wall position h11-1 and the wall position h11-2 are shown. 7A and 7B show a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11. Note that, as illustrated, the height of the house h13 is lower than the height of the house h12.

As shown in FIG. 7A, for example, the line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall position h11-1 is blocked by the house h12, and the line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the house h11 is visible on the vertical section. It can be said that there is no

However, if the height of the house h12 is, for example, about the same as the height of the house h13, it can be said that there is a line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-1 on the vertical section. In such a case, even if it is determined that there is no line of sight by the line of sight determination on the horizontal plane, the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines the possibility that the line of sight is actually present by the line of sight determination on the vertical section. can recognize that there is

If it is determined that there is visibility in at least one of the visibility determination on the horizontal plane and the visibility determination on the vertical section, the map visibility determination unit 16 determines the installation candidate position of the base station and the installation of the terminal station. It is determined that there is a line of sight to the candidate position, and this combination candidate is included in the combination candidate group (that is, this combination candidate is not deleted from the combination candidate group).

If it is determined that there is no line of sight in both the line of sight determination on the horizontal plane and the line of sight on the vertical section, the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station. , and this combination candidate is deleted from the combination candidate group.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 7B, for example, when the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-2 are connected by a straight line on the vertical cross section, the position of the reflection point r11 is the reflection surface m11 in FIG. is higher than the height of the house h13 forming Therefore, the map visibility determination unit 16 can recognize that there is no reflection visibility because there is actually no wall surface at the position of the reflection point r11 shown in FIG. 7B.

In this way, even if it is determined that there is a reflected line of sight by the determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane, the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines that there is actually no reflected line of sight by the line of sight determination on the vertical cross section. can recognize.

If it is determined that there is a reflected line of sight in both the determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane and the determination of the reflected line of sight on the vertical section, the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines the candidate installation positions of the base station and the installation of the terminal station. It is determined that there is a reflected line of sight between the candidate position and this combination candidate is included in the combination candidate group (that is, this combination candidate is not deleted from the combination candidate group).

If it is determined that there is no reflected line of sight in at least one of the reflected line of sight determination on the horizontal plane and the reflected line of sight on the vertical plane, the map line of sight determining unit 16 determines the candidate installation position of the base station and the installation of the terminal station. It is determined that there is no reflected line of sight with the candidate position, and this combination candidate is deleted from the combination candidate group.

FIG. 38 is a diagram showing the relationship between the result of visibility determination on a horizontal plane and the result of visibility determination on a vertical section, and whether or not it is a target for visibility determination based on point cloud data. FIG. 38 shows whether or not the combination candidate to be evaluated is subject to the visibility determination based on the point cloud data, depending on the result of the visibility determination on the horizontal plane and the result of the visibility determination on the vertical cross section. ing.

As shown in FIG. 38, for example, case (A) is a case where it is determined that there is no line of sight by the line of sight determination on the horizontal plane and that there is no line of sight by the line of sight determination on the vertical section. In such a case (A), the evaluation target combination candidate is excluded from the visibility determination based on the point cloud data. Case (B) is a case where it is determined that there is no line of sight by the line of sight determination on the horizontal plane, and that there is line of sight by the line of sight determination on the vertical section. In such a case (B), the combination candidates to be evaluated are targets for visibility determination based on the point cloud data.

In addition, case (C) is a case where it is determined that there is a line of sight by the line of sight determination on the horizontal plane. In such a case (C), it is not necessary to determine the visibility on the vertical cross section, and the combination candidate to be evaluated is subject to the visibility determination based on the point cloud data. With such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment can efficiently determine whether or not to be the target of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data.

FIG. 39 is a diagram showing the relationship between the result of reflected visibility determination on a horizontal plane and the result of reflected visibility determination on a vertical cross section, and whether or not it is an object of visibility determination based on point cloud data. FIG. 39 shows whether or not a combination candidate to be evaluated is subject to visibility determination based on point cloud data, depending on the result of reflection visibility determination on a horizontal plane and the result of reflection visibility determination on a vertical cross section. represents.

As shown in FIG. 39, for example, case (D) is a case where it is determined that there is no reflected line of sight by determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane. In such a case (D), there is no need to determine the reflected visibility on the vertical cross section, and the combination candidates to be evaluated are excluded from the visibility determination based on the point cloud data. With such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment can efficiently determine whether or not to be the target of the visibility determination based on the point cloud data.

In addition, case (E) is a case where it is determined that there is a reflected line of sight by the determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane, and that there is no reflected line of sight by the determination of the reflected line of sight on the vertical section. In such a case (E), the combination candidates to be evaluated are excluded from the visibility determination based on the point cloud data. Case (F) is a case where it is determined that there is a reflected line of sight by the determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane, and that there is also the reflected line of sight by the determination of the reflected line of sight on the vertical section. In such a case (E), the combination candidates to be evaluated are targets for visibility determination based on the point cloud data.

[Operation of station placement design support device]
An example of the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment will be described below. In addition, in the operation of the station placement design support device 1 in the second embodiment, the operation other than step S6 in the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 is the same as the operation of the station placement design support device 1 in the first embodiment. is. Therefore, only the operation of narrowing down the combination candidate group by the visibility determination based on the map information shown in step S6 of the flowchart of FIG. 2 will be described below.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map outlook determination unit 16 selects one combination candidate for which outlook determination has not yet been made from among the acquired combination candidate group (step S611).

The map visibility determining unit 16 determines visibility on the horizontal plane between the installation candidate positions of the base stations and the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations indicated by the selected combination candidates (step S612). If it is determined that there is no horizontal line of sight as a result of the line of sight determination (step S612: NO), the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines the vertical direction between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station. A line-of-sight determination on the cross section is performed (step S613).

As described above, the reason why the processing order is to determine the visibility on the vertical plane after the determination of the visibility on the horizontal plane is that, as described above, in the case (C) of FIG. This is because it is not necessary to carry out the visibility determination, so efficient visibility determination can be performed.

If it is determined that there is no line of sight on the vertical cross section as a result of the line of sight determination (step S613: NO), the map line of sight determination unit 16 determines the distance between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station. Reflection visibility determination on the horizontal plane is performed (step S614).

If it is determined that there is a reflected view on the horizontal plane as a result of the reflected view determination (step S614: YES), the map view determination unit 16 determines the distance between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station. , determination of reflected line of sight on the vertical section is performed (step S615).

In this way, the reason why the process order is to determine the reflected line of sight on the vertical plane after the determination of the reflected line of sight on the horizontal plane is that, as described above, in the case (D) of FIG. This is because it is not necessary to determine the reflected line of sight at , and thus efficient reflected line of sight determination can be performed.

On the other hand, when it is determined that there is no reflected view on the horizontal plane as a result of the reflected view determination (step S614, NO), the map view view determination unit 16 selects the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group. Delete (step S616).

When it is determined that there is no reflected view on the vertical section as a result of the reflected view determination (step S615: NO), the map view determination unit 16 deletes the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group. (step S616).

The map visibility determination unit 16 repeats the operations from steps S611 to S616 until the visibility determination and reflected visibility determination are performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S617). When the line of sight determination and reflected line of sight determination have been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group, the process proceeds to step S7 in the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention determines whether there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station by the line of sight determination based on the map information. Even if it is determined that there is no reflection, it is further determined whether or not there is a reflection line-of-sight that allows reflection of radio waves by a reflecting surface such as a wall surface of a building. Even if it is determined that there is no line of sight, the station placement design support device 1 does not exclude combination candidates that are determined to have a reflected line of sight from the combination candidate group.

It should be noted that steps S614 and S615 relating to reflection visibility determination in the flow chart shown in FIG. 8 may be omitted as necessary. That is, the configuration may be such that only direct line-of-sight determination between the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations is performed. Moreover, step S612 and step S613 regarding visibility determination in the flow chart shown in FIG. 8 may be omitted as necessary. In other words, the configuration may be such that only reflection outlook determination between the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations is performed.

With such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention suppresses an increase in the amount of calculation in line-of-sight determination and reflection line-of-sight determination, while only combining candidates determined to have line-of-sight. Instead, it is possible to appropriately present a larger number of combination candidates including combination candidates determined to have a reflected line of sight.

[Building shape based on map information]
If the height information included in the map information is only information indicating the height of the highest point of each building, the map outlook determination unit 16 regards the shape of each building as being columnar, and determines the outlook and reflection. A line of sight determination may be made.

In other words, the map outlook determining unit 16 may regard a building whose outline in a two-dimensional map is, for example, a rectangular shape as having a three-dimensional shape of a rectangular parallelepiped. Similarly, the map outlook determination unit 16 may regard a building having a circular shape in a two-dimensional map as having a three-dimensional shape of a cylinder.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 9 also shows a wall surface position h11-1, which is the central position of one wall surface of a house h11, which is a candidate installation position for the terminal station, and a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1. It is shown. FIG. 9 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

As shown in FIG. 9, the map outlook determination unit 16 considers that the three-dimensional shape of the houses h11, h12, and h13 whose contours are rectangular in the two-dimensional map are rectangular parallelepipeds.

For example, based on the height of the highest point of the house h12, if the three-dimensional shape of the house h12 is considered to be a rectangular parallelepiped indicated by broken lines in FIG. Since the view is blocked by the house h12 during -1, it is determined that there is no view. Further, for example, based on the height of the highest point of the house h12, if the three-dimensional shape of the house h12 is considered to be a rectangular parallelepiped indicated by solid lines in FIG. Since the view is not blocked by the house h12 between the positions h11-1, it is determined that there is a view.

In addition, when the height information included in the map information includes not only information indicating the height of the highest point of each building, but also information related to the shape of the building, such as the shape and inclination angle of the roof of each building. Alternatively, the map visibility determining unit 16 may also consider information about the shape of the building to perform visibility determination and reflected visibility determination.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 10 also shows a wall surface position h11-1, which is the central position of one wall surface of a house h14, which is a candidate installation position for the terminal station, and a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1. It is shown. FIG. 10 also shows a house h15 and a house h16 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

As shown in FIG. 10, between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station b11, and the wall surface position h11-1 of the house h14, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station t11, there is a house with a gable roof. There are h15 and house h16.

As shown in FIG. 9 described above, if the shape of the house h15 is considered to be a rectangular parallelepiped based on the height of the highest point, the map visibility determining unit 16 determines the distance between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-1. Since the line of sight between is blocked by the house h15, it is determined that there is no line of sight. However, if information about the shape of the building is also available, the map outlook determination unit 16 can determine the outlook by taking into account the shape of the roof of the house h15, for example.

11 and 12 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 11 shows the positional relationship of objects on the horizontal plane in the area shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 11, according to the visibility judgment on the horizontal plane, the visibility between the utility pole p11 and the wall position h11-1 is blocked by the houses h16 and h15, so it is determined that there is no visibility. .

On the other hand, FIG. 12 shows the positional relationship of objects on the vertical section in the area shown in FIG. FIG. 12 shows the position rf15 of the roof of the house h15 on the vertical section and the position rf16 of the roof of the house h16 on the vertical section. Also, for reference, the position of the roof of the house h14 on the same vertical section is the highest position (same as the height of the house h14) in this example. As shown in FIG. 12, the straight line connecting the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-1 passes through a position lower than the height of the highest point of the house h15. Since it passes through a position higher than the position rf16 of the roof of the house h16 on the vertical cross section, the map visibility determination unit 16 can recognize that this combination candidate has visibility.

[Determination of line of sight using Fresnel zone shielding rate]
Note that the map outlook determination unit 16 does not simply determine the outlook based on the line of sight that connects the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal station, but determines the outlook considering the shielding rate of the Fresnel zone. may be performed.

　Actual electromagnetic waves propagate not only in a straight path connecting two opposing radio stations, but in an elliptical path area called the Fresnel zone. Therefore, in order to determine whether or not there is line-of-sight between two opposing radio stations with higher accuracy, it is necessary to determine whether or not there is line-of-sight after considering the effects of obstructions existing in the Fresnel zone. The Fresnel zone radius of the Fresnel zone in the millimeter wave band is, for example, about 25 [cm] at maximum when transmitting a distance of 50 [m] using electromagnetic waves in the 60 [GHz] band.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 13 also shows a wall surface position h11-1, which is the central position of one wall surface of a house h11, which is a candidate installation position for the terminal station, and a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1. It is shown. FIG. 13 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11. FIG. 13 also shows a Fresnel zone fz11 when radio waves are transmitted and received between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

As shown in FIG. 13, the line of sight between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station b11, and the wall surface position h11-1, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station t11, is blocked by the wall surface of the house h12. there is FIG. 13 also shows a cross section cs11 of the Fresnel zone fz11 at the position of the wall surface of the house h12 where the view is blocked.

As shown in the figure, the area where the view is blocked by the house h12 in the cross section cs13 is about half of the area below the cross section cs13 (that is, the blocking rate can be said to be about 50%). Therefore, although there is no straight line of sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall position h11-1, radio waves transmitted and received between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11 pass through the range above the cross section cs11 of the Fresnel zone fz11. It may be possible to communicate by passing through.

14 and 15 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 shows the positional relationship of objects on the horizontal plane in the area shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 14, according to the line-of-sight determination on the horizontal plane, the line-of-sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-1 is blocked by the house h12, so it is determined that there is no line-of-sight. Moreover, even if the Fresnel zone fz11 is considered, the Fresnel zone fz11 is blocked by the house h12 on the horizontal plane.

On the other hand, FIG. 15 shows the positional relationship of objects on the vertical section in the area shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 15, according to the line-of-sight judgment on the vertical section, the line-of-sight between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position h11-1 is blocked by the house h12, so it is judged that there is no line-of-sight. However, when the Fresnel zone fz11 is considered, it can be seen that at least the upper part of the Fresnel zone fz11 is not obstructed by the house h12 on the vertical section. Therefore, the map visibility determining unit 16 may determine that there is visibility, for example, when the shielding rate in the cross section cs11 of the Fresnel zone f11 is equal to or greater than a predetermined value.

In this way, even if there is no straight line of sight connecting the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station, the map outlook determination unit 16 further considers the shielding rate of the Fresnel zone to determine the line of sight. By determining whether or not there is a line of sight, it is possible to perform more accurate line-of-sight determination. As a result, the station placement design support device 1 can present more combination candidates.

[Reflected line of sight determination that allows multiple reflections]
In the present embodiment, the case where the map outlook determination unit 16 performs the reflection outlook determination including one reflection has been described, but the reflection outlook determination including two or more reflections may be performed. .

16 to 23 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

16 to 23 show a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. 16 to 23 also show a wall surface position h11-1, which is the central position of one wall surface of the house h11, which is a candidate installation position of the terminal station, and a wall surface position h11, which is the end position of one wall surface of the house h11. -2, and the terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1 and the wall surface position h11-2, respectively. 16 to 21 also show a house h12, a house h13, a house h17, and a house h18, which can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11. ing.

16 to 21 are diagrams showing the positional relationships of the above objects on the horizontal plane, and these positional relationships are common in FIGS. 16 to 21. FIG. 16 to 21, a utility pole p11 as a candidate installation position for the base station b11, a house h11 having wall surface positions h11-1 and h11-2 as candidate installation positions for the terminal station t11, and a house h12 , and the house h13 is the same as the positional relationship between the utility pole p11 and each house shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 16, on the horizontal plane, there is a house h12 between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station, and the wall surface of the house h11, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station. No prospects. Therefore, the map outlook determination unit 16 performs reflection outlook determination that allows multiple reflections.

First, the map outlook determination unit 16 extracts candidates for wall surfaces that serve as reflecting surfaces. FIG. 17 shows how six reflecting surface candidates (reflecting surface candidates α, β, γ, δ, ε, and ζ) are extracted. FIG. 17 shows areas that can serve as radio wave propagation paths from the base station b11 to each reflecting surface candidate.

Next, the map outlook determining unit 16 identifies the position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by each of the extracted reflecting surface candidates. As shown in FIG. 18, the position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate α is the position of the mirror image A. In FIG. The position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate β is the position of the mirror image B. FIG. The position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate γ is the position of the mirror image C. The position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate δ is the position of the mirror image D. The position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate ε is the position of the mirror image E (the positional relationship between the reflecting surface candidate ε and the mirror image E shown in FIGS. 18 to 20 is shown in FIG. is the same as the positional relationship between the reflecting surface m11 and the mirror image p11m). The position of the mirror image of the base station b11 by the reflecting surface candidate ζ is the position of the mirror image F.

Next, the map outlook determination unit 16 determines a position that is a mirror image of another reflecting surface candidate, which is the wall surface of the building to which the reflected wave reflected by the reflecting surface candidate reaches (that is, the mirror image of the specified mirror image). location). Specifically, as shown in FIG. 19, for example, the wall surface of the house h18 where the reflected wave reflected by the reflecting surface candidate β reaches is the reflecting surface candidate η. The position of the mirror image B of the reflecting surface candidate η is the position of the mirror image G.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 19, it can be seen that the reflected wave reflected by the reflecting surface candidate ε reaches the wall surface position h11-2, which is the installation candidate position of the terminal station t11. Therefore, the map visibility determining unit 16 can recognize that there is a combination candidate that has a reflection visibility with one reflection due to the reflection of the radio wave on the reflecting surface candidate ε.

Next, the map outlook determination unit 16 identifies the area through which the reflected wave that is re-reflected by the reflecting surface candidate η propagates. As shown in FIG. 20, the map outlook determination unit 16 identifies the reflection point C based on the route connecting the mirror image G and the wall surface position h11-1, which is the installation candidate position for the terminal station t11. The map outlook determination unit 16 identifies the mirror image reflection point c based on the reflection point C and the reflection surface candidate β. The map visibility determining unit 16 identifies the reflection point B based on the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position of the base station, the reflection surface candidate β, and the mirror image reflection point c. By specifying the reflection point B and the reflection point C, the map visibility determination unit 16 recognizes that there is a combination candidate with reflection visibility due to the two reflections of the radio waves at the reflection point B and the reflection point C. be able to.

As shown in FIG. 21, the propagation path of the radio wave reflected at the reflection point A has a reflection line of sight with respect to the wall surface position h11-2 of the house h11, but with respect to the wall surface position h11-1 of the house h11 20 and 21 is the same as the position of the reflection point r11 shown in FIG. 6). On the other hand, the propagation paths of the radio waves reflected at the reflection points B and C have a reflection line of sight to the wall surface position h11-1 of the house h11, but are reflected to the wall surface position h11-2 of the house h11. is an obstruction, so there is no reflected line of sight.

Next, the map visibility determination unit 16 determines reflection visibility on a vertical section. The upper diagram of FIG. 22 shows propagation paths of radio waves reflected at reflection points B and C on the horizontal plane. Also, the lower diagram in FIG. 22 shows how the propagation paths of the radio waves on the horizontal plane are projected on the vertical cross section.

FIG. 23 shows in more detail the propagation paths of radio waves on the vertical cross section shown in the lower diagram of FIG. The map outlook determining unit 16 identifies that the position of the mirror image of the utility pole p11, which is the base station installation candidate position, is the position of the mirror image B (mirror image base station). The map outlook determining unit 16 identifies that the position of the mirror image of the reflection point B on the reflection surface candidate β by the reflection surface candidate η is the position of the mirror image reflection point b. The map outlook determination unit 16 identifies that the position of the mirror image of the reflection point C on the reflection surface candidate η by the reflection surface candidate β is the position of the mirror image reflection point c. The map outlook determining unit 16 identifies that the position of the mirror image of the wall surface position h11-1 of the house h11, which is the installation candidate position of the terminal station, is the position of the mirror image terminal station.

As shown in FIG. 23, on the vertical cross section, the utility pole p11, which is the installation candidate position of the base station b11, the reflection point B, and the mirror image reflection point c are located immediately above the same. Further, on the vertical section, the position of the mirror image base station (mirror image B), the position of the reflection point B, the position of the reflection point C, and the position of the mirror image terminal station are located on the same straight line. On the vertical cross section, the mirror image reflection point b, the reflection point C, and the wall surface position h11-1, which is the installation candidate position for the terminal station t11, are located on the same straight line.

Since the reflection point B needs to be located on the wall surface of the house h17, the map outlook determination unit 16 compares the height of the wall surface of the house h17 with the height of the reflection point B, and determines that the height of the wall surface of the house h17 is If the height is lower than the height of the reflection point B, it can be recognized that there is no reflection line of sight. In addition, since the reflection point C must be located on the wall surface of the house h18, the map outlook determination unit 16 compares the height of the wall surface of the house h18 with the height of the reflection point C, and determines the height of the wall surface of the house h18. is lower than the height of the reflection point C, it can be recognized that there is no reflection line of sight.

Note that the station placement design support device 1 simulates radio wave propagation using, for example, the ray tracing method (see Non-Patent Literatures 1 to 6) for each of the combination candidates narrowed down by the reflection outlook determination, The combination candidates may be further narrowed down so that only combination candidates having a propagation quality value equal to or greater than a predetermined value are included.

<Third Embodiment>
In the above-described embodiment, when determining the line of sight between the candidate installation positions of the base stations and the candidate installation positions of the terminal stations, the station placement design support device 1 determines the line of sight on the horizontal plane, and then determines the line of sight on the vertical section. It was configured to determine the visibility of On the other hand, in the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment described below, the visibility determination in the height direction can be made simpler.

24 to 26 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 24 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 24 also shows a wall surface position h11-1, which is the central position of one wall surface of a house h11, which is a candidate installation position for the terminal station, and a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-1. It is shown. FIG. 24 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

As shown in FIG. 24, a house h12 exists between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position 11-1. Therefore, when determining the visibility on the horizontal plane, the map outlook determination unit 16 determines that there is no visibility on the horizontal plane for this combination candidate.

However, as shown in FIG. 25, when viewed in a vertical section, the height of the house h12 is lower than the height of the straight line connecting the candidate installation position of the base station b11 and the candidate installation position of the terminal station t11. There may be line of sight on the vertical section.

In this embodiment, the map outlook determination unit 16 sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height, and determines the outlook on the reference plane. For example, the map outlook determining unit 16 sets a horizontal plane at a height at which the base station b11 is installed on the utility pole p11 as the reference plane. FIG. 25 shows the reference plane rp11 set at the height at which the base station b11 is installed.

As shown in FIG. 26, when the visibility is determined on the reference plane, the house h12 whose height is less than the reference plane is not recognized by the map visibility determination unit 16 as an obstacle. As a result, the map visibility determination unit 16 can recognize that there is visibility between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position for the base station, and the wall surface position h11-1, which is the candidate installation position for the terminal station.

As described above, the station placement design support device 1 of the third embodiment determines the line of sight on the reference plane, which is a horizontal plane, while considering the height information by setting the reference plane. It is possible to omit the line of sight judgment above.

[Operation of station placement design support device]
An example of the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment will be described below. In the operation of the station placement design support device 1 in the third embodiment, the operations other than step S6 in the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 are the same as the operations of the station placement design support device 1 in the first embodiment. is. Therefore, only the operation of narrowing down the combination candidate group by the visibility determination based on the map information shown in step S6 of the flowchart of FIG. 3 will be described below.

FIG. 27 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

The map outlook determination unit 16 sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height (step S621). For example, the map outlook determining unit 16 sets a horizontal plane at a height at which the base station b11 is installed on the utility pole p11 as the reference plane.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map visibility determination unit 16 selects one combination candidate for which visibility has not yet been determined from among the obtained combination candidates (step S622).

The map visibility determining unit 16 determines visibility on the reference plane between the installation candidate positions of the base stations and the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations indicated by the selected combination candidates (step S623). When it is determined that there is no visibility on the reference plane as a result of the visibility determination (step S623, NO), the map outlook determination unit 16 deletes the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group ( step S624).

The map outlook determination unit 16 repeats the operations from step S622 to step S624 until the outlook is determined for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S625). When the prospect determination has been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group, the flow proceeds to step S7 in the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height, and determines the line of sight on the reference plane. As a result, the station placement design support device 1 can perform a simple line-of-sight determination in the height direction only by determining the line-of-sight on the reference plane, which is a horizontal plane. The determination process can be omitted.

With such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 according to the third embodiment of the present invention can appropriately present combination candidates while reducing the amount of calculation, particularly in judging visibility in the height direction. can.

<Fourth Embodiment>
In the above-described embodiment, the station placement design support device 1 determines the reflection outlook between the candidate installation positions of the base station and the candidate installation positions of the terminal station. It was configured to perform reflection visibility judgment above. On the other hand, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment described below can have a simpler configuration for determination of reflected visibility in the height direction.

FIGS. 28 to 30 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 28 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 28 also shows a wall surface position h11-2 which is the end position of one wall surface of the house h11 which is a candidate installation position of the terminal station, a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-2, It is shown. FIG. 28 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

As shown in FIG. 28, a house h12 exists between the utility pole p11 and the wall surface position 11-2. However, when the map outlook determining unit 16 performs reflection outlook determination on a horizontal plane, it is possible to identify the radio wave propagation path including the reflection by the reflecting surface candidate ε (the wall surface of the house h13). Regarding, it is determined that there is a reflection line of sight on the horizontal plane.

However, as shown in FIG. 29, since the height of the house h13 is lower than the height of the straight line connecting the candidate installation position of the base station b11 and the candidate installation position of the terminal station t11, the wall surface is positioned as a reflection point. may not exist and there may be no reflected line-of-sight on the vertical cross-section.

In this embodiment, the map outlook determination unit 16 sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height, and determines reflected outlook on the reference plane. For example, the map outlook determining unit 16 sets a horizontal plane at a height at which the base station b11 is installed on the utility pole p11 as the reference plane. FIG. 29 shows the reference plane rp11 set at the height at which the base station b11 is installed.

As shown in FIG. 30, when the reflection outlook determination is performed on the reference plane, the house h13 whose height is less than the reference plane is a building having a wall surface to be a reflection surface by the map visibility determination unit 16. not recognized to exist. As a result, the map outlook determination unit 16 determines that there is no usable reflecting surface between the utility pole p11, which is the candidate installation position of the base station, and the wall surface position h11-1, which is the candidate installation position of the terminal station. It can be recognized that there is no prospect.

As described above, the station placement design support apparatus 1 of the fourth embodiment performs the reflected line of sight determination on the reference plane, which is a horizontal plane, while considering the height information by setting the reference plane. It is possible to omit the determination of the reflection line of sight on the cross section.

[Operation of station placement design support device]
An example of the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment will be described below. In the operation of the station placement design support device 1 in the fourth embodiment, the operations other than step S6 in the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 are the same as the operations of the station placement design support device 1 in the first embodiment. is. Therefore, only the operation of narrowing down the combination candidate group by the visibility determination based on the map information shown in step S6 of the flowchart of FIG. 4 will be described below.

FIG. 31 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

The map outlook determination unit 16 sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height (step S631). For example, the map outlook determining unit 16 sets a horizontal plane at a height at which the base station b11 is installed on the utility pole p11 as the reference plane.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map outlook determination unit 16 selects one combination candidate for which outlook determination has not yet been made from the acquired combination candidate group (step S632).

The map line-of-sight determination unit 16 extracts, on the reference plane, reflection surfaces with line-of-sight from the installation candidate positions of the base stations based on the selected combination candidates (step S633). In addition, the map visibility determination unit 16 extracts reflection surfaces with visibility from the installation candidate positions of the terminal stations based on the selected combination candidates on the reference surface (step S634).

The map line-of-sight determination unit 16 compares the reflective surface with line of sight from the candidate installation position of the base station extracted in step S633 with the reflective surface with line of sight from the candidate installation position of the terminal station extracted in step S634, Determine if there is a reflective surface with line of sight from both stations (step 635).

When it is determined that there is no reflecting surface with visibility from both stations as a result of collation (step S635, NO), the map outlook determination unit 16 deletes the selected combination candidate from the acquired combination candidate group. (step S636).

The map outlook determination unit 16 repeats the above operations from step S632 to step S636 until the reflected outlook determination is performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S637). If outlook determination has been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S637, YES), the flow proceeds to step S7 of the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height, and determines the reflection outlook on the reference plane. As a result, the station placement design support apparatus 1 can simultaneously perform a simple reflected line of sight determination in the height direction only by determining the reflected line of sight on the reference plane, which is a horizontal plane. It is possible to omit the process of determining the reflected line of sight.

It should be noted that the series of processes for determining reflected visibility shown in the flowchart of FIG. 31 may be incorporated into the flowchart shown in FIG. 8 described above. In this case, it is possible to perform the processing related to the determination of the direct line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station together with the series of processing of the reflected line of sight determination shown in FIG. become.

By having such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention can appropriately present combination candidates while reducing the amount of calculation, particularly in determining the reflection outlook in the height direction. can be done.

<Fifth Embodiment>
In the above-described fourth embodiment, the station placement design support device 1 sets a horizontal plane having a predetermined height, such as the height at which a base station is installed, as a reference plane, and determines the reflection outlook on the reference plane. It was a configuration to do. Here, the lower the height of the reference plane, the greater the number of buildings having wall surfaces that serve as reflecting surfaces. Therefore, it is expected that the number of combination candidates after being narrowed down by the reflected view determination will increase. A station placement design support apparatus 1 according to a fifth embodiment described below adjusts the height of the reference plane so that the number of combination candidates after being narrowed down becomes a desired number.

32 to 35 are diagrams for explaining an example of line-of-sight determination by the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 32 shows a utility pole p11, which is a candidate installation position for a base station, and a base station b11 when installed on the utility pole p11. FIG. 32 also shows a wall surface position h11-2 which is the end position of one wall surface of the house h11 which is a candidate installation position of the terminal station, a terminal station t11 when installed at the wall surface position h11-2, It is shown. FIG. 32 also shows a house h12 and a house h13 that can serve as shields that block the propagation of radio waves between the base station b11 and the terminal station t11.

In addition, FIG. 32 shows reference planes with three different heights. The reference plane rp11 is a horizontal plane at the height of the installation candidate position of the base station b11. The reference plane rp12 is a horizontal plane having a height lower than that of the reference plane rp11. The reference plane rp13 is a horizontal plane with a height lower than that of the reference plane rp12.

As shown in FIG. 32, the height of the house h11 is higher than the reference plane rp11. Also, the height of the house h12 is higher than the reference plane rp12 and lower than the reference plane rp11. Also, the height of the house h13 is higher than the reference plane rp13 and lower than the reference plane rp12. Note that the wall surface position h11-2, which is the installation candidate position of the terminal station t11, is lower than the reference plane rp13.

FIG. 33 shows how reflected visibility is determined when the reference plane rp11 is set. As shown in the figure, on the reference plane rp11, the houses h12 and h13, which are lower than the reference plane rp11, are not recognized as buildings having wall surfaces to be reflected. Therefore, when the reference plane rp11 is set, the wall surface of the building that serves as a reflecting surface does not exist, so the map visibility determination unit 16 determines that this combination candidate has no reflected visibility.

FIG. 34 shows how reflected visibility is determined when the reference plane rp12 is set. As shown in the figure, on the reference plane rp12, the house h13 whose height is lower than the reference plane rp12 is not recognized as a building having wall surfaces to be reflected. On the other hand, as shown in the figure, on the reference plane rp12, the house h12, which is taller than the reference plane rp12, is recognized as a building that can have a wall surface to be a reflection surface. However, due to the positional relationship between the utility pole p11, the wall surface position h11-2, and the house h12, there is no wall surface as a reflection surface candidate for the house h12. Determine that there is none.

FIG. 35 shows how reflected visibility is determined when the reference plane rp13 is set. As shown in the figure, on the reference plane rp13, houses h12 and h13, which are taller than the reference plane rp13, are recognized as buildings that can have wall surfaces that are objects of reflective surfaces. However, due to the positional relationship between the utility pole p11, the wall surface position h11-2, and the house h12, there is no wall surface that can serve as a reflection surface candidate for the house h12. On the other hand, from the positional relationship between the utility pole p11, the wall surface position h11-2, and the house h13, there is a wall surface serving as a reflection surface candidate in the house h13. Accordingly, the map visibility determining unit 16 determines that this combination candidate has a reflected visibility.

In this way, the lower the height of the reference plane, the greater the number of combination candidates determined to have a reflection line of sight in the combination candidate group. The station placement design support device 1 of the present embodiment adjusts the height of the reference plane so that the number of combination candidates after the reflection outlook determination is the desired number.

[Operation of station placement design support device]
An example of the operation of the station placement design support apparatus 1 according to the fifth embodiment will be described below. In the operation of the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment, the operations other than step S6 in the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 are the same as the operations of the station placement design support device 1 according to the first embodiment. is. Therefore, only the operation of narrowing down the combination candidate group by the visibility determination based on the map information shown in step S6 of the flowchart of FIG. 5 will be described below.

FIG. 36 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the outlook determination process by the map outlook determination unit 16 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

The map outlook determination unit 16 sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height (step S641). The map outlook determining unit 16 sets the reference plane with the highest height among the reference planes with a plurality of heights. For example, the map outlook determining unit 16 sets a horizontal plane at a height at which the base station b11 is installed on the utility pole p11 as the reference plane.

The map outlook determination unit 16 acquires information indicating a combination candidate group stored in the storage unit 30, facility information, and map information. The map outlook determination unit 16 selects one combination candidate for which outlook determination has not yet been made from among the acquired combination candidate group (step S642).

The map line-of-sight determination unit 16 extracts a reflecting surface with a line of sight from the installation candidate position of the base station based on the selected combination candidate on the reference plane (step S643). In addition, the map visibility determining unit 16 extracts a reflecting surface with visibility from the installation candidate position of the terminal station based on the selected combination candidate on the reference surface (step S644).

The map line-of-sight determination unit 16 compares the reflective surface with line of sight from the candidate installation position of the base station extracted in step S643 with the reflective surface with line of sight from the candidate installation position of the terminal station extracted in step S644, It is determined whether there is a reflective surface with line of sight from both stations (step 645).

When it is determined that there is no reflecting surface with visibility from both stations as a result of collation (step S645, NO), the map outlook determination unit 16 deletes the selected combination candidate from the obtained combination candidate group. (step S646).

The map outlook determination unit 16 repeats the above operations from step S642 to step S646 until the reflected outlook determination is performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S647).

When the outlook determination has been performed for all combination candidates included in the acquired combination candidate group (step S647: YES), the map outlook determination unit 16 selects the combinations narrowed down by the reflection outlook determination included in the combination candidate group. Count the number of candidates. If the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group is less than the predetermined number (step S648, NO), the map outlook determination unit 16 deletes the combination candidate group whose combination candidates have been narrowed down by the reflected outlook determination ( step S649).

The map outlook determination unit 16 rereads the combination candidate group before reflection outlook determination is performed, which is stored in the storage unit 30 (step S650). That is, the map outlook determination unit 16 resets the combination candidate group. The map outlook determination unit 16 resets the height of the reference plane to a height that is one step lower (step S651). At this time, the map visibility determination unit 16 regards all combination candidates stored in the storage unit 30 as having yet to determine visibility. As a result, in step S642, all combination candidates again become selection candidates.

The map outlook determination unit 16 repeats the operations from step S642 to step S651 until the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group narrowed down by the reflection probability determination reaches or exceeds a predetermined number (step S648). If the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group is equal to or greater than the predetermined number (step S648, YES), the process proceeds to step S7 of the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane with a predetermined height, and determines the reflection outlook on the reference plane. Then, when the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group narrowed down by reflection view determination is less than a predetermined number, the station placement design support device 1 slightly lowers the height of the reference plane, Determines reflected line of sight on the reference surface. The station placement design support device 1 reduces the height of the reference plane little by little until the number of combination candidates included in the combination candidate group narrowed down by reflection outlook determination reaches or exceeds a predetermined number. Repeat the line of sight judgment.

As a result, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention can obtain a combination candidate group consisting of a desired number of combination candidates. In addition, since the station placement design support device 1 can perform a simple reflected line of sight determination in the height direction at the same time simply by determining the reflected line of sight on the reference plane, which is a horizontal plane, the above-mentioned reflected line of sight on the vertical section It is possible to omit the process of line-of-sight determination.

It should be noted that the series of processes for determining reflected visibility shown in the flowchart of FIG. 36 may be incorporated into the flowchart shown in FIG. 8 described above. In this case, it is possible to perform the processing related to the determination of the direct line of sight between the candidate installation position of the base station and the candidate installation position of the terminal station together with the series of processing of the reflected line of sight determination shown in FIG. become.

With such a configuration, the station placement design support device 1 according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention can appropriately present combination candidates while reducing the amount of calculation, particularly in determining the reflection outlook in the height direction. can be done.

In each of the above embodiments, millimeter wave radio was used as an example of wireless communication between the base station and the terminal station. Ultra High Frequency) may also be used.

According to the above-described embodiment, the station placement design support device includes the generation section, the first determination section, the second determination section, and the output section. For example, the station placement design support device is the station placement design support device 1 in the embodiment, the generation unit is the combination candidate group generation unit 15 in the embodiment, and the first determination unit is the map outlook determination unit in the embodiment. 16, the second determination unit is the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 in the embodiment, and the output unit is the combination candidate group output unit 40 in the embodiment.

The generating unit is a first combination candidate group that is a set of combinations of installation candidate positions of the first wireless station and installation candidate positions of the second wireless station that communicates with the first wireless station in the evaluation target area. to generate For example, the first radio station is the base station b11 in the embodiment, the second radio station is the terminal station t11 in the embodiment, and the first combination candidate group is stored in the storage section by the combination candidate group generation section 15 in the embodiment. 30 is a combination candidate group stored in .

The above-described first determination unit provides, for each combination included in the first combination candidate group, a first determination section including information indicating the planar position and height of an object that is present in the evaluation target area and that can shield or reflect radio waves. Based on the environment information, it is determined whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the first radio station and the candidate installation position of the second radio station. For example, objects that can shield or reflect radio waves are shielding objects such as houses h11 to h18 in the embodiment, and the first environment information is map information and facility information in the embodiment.

The above-mentioned second determination unit selects installation candidates for the first wireless station based on the second environment information having a larger amount of information than the first environment information for each combination determined by the first determination unit to have visibility. It is determined whether or not there is a line of sight between the position and the candidate position for installing the second radio station. For example, the second environment information is point cloud data in the embodiment.

The above output unit outputs the second combination candidate group, which is a set of combinations determined to have prospects by the second determination unit. For example, the second combination candidate group is a combination candidate group after the combination candidates are narrowed down by the outlook determination by the map outlook determination unit 16 and the outlook determination by the point cloud outlook determination unit 23 in the embodiment.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned first determination unit may determine whether or not there is line of sight, assuming that the above-mentioned object is a columnar object having a height based on the above-mentioned information.

It should be noted that the first environmental information may include information regarding the shape of the roof of the object. In this case, the above first determination unit may determine whether or not there is visibility in consideration of the shape of the roof.

It should be noted that the above first determination unit may determine whether or not there is a line of sight including the reflection of the radio wave by the object that can reflect the radio wave.

It should be noted that the first determination unit described above may determine the presence or absence of line of sight based on the shielding rate of the Fresnel zone generated between the first wireless station and the second wireless station. For example, the Fresnel zone is Fresnel zone fz11 in the embodiment.

In addition, the above-described first determination unit sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane of a predetermined height, to the evaluation target area, and determines whether or not there is visibility based on the height of the reference plane and the height of the object. You may do so.

It should be noted that the above first determination unit may set the height of the reference plane so that the number of combinations included in the second combination candidate group is equal to or greater than a predetermined number.

The station placement design support device 1 in each of the above-described embodiments may be realized by a computer. In that case, a program for realizing this function may be recorded in a computer-readable recording medium, and the program recorded in this recording medium may be read into a computer system and executed. It should be noted that the "computer system" referred to here includes hardware such as an OS and peripheral devices. The term "computer-readable recording medium" refers to portable media such as flexible discs, magneto-optical discs, ROMs and CD-ROMs, and storage devices such as hard discs incorporated in computer systems. Furthermore, "computer-readable recording medium" means a medium that dynamically retains a program for a short period of time, like a communication line when transmitting a program via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line. It may also include something that holds the program for a certain period of time, such as a volatile memory inside a computer system that serves as a server or client in that case. Further, the program may be for realizing a part of the functions described above, or may be capable of realizing the functions described above in combination with a program already recorded in the computer system. It may be implemented using a programmable logic device such as an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array).

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the drawings, the specific configuration is not limited to this embodiment, and includes design within the scope of the gist of the present invention.

Reference Signs List 1 Station placement design support device 11 Facility information acquisition unit h11-1, h11-2 Wall position 12 Base station candidate position extraction unit 13 Map information acquisition unit 14 Terminal station candidate position extraction unit , 15... combination candidate group generation unit 16... map outlook determination unit 21... point cloud data acquisition unit 22... data matching unit 23... point cloud outlook determination unit 30... storage unit 40... combination candidate group output unit .

Claims

A generation unit that generates a first combination candidate group that is a set of combinations of candidate installation positions of a first radio station and candidate installation positions of a second radio station that communicates with the first radio station in an evaluation target area. When,
Based on first environmental information including information indicating the planar position and height of an object that can block or reflect radio waves existing in the evaluation target area for each of the combinations included in the first combination candidate group a first determination unit that determines whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the first radio station and the candidate installation position of the second radio station;
For each combination determined to have the line of sight by the first determination unit, the installation candidate position of the first wireless station and the first a second determination unit that determines whether or not there is a line of sight between the installation candidate positions of the two wireless stations;
an output unit that outputs a second combination candidate group that is a set of combinations determined to have the prospect by the second determination unit;
A station placement design support device comprising:
2. The station placement design support device according to claim 1, wherein the first determination unit determines whether or not the line of sight is present by assuming that the object is a columnar object having the height.
the first environmental information includes information about the shape of the roof of the object;
2. The station placement design support device according to claim 1, wherein said first determination unit determines whether or not said line of sight is present in consideration of the shape of said roof.
The station placement design support device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the first determination unit determines whether or not the line of sight includes reflection of the radio wave by an object capable of reflecting the radio wave.
4. The first determining unit determines whether or not there is a line of sight based on a shielding rate of a Fresnel zone generated between the first wireless station and the second wireless station. The station placement design support device according to the item.
The first determination unit sets a reference plane, which is a horizontal plane of a predetermined height, to the evaluation target area, and determines whether or not the line of sight is present based on the height of the reference plane and the height of the object. Item 6. The station placement design support device according to any one of Items 1 to 5.
7. The station placement design support device according to claim 6, wherein the first determination unit sets the height of the reference plane so that the number of combinations included in the second combination candidate group is equal to or greater than a predetermined number.
A generation step of generating a first combination candidate group, which is a set of combinations of candidate installation positions of a first radio station and candidate installation positions of a second radio station that communicates with the first radio station, in an evaluation target area. When,
Based on first environmental information including information indicating the planar position and height of an object that can block or reflect radio waves existing in the evaluation target area for each of the combinations included in the first combination candidate group a first determination step of determining whether or not there is a line of sight between the candidate installation position of the first radio station and the candidate installation position of the second radio station;
For each combination determined to have the line of sight in the first determining step, based on the second environment information having a larger amount of information than the first environment information, the installation candidate position of the first wireless station and the first wireless station a second determination step of determining whether or not there is a line-of-sight between the candidate installation positions of the two wireless stations;
an output step of outputting a second combination candidate group, which is a set of combinations determined to have prospects in the second determination step;
station placement design support method.