wireless communication system

Abstract

An objective of the present disclosure is to enable detection of an abnormality of an application in a standby state.　According to the present disclosure, there is provided a controller device comprising: a database unit which manages data amounts scheduled to be transmitted by a terminal device and a base station device; and a scheduling unit which determines a transmission start time at which the terminal device and the base station device transmit the data on the basis of the database unit. The database unit manages the data amount scheduled to be transmitted by the terminal device for each application executed by the terminal device. When a predetermined monitoring time has elapsed since the last update of the data amount scheduled to be transmitted by the terminal device and stored in the database unit, it is determined that the application for which said monitoring time has elapsed possibly has an abnormality.

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present disclosure relates to a wireless communication system that performs control on a traffic flow basis in an end-to-end section of a wireless communication network. [Background technology]

[0002] In recent years, there has been a growing trend to accommodate multiple services and applications with various network requirements on the same network infrastructure. To achieve this, it is necessary to guarantee the quality required by each service or application accommodated on the same network in the end-to-end section, from "terminal to terminal" or "terminal to application server."

[0003] The end-to-end network can be divided into wireless and wired sections. In the wireless section, there is an existing technology called Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) of IEEE802.11, which provides a priority control function (Non-Patent Documents 1 and 2).

[0004] EDCA controls on a terminal (destination) basis, making it difficult to control on a traffic flow basis, which would enable quality control on a service and application basis. However, by applying the technology in Non-Patent Document 3, quality control on a service and application basis can be achieved. [Prior art documents] [Non-patent literature]

[0005] [Non-Patent Document 1] IEEE 802.11e-2005 - IEEE Standard for Information technology--Local and metropolitan area networks--Specific requirements--Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications - Amendment 8: Medium Access Control (MAC) Quality of Service Enhancements [Non-patent document 2] "IEEE802.11e: A Wireless LAN Standard for QoS," Journal of the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers, Vol. 57, No. 11 (2003) [Non-patent document 3] Proposal of quality control technology using centralized control independent of wireless networks, Yuki Sakagami, Kazuki Aiura, Tatsuya Fukui, Ryohei Tsugami, Tomohiro Taniguchi, Katsuya Minami, IEICE General Conference, B-6-5(2021) Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0006] When multiple applications are running on a device, some applications may be in a standby state and not in operation. If an abnormality occurs in an application in a standby state, the operator may not notice it until it is time to use it.

[0007] The present disclosure aims to make it possible to detect an abnormality in an application in a standby state. [Means for solving the problem]

[0008] In the present disclosure, the controller detects an abnormality in an application in standby mode by utilizing the fact that the controller knows the amount of packets accumulated in the application-specific buffer of each terminal and access point according to Non-Patent Document 3.

[0009] The wireless communication system disclosed herein is a wireless communication system in which a terminal device is connected to a base station device via a wireless network, and includes a controller device that determines a transmission start time for the terminal device and the base station device to transmit data.

[0010] The controller device of the present disclosure comprises: a database unit that manages the amount of data to be transmitted by a terminal device and a base station device in a wireless communication system in which the terminal device and the base station device are connected via a wireless network; a scheduling unit that determines a transmission start time at which the terminal device and the base station device transmit data based on the database unit; and performing the method of the present disclosure.

[0011] The method of the present disclosure is a method executed by a controller device of the present disclosure, the database unit manages the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal device for each application executed by the terminal device; When a predetermined monitoring time has elapsed since the last update of the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal device in the database unit, it is determined that there is a possibility of an abnormality in the application for which the monitoring time has elapsed.

[0012] The program of the present disclosure is a program for causing a computer to realize each function provided in the controller device of the present disclosure, and is a program for causing a computer to execute each procedure provided in the method executed by the controller device of the present disclosure. [Effects of the Invention]

[0013] According to the present disclosure, it is possible to detect an abnormality in an application in a standby state. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0014] [Figure 1] 1 shows a schematic configuration of a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure. [Figure 2]1 illustrates an example embodiment of a wireless communication system of the present disclosure. [Figure 3] 1 shows an example of a database unit. [Figure 4] An example of a sequence according to this embodiment will be described below. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0015] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Note that the present disclosure is not limited to the embodiments shown below. These implementation examples are merely illustrative, and the present disclosure can be implemented in various forms with various modifications and improvements based on the knowledge of those skilled in the art. Note that components with the same reference numerals in this specification and drawings indicate the same components.

[0016] (System Configuration) 1 shows a schematic configuration of a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure. The wireless communication system according to the present disclosure is a wireless communication system in which one or more terminals 91 are connected to an access point 92 via a wireless network 95, and includes a controller 93. The controller 93 grasps the amount of data stored in the buffer of each terminal 91 on an application-by-application basis, and performs scheduling based on this. In this way, the wireless communication system according to the present disclosure realizes quality control on a service-by-service and application-by-application basis.

[0017] The terminal 91, access point 92, and controller 93 of the present disclosure function as the terminal device, base station device, and controller device of the present disclosure, respectively. These devices can also be realized by a computer and a program, and the program can be recorded on a recording medium or provided via a network.

[0018] When multiple applications are running in terminal 91, some applications are not running and are in a standby state. Applications in a standby state are often in standby state in order to operate quickly when in use, and in the case of applications that use a network, they send small amounts of packets at regular intervals to maintain a connection with the destination. The present disclosure detects abnormalities in standby applications using packets sent at regular intervals by standby applications.

[0019] (First embodiment) FIG. 2 illustrates an example embodiment of a wireless communication system according to the present disclosure. The terminal 91 includes a control signal transmitting / receiving unit 11 , a notification unit 12 , a scheduler unit 13 , an application 14 , a per-flow buffer unit 15 , a main signal buffer unit 16 , and a main signal transmitting / receiving unit 17 . The access point 92 includes a control signal transmitting / receiving unit 21 , a notification unit 22 , a scheduler unit 23 , a main signal transmitting / receiving unit 24 , a per-flow buffer unit 25 , a main signal buffer unit 26 , and a main signal transmitting / receiving unit 27 . The controller 93 includes a control signal transmitting / receiving unit 31, a database unit 32, a scheduling unit 33, and an abnormality detecting unit .

[0020] 2 shows an example in which N terminals 91#1 to 91#N are provided. The terminal 91#1 is provided with L per-flow buffer units 15#1 to 15#L, and the terminal 91#N is provided with M per-flow buffer units 15#1 to 15#M (not shown).

[0021] The application 14 is a functional unit that executes any application provided in the terminal 91. At least one of these applications transmits packets carrying predetermined information at regular intervals when in a standby state. The main signal transmitting / receiving unit 17 transmits and receives data used by the application 14 . The per-flow buffer unit 15 accumulates data sent and received by applications for each application. The data accumulated in per-flow buffer unit 15 is temporarily collected in main signal buffer unit 16 and then transmitted from main signal transmitting / receiving unit 17. The data received by main signal transmitting / receiving unit 17 is temporarily stored in main signal buffer unit 16 and then distributed to a per-flow buffer unit 15 according to the application.

[0022] The control signal transmitting / receiving unit 11 of the terminal 91 transmits and receives control signals to and from the controller 93 and the access point 92. The control signal includes a scheduler transmitted by the controller 93. Here, the scheduler determines the transmission start time at which the terminal 91 and the access point 92 transmit packets. The scheduler may include other allocation information such as the transmission duration and frequency channel. The notification unit 12 of the terminal 91 transmits the amount of data stored in the per-flow buffer unit 15 via a control signal to the control signal transmitting / receiving unit 11 and the controller 93. This allows the amount of data to be transmitted to be notified for each application. In this embodiment, the amount of data may be expressed as the number of packets used when transmitting data. The scheduler unit 13 of the terminal 91 schedules the main signal in accordance with the scheduler received from the controller 93 .

[0023] The per-flow buffer unit 25 of the access point 92 accumulates data transmitted and received by the terminal 91 for each terminal 91 . Main signal transmitting / receiving unit 27 of access point 92 transmits and receives data to and from terminal 91. Data received by main signal transmitting / receiving unit 27 is temporarily stored in main signal buffer unit 26 and then distributed to per-flow buffer unit 25 corresponding to terminal 91. Data stored in per-flow buffer unit 25 is temporarily collected in main signal buffer unit 26 and then transmitted from main signal transmitting / receiving unit 27. The main signal transmitting / receiving unit 24 of the access point 92 transmits and receives data to and from the upper network device 94. The data received by the main signal transmitting / receiving unit 24 is distributed to a per-flow buffer unit 25 corresponding to the terminal 91.

[0024] The control signal transmitting / receiving unit 21 of the access point 92 transmits and receives control signals to and from the terminal 91 and the controller 93 . The notification unit 22 of the access point 92 transmits the amount of packets stored in the per-flow buffer unit 25 on a control signal and notifies the amount of packets stored in the per-flow buffer unit 25 to the controller 93 via the control signal transmission / reception unit 21. This notifies each terminal 91 of the amount of data to be transmitted. The scheduler unit 23 of the access point 92 schedules the main signal in accordance with the scheduler received from the controller 93 .

[0025] The control signal transmitting / receiving unit 31 transmits and receives control signals to and from the terminal 91 and the access point 92. For example, the control signal transmitting / receiving unit 31 receives the amount of data transmitted from the terminal 91 and the access point 92. The control signal transmitting / receiving unit 31 also transmits a scheduler generated by the scheduling unit 33 to the terminal 91 and the access point 92. The database unit 32 stores the amount of packets in the per-flow buffer unit 15. As a result, the amount of data that the terminal 91 plans to transmit is stored for each application.

[0026] The scheduling unit 33 performs scheduling based on the packet volume stored in the database unit 32. For example, the scheduling unit 33 assigns to the terminal 91#1 a transmission start time for transmitting packets with a packet volume of B11. This generates a scheduler that determines the transmission start times for the terminal 91 and the access point 92 to transmit packets.

[0027] In the present disclosure, a predetermined monitoring time T wait When the monitoring time T wait It is determined that there is a possibility of an abnormality in the application on the terminal 91 after the monitoring time T waitcan be set to any time equal to or greater than the fixed period during which an application in standby mode transmits packets, such as two or more periods. Although the entity that makes this determination is arbitrary, in this embodiment, an example is shown in which an abnormality detection flag is provided in the database unit 32 and the abnormality detection flag is automatically switched.

[0028] The anomaly detection unit 34 determines that there is a possibility of an anomaly in the application based on the anomaly detection flag stored in the database unit 32. In this way, the present embodiment can detect an anomaly in the application.

[0029] 3 shows an example of the database unit 32. The database unit 32 manages node numbers, buffer numbers, packet amounts, monitoring targets, monitoring times, and abnormality detection flags. The node number is any identification information that is given in advance to the terminal 91 and the access point 92, and may include not only a number but also a code or the like. The buffer number is identification information for the per-flow buffer units 15 and 25 . The amount of packets is equivalent to the amount of data stored in the per-flow buffer units 15 and 25 .

[0030] The monitoring target is a flag indicating whether or not it is a monitoring target, and is set for each buffer number in the per-flow buffer unit 15, that is, for each application. The abnormality detection flag is a flag that indicates whether or not there is an abnormality. In a normal state, it is set to "NO." However, if the monitoring time T wait It will change to "YES" when the time has passed. The monitoring time is the time elapsed since the packet amount was last updated, at which point the abnormality detection flag is switched from “NO” to “YES.” The monitoring time can be set for each node number and each buffer number, that is, for each terminal 91 and each application 14.

[0031] In the present disclosure, the buffer number and the monitoring time T corresponding to the application to be monitored are stored in advance in the database unit 32 of the controller 93.wait The packet amount of the application to be monitored is updated within the monitoring time T wait If not, the database unit 32 sets the abnormality detection flag of the target application to YES and notifies the abnormality detection unit 34. Upon receiving the notification, the abnormality detection unit 34 determines that an abnormality has occurred in the application corresponding to the buffer number in the terminal 91 corresponding to the node number.

[0032] FIG. 4 shows an example of a sequence according to this embodiment. The notifying unit 12 of the terminal 91#1 notifies the controller 93 of the amount of packets stored in the per-flow buffer units 15#1 to #L (S112). The controller 93 records the notified amount of packets stored in each of the per-flow buffer units 15#1 to #L of the terminal 91#1 in the database unit 32 (S312). The database unit 32 is updated in this manner at regular intervals.

[0033] When an abnormality occurs in the application #1 of the terminal 91#1 before the notification S112 (S111), the flow unit buffer unit 15#1 of the terminal 91#1 is not updated in the database unit 32. Therefore, as in the terminal 91#1 shown in FIG. 3, the packet amount of the flow unit buffer unit 15#1 is not updated for the monitoring time T wait11 At some point during this time (S314), the abnormality detection flag becomes "YES" (S315), which causes the abnormality detection unit 34 to detect that an abnormality has occurred in the application #1 of the terminal 91#1 (S316).

[0034] As described above, by employing the configuration of the present disclosure, it is possible to detect that an abnormality has occurred in application #1 of terminal 91#1. Note that the abnormality detection unit 34 may also be provided with a function to notify the outside of abnormality detection information as necessary.

[0035] (Second embodiment) The present disclosure is applicable to any wireless communication system equipped with a terminal 91 equipped with any application. For example, a wireless communication system equipped with a terminal 91 that performs two-way communication, such as a remote-controlled robot, can be exemplified. In this embodiment, the applications 14 equipped in the terminal 91 include an application for operating the robot, an application for processing video signals captured by the robot, and an application for processing audio signals recorded by the robot. The main signal includes an operation signal for operating the robot, a video signal captured by the robot, and an audio signal recorded by the robot.

[0036] When a robot is stopped, the main signal may not include any operation signals, and only video and audio signals may be sent and received. If a malfunction occurs in the operation application when an operation signal is sent to move the robot, the robot will not move. Even in such cases, by applying the proposed method to packets sent by the application for controlling the robot in standby mode, it is possible to detect in advance that a malfunction has occurred in the operation application.

[0037] Motor drive control for the robot's operations as described above can be performed using a processing unit such as a PC installed in the robot itself, but in order to reduce the robot's weight and power consumption, it is expected that it will be installed external to the robot and controlled via a network. When applications are used via such a network, the proposed method can detect application anomalies in advance. [Explanation of symbols]

[0038] 11: Control signal transmitter / receiver 12:Notification Department 13: Scheduler section 14: Application 15: Flow-based buffer unit 16: Main signal buffer section 17: Main signal transmitter / receiver 21: Control signal transmission / reception unit 22:Notification Department 23: Scheduler section 24: Main signal transmitter / receiver 25: Flow-based buffer unit 26: Main signal buffer section 27: Main signal transmitter / receiver 31: Control signal transmission / reception unit 32: Database department 33: Scheduling department 34: Anomaly detection unit 91: Terminal 92: Access point 93: Controller 94: Upper network device 95: Wireless Network

Claims

1. In a wireless communication system in which a terminal device and a base station device are connected via a wireless network, a standby application transmits data at a constant interval, the system comprising: a database unit that manages the amount of data that the terminal device and the base station device plan to transmit; a scheduling unit that determines a transmission start time at which the terminal device and the base station device transmit data based on the database unit; A controller device comprising: the database unit manages the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal device for each application executed by the terminal device; When there is no update of the amount of data scheduled to be transmitted by the terminal device in the database unit and a predetermined monitoring time longer than the certain cycle has elapsed since the last update, it is determined that there is a possibility of an abnormality in the application for which the monitoring time has elapsed. Controller device.

2. A terminal device to which a standby application transmits data at a fixed interval; a base station device connected to the terminal device via a wireless network; The controller device of claim 1; A wireless communication system comprising:

3. In a wireless communication system in which a terminal device and a base station device are connected via a wireless network, and a waiting application transmits data at a constant interval, the system comprises: a database unit that manages the amount of data that the terminal device and the base station device plan to transmit; a scheduling unit that determines a transmission start time at which the terminal device and the base station device transmit data based on the database unit; A method executed by a controller device comprising: the database unit manages the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal device for each application executed by the terminal device; When there is no update of the amount of data scheduled to be transmitted by the terminal device in the database unit and a predetermined monitoring time longer than the certain cycle has elapsed since the last update, it is determined that there is a possibility of an abnormality in the application for which the monitoring time has elapsed. method.

4. In a wireless communication system in which a terminal device and a base station device are connected via a wireless network, and a waiting application transmits data at a constant interval, the system comprises: a database unit that manages the amount of data that the terminal device and the base station device plan to transmit; a scheduling unit that determines a transmission start time at which the terminal device and the base station device transmit data based on the database unit; A program for realizing a computer as a controller device comprising: the database unit manages the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal device for each application executed by the terminal device; When there is no update of the amount of data scheduled to be transmitted by the terminal device in the database unit and a predetermined monitoring time longer than the certain cycle has elapsed since the last update, it is determined that there is a possibility of an abnormality in the application for which the monitoring time has elapsed. program.

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