JP7545341B2 - Control device, base station device, control method, and program in wireless communication system with advanced signaling for resource allocation control - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to advanced signaling technology for resource allocation in base station devices.

A configuration has been proposed in which a control device prepared separately from the base station device determines the amount of resources (e.g., frequency/time resources and computational resources) to be used for communication with terminal devices in one or more base station devices in a cellular communication system. Non-Patent Document 1 describes a configuration in which, in such a configuration, the control device acquires a probability distribution of wireless quality in the entire cell constituted by the base station device, and calculates the required amount of resources using the probability distribution and information on the required throughput.

Vila, J. Perez-Romero, O. Sallent, A. Umbert, and R. Ferrus, "Performance Measurements-Based Estimation of Radio Resource Requirements for Slice Admission Control," 2019 IEEE 90th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2019-Fall), pp. ．． 1-6, September 2019

In the method described in Non-Patent Document 1, information on wireless quality on a cell-by-cell basis is collected to determine the resource usage amount, so it is possible that the resource amount may not be appropriate for the individual circumstances of the terminal device. On the other hand, the control device collects information on the wireless quality and required throughput for each terminal device and determines the resource amount, making it possible to determine the optimal resource amount, but since information for each terminal device is transmitted and received between the base station device and the control device, the efficiency of the system may deteriorate.

The present invention provides a technique for appropriately and efficiently determining the amount of resources to be used in a base station device.

A control device according to one embodiment of the present invention has an acquisition means for acquiring information regarding communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with a base station device, the information being aggregated by value indicating a communication service, a determination means for determining an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services based on the acquired information , and a notification means for notifying the base station device of the determined amount of resources , and the allocation of resources to the plurality of terminal devices is determined in the base station device based on the amount of resources for each of the communication services allocated to the base station device .

A base station device according to one embodiment of the present invention has a providing means for providing a control device with information regarding communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, aggregated by value indicating a communication service , an acquiring means for acquiring from the control device information indicating the amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services, and a communication means for determining resource allocation for each of the plurality of terminal devices based on the amount of resources for each of the communication services indicated by the acquired information , and communicating using the resources .

The present invention makes it possible to appropriately and efficiently determine the amount of resources to be used in a base station device.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of a wireless communication system. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of the hardware configuration of a control device and a base station device. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of a control device. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of a base station device. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a flow of processing executed in a wireless communication system.

The following embodiments are described in detail with reference to the attached drawings. Note that the following embodiments do not limit the invention according to the claims, and not all combinations of features described in the embodiments are necessarily essential to the invention. Two or more of the features described in the embodiments may be combined in any desired manner. In addition, the same reference numbers are used for the same or similar configurations, and duplicate descriptions will be omitted.

(System Configuration)
FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a wireless communication system according to this embodiment. In one example, this wireless communication system is a cellular communication system of the fourth generation (4G) or the fifth generation (5G), or a cellular wireless communication system of an earlier or later generation. In the wireless communication system according to this embodiment, a base station device provides a control device with information on values related to communication quality collected for each of one or more terminal devices to which a communication service is provided. Then, the control device determines resources to be allocated to the base station device based on the received information, and transmits the determined resource allocation to the base station device. Note that the resource allocation is determined based on, for example, communication quality and a required throughput. Here, the required throughput is determined by the communication service provided to each terminal device, so the amount of wireless resources required for each communication service may differ. For this reason, for example, the base station device provides the control device with information on collected values related to communication quality and the number of terminal devices to which each communication service is provided, and the control device can allocate wireless resources for each communication service according to the information on collected values related to communication quality, the required throughput of each communication service, and the number of terminal devices to which the service is provided. The control device can allocate not only radio resources but also computational resources to be used by the base station device for each communication service. The base station device further allocates the resources for each allocated communication service to each terminal device that receives the communication service. In this way, the base station device can allocate an amount of resources corresponding to the communication service to the terminal device and communicate with the corresponding terminal device using the resources.

In FIG. 1, for example, an example is shown in which service 1 is provided to five terminal devices, service 2 is provided to four terminal devices, and service 3 is provided to five terminal devices. At this time, the base station device notifies the control device of information that compiles values related to the communication quality of these 14 devices and information on the number of terminal devices to which services 1 to 3 are provided (five, four, and five, respectively). Then, the control device specifies the amount of resources required for communication of a predetermined amount of data based on the information on communication quality. Then, for each service, the control device multiplies the number of terminal devices to be provided and the required throughput by the specified amount of resources to determine the amount of resources to be allocated. Then, the control device notifies the base station device of information indicating the determined amount of resources. In FIG. 1, the amount of resources allocated to each of services 1 to 3 in the base station device is indicated by a shaded box. In FIG. 1, as an example, the required throughput of service 3 is small, and a smaller amount of resources is allocated to service 1, which has the same number of terminal devices to receive the service. Also, service 2 is allocated to fewer terminal devices than service 1, because the number of terminal devices to receive the service is smaller than service 1. The base station device allocates the resources allocated for each service to each terminal device that receives the service. In Figure 1, this allocation is shown by an arrow pointing from the shaded box that shows the resources allocated to each service of the base station device to the terminal device.

It is assumed that the communication quality varies depending on the communication service. For example, when sensors having multiple communication functions are concentrated in a specific facility, the communication quality of those sensors will tend to be roughly the same. Also, when sensors having multiple communication functions are placed in a location relatively far from the base station device, the communication quality of those sensors will be low overall. For this reason, the communication quality of the terminal device receiving the communication service for providing information by the sensor may tend to be roughly the same. Also, for example, the terminal devices owned by human users are generally distributed over a wide area, but for example, at a specific event venue, many terminal devices may use the same application. In this case, by using the same application, the terminal devices in the event venue will be provided with the same communication service, and the communication quality of the terminal devices receiving the communication service may tend to be roughly the same. On the other hand, for example, it can be assumed that the communication quality trend of the sensor and the communication quality trend of the event venue will be significantly different. That is, for example, in a situation where a sensor is placed in an area with relatively low communication quality and an event is held in an area with relatively high communication quality, the communication quality trend may be significantly different for each communication service. Note that this is just one example, and it is common for communication quality trends to differ for each communication service.

In this case, if the base station device aggregates the communication quality of the connected terminal devices (within the cell) and transmits it to the control device, resources are allocated that are not suitable for the communication quality trends of each communication service. For example, assume that the communication quality of the first communication service is better than that of the second communication service, and the number of terminal devices receiving the first communication service is equal to the number of terminal devices receiving the second communication service. In this case, if the communication quality of the terminal device of the first communication service and the communication quality of the terminal device of the second communication service are transmitted to the control device together, the terminal device of the first communication service will report a communication quality that is lower than the communication quality that is actually obtained, and the terminal device of the second communication service will report a communication quality that is higher than the communication quality that is actually obtained. As a result, more resources than are actually required will be allocated to the first communication service, which may result in wasting resources. On the other hand, fewer resources than are actually required will be allocated to the second communication service, and in some cases, the terminal device receiving the second communication service may not be able to communicate.

In this embodiment, in consideration of such circumstances, the base station device aggregates the communication quality in the terminal device for each value indicating the communication service, and provides information on the aggregated results to the control device. That is, the communication quality of the first communication service is aggregated separately from the communication quality of the second communication service, and similarly, the communication quality of the second communication service is aggregated separately from the communication quality of the first communication service. The control device acquires information on the communication quality aggregated for each communication service, and determines the amount of resources to be allocated to communication for each communication service in the base station device based on the information on the communication quality for each communication service, and notifies the base station device of the determined result. Then, based on the notified amount of resources, the base station device allocates resources for communication of each terminal device, and performs communication.

Here, the information on the communication quality may be, for example, an average value of values indicating wireless quality. The wireless quality may include, for example, at least one of CQI (Channel Quality Indicator), RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power), RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality), SINR (Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio), and MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme) to be used in each terminal device. Note that these values are only examples, and other values that can indicate wireless quality or that correspond to wireless quality may be used as values indicating wireless quality. In the following description, these values may also be used as values indicating wireless quality. In one example, in a 4G cellular communication system, it is specified that subband CQIs reported by multiple terminal devices may be aggregated for each subband obtained by dividing the available frequency band, and the wireless quality may be indicated by the average value of the CQIs. The base station device of this embodiment can also transmit such an average value of the subband CQI to the control device. In addition, for the same purpose, for example, the average value of the CQI for the entire frequency band may be provided to the control device. Also, instead of CQI, the average value of RSRP, the average value of RSRQ, the average value of SINR, and the average value of the value indicating MCS may be notified to the control device as described above. By using such average values, the amount of resources of the base station device to be allocated to each communication service can be determined according to the average value and the required throughput for each communication service. Note that the base station device can receive a decision on resource allocation according to the number of terminal devices by notifying the control device of the number of terminal devices that will receive each communication service. However, the control device may obtain information on the number of terminal devices that will receive each communication service in advance, for example, from another network node, and in this case, the information does not need to be notified from the base station device.

In one example, the control device prepares in advance a function g(T,Q) that outputs the number of physical resource blocks (PRBs) required by inputting the required throughput T and wireless quality Q. The control device can specify the number of PRBs to be allocated to a communication service by calculating N×g(T,Q) using the required throughput T and wireless quality Q values notified from the base station device for a certain communication service and the number N of terminal devices receiving the communication service. The control device can then notify the base station device of the specified number of PRBs. Note that even if the communication quality trends of multiple terminal devices receiving a certain communication service are roughly the same, a certain degree of variation may occur. The base station device can distribute the resources allocated by the control device according to the communication quality values before aggregation notified from each terminal device. In other words, the control device notifies the base station device of a resource pool for each communication service, and the base station device can determine the resources to be allocated to each terminal device within the resource pool based on the wireless quality of each terminal device.

Also, the information on the communication quality may be, for example, a combination of the average value and variance of the values indicating the wireless quality. According to this, the control device can estimate the number of terminal devices that are expected to obtain each possible wireless quality value based on the average value and variance, assuming that the frequency distribution of the values indicating the wireless quality follows a normal distribution. Then, the control device can specify the number of PRBs to be assigned to the communication service by, for example, calculating Σ _q n _q ×g(T,q) when each value of the wireless quality is _q and the number of terminal devices corresponding to that value is n q. Also, here, an example has been described in which the frequency distribution of the number of terminal devices for each wireless quality is estimated based on the average value and variance, assuming that the wireless quality obtained in the terminal device follows a predetermined distribution such as a normal distribution, but the base station device may transmit this frequency distribution itself to the control device. That is, the base station device may generate a frequency distribution of the values indicating the wireless quality obtained in each terminal device for each communication service and transmit it to the control device.

In addition, as information on communication quality, a value (percentile value) indicating the wireless quality obtained in a predetermined ratio of terminal devices among terminal devices receiving the provision of a communication service may be used. For example, the predetermined ratio may be 90%, and the base station device may notify the control device of the value of communication quality (e.g., wireless quality) that can be satisfied in 90% of terminal devices among terminal devices receiving the provision of a certain communication service. Note that 90% is an example, and other values may be used as the predetermined ratio. When the value of this wireless quality is Q, the control device may specify the number of PRBs to be assigned to the communication service by calculating N×g(T,Q) as described above. This makes it possible to secure PRBs for at least 90% of terminal devices receiving the communication service. In addition, for example, a small number of PRBs may be assigned to terminal devices that can execute a communication service with a number of PRBs less than g(T,Q), and sufficient PRBs may be assigned to terminal devices with relatively low communication quality, so that the terminal devices can also execute the communication service.

The value indicating the communication service is, for example, one of QCI (QoS Class Identifier), 5QI (5G QoS Indicator), and S-NSSAI (Single-Network Slice Selection Assistance Information). That is, the base station device, for example, for each value of QCI, 5QI, or S-NSSAI, tallies values indicating the communication quality as described above, and notifies the control device of the information of the tallied results. Then, the control device can notify the base station device of information specifying the resources to be used in the base station device for each value of QCI, 5QI, or S-NSSAI.

(Device Configuration)
Next, an example of the hardware configuration of the control device and base station device that execute the above-mentioned processing will be described with reference to FIG. 2. Note that FIG. 2 is an example, and other configurations may be used. In one example, the control device and base station device are configured to include a processor 201, a ROM 202, a RAM 203, a storage device 204, and a communication circuit 205. The processor 201 is a computer configured to include one or more processing circuits such as a general-purpose CPU (Central Processing Unit) or an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), and executes the overall processing of the control device and base station device and each of the above-mentioned processing by reading and executing a program stored in the ROM 202 or the storage device 204. The ROM 202 is a read-only memory that stores information such as programs and various parameters related to the processing executed by the control device and base station device. The RAM 203 functions as a workspace when the processor 201 executes a program, and is a random access memory that stores temporary information. The storage device 204 is, for example, configured by a removable external storage device. The communication circuit 205 is configured by, for example, a circuit (for example, a wired communication circuit) for communication between the control device and the base station device. Although one communication circuit 205 is illustrated in Fig. 2, the control device and the base station device may have multiple communication circuits.

Figure 3 shows an example of the functional configuration of the control device. The control device has, for example, an information acquisition unit 301, a resource allocation determination unit 302, and a resource allocation notification unit 303. Note that in Figure 3, only functions particularly related to this embodiment are shown, and various other functions that the control device may have are omitted from the illustration. Also, the functional blocks in Figure 3 are shown in schematic form, and each functional block may be integrated and realized, or may be further subdivided. Also, each function in Figure 3 may be realized, for example, by the processor 201 executing a program stored in the ROM 202 or the storage device 204, or may be realized, for example, by a processor present in the communication circuit 205 executing a predetermined software. Note that the details of the processing performed by each functional unit will not be described in detail here, and only the rough functions will be outlined.

The information acquisition unit 301 receives information on the communication quality of the terminal device receiving the communication service, which is collected by the base station device for each value indicating the communication service, from the base station device. The information acquisition unit 301 may also acquire information on the number of terminal devices receiving the communication service and the required throughput of the communication service for each communication service by receiving the information from the base station device or other network nodes, or by searching a storage device in the control device. The resource allocation determination unit 302 determines the allocation of resources (radio resources such as frequency, time, and space, and computation resources) of the base station device to be allocated to each communication service based on the information on the communication quality for each communication service acquired by the information acquisition unit 301. The resource allocation notification unit 303 notifies the base station device of information indicating the resource allocation for each communication service determined by the resource allocation determination unit 302.

Figure 4 shows an example of the functional configuration of a base station device. The base station device has, for example, an information providing unit 401, a resource allocation receiving unit 402, and a wireless communication control unit 403. Note that in Figure 4, only functions particularly related to this embodiment are shown, and various other functions that the base station device may have are omitted from the illustration. Also, the functional blocks in Figure 4 are shown in a schematic manner, and each functional block may be integrated and realized, or may be further subdivided. Also, each function in Figure 4 may be realized, for example, by the processor 201 executing a program stored in the ROM 202 or the storage device 204, or may be realized, for example, by a processor present in the communication circuit 205 executing a predetermined software. Note that the details of the processing performed by each functional unit will not be described in detail here, and only the rough functions will be outlined.

The information providing unit 401 acquires information indicating the wireless quality for each of the terminal devices connected to the base station device, and tally up the acquired information for each communication service provided to each of the communication devices. The information providing unit 401 then provides the control device with information on the communication quality obtained as a result of the tally up for each communication service. The resource allocation receiving unit 402 receives information indicating the allocation of resources for each communication service from the control device based on the information on the communication quality for each communication service provided to the control device. The wireless communication control unit 403 allocates resources for each communication service to each of the terminal devices receiving the communication service based on the information received by the resource allocation receiving unit 402, and performs wireless communication with those terminal devices.

(Processing flow)
Next, a flow of processing executed in the wireless communication system according to the present embodiment will be outlined. Note that the following description is merely an example, and detailed operations such as those described above will not be described again here.

First, the base station device acquires communication quality information from the connected terminal device (S501). Although only two terminal devices are shown in FIG. 5, the base station device acquires communication quality information from many terminal devices. The base station device then aggregates the collected communication quality information for each communication service (S502) and transmits the information on the communication quality for each communication service obtained by the aggregation to the control device (S503). In S503, communication quality information for each communication service may be notified, but for example, communication quality information for all communication services (i.e., information obtained by aggregating the communication quality of all terminal devices regardless of communication service) may also be notified. In addition, in S503, the communication quality information of any one communication service may be set as reference quality information, and the communication quality information for the other communication services may be expressed by an offset value from the reference quality information. In one example, the communication quality information for all communication services may be set as reference quality information, and the communication quality information for each communication service may be expressed using an offset value.

When the control device receives this information, it determines the amount of resources of the base station device to be used for each communication service based on the information as necessary (S504). Note that the control device may determine the amount of resources to be allocated to each communication service without based on this information, for example, if the communication quality does not differ even if the communication services are different. In this case, for example, the amount of resources can be determined based on the required throughput information for each communication service, the number of terminal devices for each communication service, and communication quality information for all communication services. The control device then notifies the base station device of the determined resource allocation for each communication service (S505). Based on the notified resource allocation for each communication service, the base station device individually allocates resources from the resources allocated to that communication service to the terminal device receiving the provision of each communication service (S506), and performs wireless communication (S507).

As described above, according to this embodiment, in a situation where the distribution of wireless quality differs for each communication service, it is possible to appropriately determine the resources to be used by each communication service. In addition, since the base station device aggregates the wireless quality of each terminal device before transmitting it to the control device, it is possible to prevent an increase in the amount of information transmitted and received. As a result, the control device can appropriately and efficiently determine the amount of resources to be used by the base station device.

In addition, this invention will enable, for example, the effective use of wireless and computing resources, which will contribute to Goal 9 of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is to "build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and promote innovation and infrastructure."

The invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the invention.

Claims (14)

A control device,
an acquisition means for acquiring, from a base station device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
a determination means for determining an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services based on the acquired information;
a notification means for notifying the base station device of the determined amount of resources;
having
A control device, characterized in that the base station device determines resource allocation for the plurality of terminal devices based on an amount of resources allocated to the base station device for each of the communication services . The control device according to claim 1, characterized in that the acquisition means acquires, as the information regarding the communication quality, at least one of a statistical value of a value indicating wireless quality and a frequency distribution of a value indicating wireless quality in each of the plurality of terminal devices. 3. The control device according to claim 2, characterized in that the statistical value includes at least one of an average value of values indicating the wireless quality, a combination of an average value and a variance of values indicating the wireless quality, and a value indicating the wireless quality obtained in a predetermined ratio of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices. 4. The control device according to claim 2 or 3 , characterized in that the value indicating the wireless quality includes at least one of a CQI (Channel Quality Indicator), an RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power), an RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality), an SINR (Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio), and an MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme) to be used for each of the multiple terminal devices. The control device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the value indicating the communication service is one of QCI (QoS Class Identifier), 5QI (5G QoS Indicator), and S-NSSAI (Single-Network Slice Selection Assistance Information). A base station device,
providing means for providing, to a control device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with said base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
an acquisition means for acquiring information indicating an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services from the control device;
a communication means for determining resource allocation for each of the plurality of terminal devices based on the amount of resources for each of the communication services indicated by the acquired information , and performing communication using the resources ;
A base station device comprising: The base station device according to claim 6, characterized in that the providing means provides the control device with at least one of a statistical value of a value indicating wireless quality and a frequency distribution of a value indicating wireless quality in each of the plurality of terminal devices as information regarding the communication quality. The base station device according to claim 7, characterized in that the statistical value includes at least one of an average value of the values indicating the wireless quality, a combination of the average value and variance of the values indicating the wireless quality, and a value indicating the wireless quality obtained in a predetermined ratio of terminal devices among the plurality of terminal devices. 9. The base station device according to claim 7 or 8 , characterized in that the value indicating the wireless quality includes at least one of a CQI (Channel Quality Indicator), an RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power), an RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality), an SINR (Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio), and an MCS (Modulation and Coding Scheme) to be used for each of the multiple terminal devices. The base station device according to any one of claims 6 to 9, characterized in that the value indicating the communication service is one of QCI (QoS Class Identifier), 5QI (5G QoS Indicator), and S-NSSAI (Single-Network Slice Selection Assistance Information). A control method executed by a control device, comprising:
acquiring, from a base station device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
determining an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services based on the acquired information;
notifying the base station device of the determined amount of resources;
Including,
A control method, comprising : determining, in the base station device, resource allocation for the plurality of terminal devices based on an amount of resources allocated to the base station device for each of the communication services . A control method executed by a base station device,
providing, to a control device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
acquiring, from the control device , information indicating an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services;
determining resource allocation for each of the plurality of terminal devices based on the amount of resources for each communication service indicated by the acquired information , and performing communication using the resources ;
A control method comprising: A computer provided in the control device
acquiring, from a base station device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
determining an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services based on the acquired information;
notifying the base station device of the determined amount of resources;
A program for:
A program, characterized in that the base station device determines resource allocation for the plurality of terminal devices based on an amount of resources allocated to the base station device for each of the communication services . A computer installed in the base station device
providing, to a control device, information on communication quality in a plurality of terminal devices communicating with the base station device, the information being collected for each value indicating a communication service;
acquiring, from the control device , information indicating an amount of resources to be allocated to the base station device for communication for each of the communication services;
determining resource allocation for each of the plurality of terminal devices based on the amount of resources for each of the communication services indicated by the acquired information , and causing the terminal devices to perform communication using the resources ;
Program for.

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