JP5793090B2 - Portable relay device, packet transmission method, and packet transmission program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a portable relay device, a packet transmission method, and a packet transmission program for relaying communication packets between a subordinate mobile network and an external network.

  2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, portable mobile routers that are configured on the one hand to form a wireless LAN that is directly connected to a terminal and that can be connected to a wireless line that is connected to the Internet, such as LTE, WiMAX, and CDMA, are known. By purchasing a mobile router and making a contract with a telecommunications carrier, a user can easily connect a wireless LAN compatible device to the Internet at any location within the corresponding area.

  Various types of traffic are mixed in the mobile router, including traffic generated from a plurality of user terminals and data traffic by the mobile router itself such as information on the own device and subscriber information. For example, the mobile router needs to process from which user's terminal the data is received.

  On the other hand, devices that perform packet transmission priority control have been developed. For example, the router described in Non-Patent Document 1 is an expensive and high-spec stationary router, and has various functions such as priority control, bandwidth control, hierarchical QoS, dynamic traffic control, bandwidth detection, load notification, and the like.

  The scheduling device described in Patent Document 1 monitors packet priority, transmission path quality, and buffer, and determines the output priority of each packet flow based on any one of the queue length conditions. Yes. Radio resources are allocated to packet flows in which radio resources are stored.

  The wireless communication apparatus described in Patent Document 2 sets the transmission priority of a traffic control packet that is a high-real-time packet and a high-reliability packet to be higher than the transmission priority of a data packet, and prioritizes packet transmission. Control is performed.

Ether Access VPN router RTX3000, [online], [searched on November 17, 2011], Internet <URL: http://jp.yamaha.com/products/network/routers/rtx3000/?mode=model>

JP 2003-229896 A JP 2006-245887 A

  As described above, the communication environment has been improved by the spread of portable mobile routers, but since such mobile routers are configured to be low-cost, the capacity of the hardware to be installed is also reduced. There is a limit. In addition, since it is portable, it is premised on battery drive, and there is a limit to the power that can be used. On the other hand, about 5 to 10 terminals may be connected to the subordinates. In such a case, a load exceeding the processing capacity may be applied, or battery power may be consumed remarkably.

  As disclosed in the prior art documents, priority control of packet transmission performed by referring to the priority for each packet on the terminal side or base station side is known, but traffic offload in a mobile router or the like can be advanced Technology has not been developed.

  The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and a portable relay device and packet that improve communication quality provided to a user by effectively utilizing limited resources by priority control according to a data type. It is an object to provide a transmission method and a packet transmission program.

  (1) In order to achieve the above object, the portable relay device of the present invention is a portable relay device that relays communication packets between a subordinate mobile network and an external network, and transmits the packet. Distinguishing between packets requested to be relayed and other packets out of the packets, re-evaluating the priority of the packet to be transmitted, and preferentially transmitting the re-evaluated high-priority packet It is a feature.

  This makes it possible to distinguish between data transmitted from a plurality of users and control information transmitted from the relay device itself, and efficiently use limited resources such as the processing capability of the relay device and the operation time limited due to battery driving. be able to.

  (2) The portable relay device of the present invention is a portable relay device that relays communication packets between a mobile network and an external network, and is a self-packet transmitted from its own device. An evaluation value calculation unit that calculates the evaluation value of the re-evaluated priority, and transmission that preferentially transmits the data with the high evaluation value And a section. Thereby, priority is given to the control information transmitted from the relay apparatus itself, and the function of the relay apparatus itself can be sufficiently secured.

  (3) Further, in the portable relay device of the present invention, the evaluation value calculation unit is configured to at least the own packet so that the priority of the own packet is higher by a predetermined ratio than the priority of the relay packet. Alternatively, the evaluation value is calculated by multiplying one priority of the relay packet by a coefficient. As a result, the evaluation value can be calculated by performing re-evaluation based on the priority that each packet has from this location based on whether it is the own packet or the relay packet. As a result, priority of packet transmission can be determined by comprehensive judgment.

  (4) Further, the portable relay device of the present invention is further characterized by further comprising a filter unit that discards packets whose evaluation value does not satisfy a criterion determined according to the amount of remaining power of the own device. Thereby, packets with low evaluation values can be excluded in advance, and the remaining packets can be transmitted according to the priority order. As a result, unnecessary power consumption can be saved and packets can be transmitted efficiently.

  (5) The packet transmission method of the present invention is a packet transmission method performed using a portable relay device that relays communication packets between a subordinate mobile network and an external network. Among them, distinguishing a packet requested to be relayed from other packets, re-evaluating the priority of the packet to be transmitted, and preferentially transmitting the re-evaluated high-priority packet Yes. This makes it possible to efficiently use finite resources such as processing capacity and operation time limited due to battery driving.

  (6) A packet transmission program according to the present invention is a packet transmission program for causing a portable relay device that relays communication packets between a subordinate mobile network and an external network to transmit the packet. Among them, a packet that is requested to be relayed is distinguished from other packets, the priority of the packet to be transmitted is re-evaluated, and the re-evaluated packet having a higher priority is preferentially transmitted. It is said. This makes it possible to efficiently use finite resources such as processing capacity and operation time limited due to battery driving.

  According to the present invention, the communication quality provided to the user by using the limited resources effectively is improved by the priority control according to the data type.

It is the schematic which shows the structural example of the relay system which concerns on this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the portable relay apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the portable relay apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is the schematic which shows the example of rearrangement of a packet transmission order. It is a figure which shows arrangement | positioning of each apparatus in simulation. It is a figure which shows the result of simulation.

  Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In order to facilitate understanding of the description, the same reference numerals are given to the same components in the respective drawings, and duplicate descriptions are omitted.

(Relay system configuration)
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration example of the relay system 100. A relay system 100 shown in FIG. 1 includes a portable relay device 110, terminals 121 to 123, a base station 130, and the Internet 140. The relay device 110 relays communication packets between a mobile network under its control and an external network. The subordinate mobile network includes terminals 121 to 123 as network nodes. The external network is a wireless line connected to the Internet such as LTE, WiMAX, or CDMA.

  The relay device 110 is, for example, a mobile router or a tethering terminal. The relay device 110 distinguishes packets that are requested to be relayed from other packets to be re-evaluated, re-evaluates the priority of the packets, and preferentially transmits the re-evaluated high-priority packets. . This makes it possible to efficiently use limited resources such as the processing capacity of the relay apparatus 110 and the operation time limited due to battery driving. Details of the relay device 110 will be described later.

  The terminals 121 to 123 can be connected to the relay device 110 and constitute a mobile network. Examples of the terminals 121 to 123 include notebook computers, mobile phones, smartphones, portable game machines, tablet terminals, and portable media players. For example, the terminals 121 to 123 are mounted with a chip compatible with a wireless LAN as a configuration connectable to the relay device 110.

  The base station 130 is installed at the end of an external network (WAN) wireless line, and the relay apparatus 110 can be connected to the Internet 140 via the base station 130. Note that the relay device 110 preferably has a function capable of supporting a plurality of types of lines on the external network side. In this case, the access point on the external network side is a wireless line that operates on the relay device 110. It can be set as the form according to.

(Configuration of relay device)
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the portable relay device 110. The relay device 110 holds the own packet and the relay packet in the transmission queue, and basically transmits each packet in the order of entering the transmission queue. However, the packet is rearranged according to the priority, and the packet with the higher priority is transmitted. To do. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the relay device 110 includes an evaluation value calculation unit 111, a remaining power amount confirmation unit 112, a filter unit 113, and a transmission unit 114.

  The evaluation value calculation unit 111 evaluates the self packet transmitted from the own device higher than the relay packet requested to be relayed from the other device, and calculates the evaluation value of the reevaluated priority. . Thereby, priority is given to the control information transmitted from the relay apparatus 110 itself, and a self-control function can fully be ensured.

  The evaluation value calculation unit 111 calculates the evaluation value so that the priority of the own packet is higher by a predetermined ratio than the priority of the relay packet. That is, an evaluation value is calculated by multiplying at least one priority of the own packet or the relay packet by a coefficient. As a result, the evaluation value can be calculated by performing re-evaluation based on the own packet or the relay packet based on the initial priority of each packet. As a result, priority of packet transmission can be determined by comprehensive judgment.

  The coefficient is set to a predetermined value so that when the evaluation value is calculated over the priority, the numerical value range of the evaluation value overlaps the numerical value range of the original priority. By setting the coefficients in this way, the order is switched between the own packet and the relay packet, and resources can be used efficiently. In the above description, a coefficient is applied to one of the priority of the own packet or the relay packet. However, if one coefficient is set to 1 and a coefficient is applied to both, the same is true.

  The remaining power amount confirmation unit 112 confirms the remaining power amount of the battery of the relay device 110. The filter unit 113 determines a filtering criterion according to the confirmed remaining power amount, and discards a packet whose evaluation value does not satisfy the criterion. When the remaining power amount is less than a certain value, all relay packets may be discarded, or packet filtering may be performed in two stages by duplicating the above method. Thereby, packets with low evaluation values can be excluded in advance, and the remaining packets can be transmitted according to the priority order. As a result, unnecessary power consumption can be saved and packets can be transmitted efficiently.

  In particular, when the relay device 110 is a tethering terminal, the problem of power depletion becomes severe, and control according to the remaining power amount is effective. The transmission unit 114 rearranges the priority order of the packets in the transmission queue according to the evaluation value, and preferentially transmits data with a high evaluation value. A specific example of the rearrangement will be described later.

(Repeater operation)
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the relay device 110. As shown in FIG. 3, first, transmission data is generated in the relay device 110 (step S1). The transmission data is data to be transmitted and includes its own packet and relay packet.

  Next, the relay device 110 confirms the remaining power amount of the own device (step S2). Then, the evaluation value of each packet in the transmission queue is calculated (step S3). The evaluation value is calculated by multiplying the priority by a constant for each type of the own packet or the relay packet. An example of calculating the evaluation value will be described later.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the remaining power amount is larger than a first threshold value (step S4). If the remaining power amount is less than or equal to the first threshold, all packets in the transmission queue whose evaluation value is smaller than the second threshold are discarded (step S5), and the process proceeds to step 6. If the remaining power amount is larger than the first threshold, data having the highest evaluation value is transmitted (step S6). In this way, it is possible to control to suppress transmission power by discarding unimportant packets. Note that the second threshold value is preferably set as a decreasing function of the remaining power amount.

  When the packet is discarded, communication fails. In this case, for example, it is mutually confirmed whether or not the packet has arrived at an upper layer on the terminal side, and when the packet is discarded, a timeout occurs in the TCP layer and a retransmission is requested. Then, countermeasures such as distributing packets to different relay apparatuses are taken. Finally, it is confirmed whether the transmission queue is not empty (step S7). If it is not empty, the process returns to step S3. If the transmission queue is empty, the process ends.

  The above operation can be realized by causing the relay apparatus 110 to execute a program. In the above example, it is determined whether the numerical value is large or not, but it may be determined based on the above or less. Further, when the remaining power amount is equal to or less than the minimum threshold, all relay packets can be discarded. When transmission data is generated, the process returns to step 3 to repeat a series of processes.

(Priority re-evaluation)
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of rearrangement (queuing) of the packet transmission order. In the example of FIG. 4, the transmission queue has a priority 4 own packet, a priority 2 relay packet, a priority 4 relay packet, a priority 3 own packet, a priority 1 own packet, and a priority 1 relay packet. The transmission packets are held in the order of the priority 4 own packets. The process shown in FIG. 3 is applied to these packets. The transmission queue is a queue that virtually holds transmission packets. Packets in the transmission queue are transmitted from the lowest packet in the figure.

  The priority of each transmission packet at this time is given based on the attribute of the transmission packet when the transmission packet enters the transmission queue again. For example, when priority is given by QoS control, the priority of a high real-time packet such as videophone data becomes high, and the priority of a high reliability packet for controlling traffic like TCP is low. Become.

  This priority is re-evaluated by multiplying a different coefficient depending on whether the target packet is a local packet or a relay packet. In this example, the coefficient of the own packet is 1.0, and the coefficient of other packets is 0.8. For example, in the case of a self packet with a priority of 4, the evaluation value is calculated as 4 × 1 = 4. The evaluation value of each transmission packet is 4.0, 1.6, 3.2, 3.0, 1.0, 0.8, 4.0 from the bottom. Of these, assuming that the threshold determined by the remaining power amount is 1, smaller priority 1 relay packets are discarded.

  Based on the evaluation values obtained in this way, packets are arranged in descending order of evaluation values. The rearranged transmission packets are: self packet with priority 4 from the bottom, self packet with priority 4, relay packet with priority 4, self packet with priority 3, relay packet with priority 2, self packet with priority 1 Packet order. If the evaluation values are the same, priority is given to the one that entered the transmission queue first. As described above, rearrangement in the transmission queue is performed, and packets are transmitted from the lower side in the transmission queue.

(simulation)
A computer simulation was performed in the following evaluation environment, and it was confirmed that a certain effect was obtained. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the arrangement of the devices in the simulation. The vertical and horizontal axes represent relative positions. 0 to 3 mobile routers 210 and 100 user terminals 220 were set. In addition, one WiMAX base station 230 and one LTE base station 240 that can communicate with the mobile router 210 and are connected to the network are set.

  Under such an environment, a plurality of priorities (64, 128, 255) are set to data, and a simulation is performed to transmit these data from the user terminal 220 when the mobile router 210 is placed or not placed. I did it. In the mobile router 210, the data in the transmission queue is rearranged according to the priority of each data, and the data is transmitted. Then, the number of packets that reached the network side was counted.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a result of the simulation. As shown in FIG. 6, the number of packets that reach the network among the data transmitted when the number of mobile routers is 0 is 100000 regardless of the priority (64 (A), 128 (B), 255 (C)). It was within the range of ˜14,000, and no significant difference occurred. On the other hand, the data that passed through one mobile router 210 had the lowest priority packet arrival number of about 70000, while the highest priority packet arrival number was about 200000. As a result, it was proved that data with higher priority can be delivered preferentially by installing the mobile router 210 that rearranges the data in the transmission queue according to the priority of each data.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Relay system 110 Portable relay apparatus 111 Evaluation value calculation part 112 Remaining electric energy confirmation part 113 Filter part 114 Transmission part 121-123 Terminal 130 Base station 140 Internet 210 Mobile router 220 User terminal 230 WiMAX base station 240 LTE base station

Claims (6)

A portable relay device that relays communication packets between a mobile network and an external network,
An evaluation value calculation that distinguishes a packet that is requested to be relayed from other packets to be transmitted, re-evaluates the priority of the packet to be transmitted , and calculates an evaluation value of the priority of the packet to be transmitted And
A portable relay device comprising: a transmission unit that transmits a packet other than a packet that does not satisfy a criterion in which the evaluation value is determined according to a remaining power amount of the own device. The evaluation value calculation unit evaluates that the packet is a self packet transmitted from the own device higher than a relay packet requested to be relayed, and calculates a priority evaluation value of the packet to be transmitted. The portable relay device according to claim 1, wherein: The portable relay device according to claim 1 , further comprising a filter unit that discards a packet whose evaluation value does not satisfy a criterion determined according to a remaining power amount of the own device. 4. The portable relay device according to claim 1, wherein the transmission unit preferentially transmits the data having a high evaluation value . 5. A packet transmission method using a portable relay device that relays communication packets between a mobile network and an external network,
Distinguishing a packet requested to be relayed from other packets to be transmitted, re-evaluating the priority of the packet to be transmitted , and calculating an evaluation value of the priority of the packet to be transmitted;
Transmitting a packet other than a packet whose evaluation value does not satisfy a criterion determined according to the amount of remaining power of the own device . A packet transmission program for causing a portable relay device to relay communication packets between a mobile network and an external network,
A process of distinguishing a packet requested to be relayed from other packets to be transmitted, re-evaluating the priority of the packet to be transmitted , and calculating an evaluation value of the priority of the packet to be transmitted;
A packet transmission program that causes a computer to execute a series of processes including a process of transmitting a packet other than a packet whose evaluation value does not satisfy a criterion determined according to a remaining power amount of the own apparatus .

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