Communication terminal and communication method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10912099-B2
Application number	US-201916545850-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 20, 2019
Priority date	Aug 24, 2018
Publication date	Feb 2, 2021
Grant date	Feb 2, 2021

Abstract

Provided is a communication terminal configured to communicate with base stations, including a memory and a processor. The processor executes a position acquisition task that acquires position information on the communication terminal, an accumulation task that accumulates connection frequency information and discontinuance frequency information that relate to communication with each of the base stations at a position of the communication terminal, a determination task that determines a connection priority for preferentially making a connection to each of the base stations from a position of the communication terminal, based on the connection frequency information and the discontinuance frequency information at the position of the communication terminal, a connection control task that controls a connection to each of one or more base stations, in a descending order of the determined connection priority, and a communication task that performs data communication with the one or more base stations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A communication terminal that is configured to communicate with i base stations, where i is an integer that is equal to or greater than 2, the communication terminal comprising:
a memory storing instructions; and
a processor configured to implement the instructions and execute a plurality of tasks, including:
a position acquisition task that acquires position information of the communication terminal;
an accumulation task that accumulates connection frequency information and disconnection frequency information that relate to communication with each of the i base stations at a position of the communication terminal;
a distance calculation task that calculates a distance between the position of the communication terminal that corresponds to the acquired position information, and each of the i base stations;
a determination task that determines a connection priority for preferentially making a connection to each of the i base stations from the position of the communication terminal, based on the connection frequency information and the disconnection frequency information at the position of the communication terminal that corresponds to the acquired position information of the communication terminal and based on a result of the calculation of the distance between the position of the communication terminal and each of the i base stations;
a connection control task that controls a connection to each of k base stations, in a descending order of the determined connection priorities, where k is an integer that satisfies 1≤k≤i;
a communication task that performs data communication with the k base stations; and
a number-of-connection-base-stations setting task that derives a value of k as 2 or greater than 2 in a case where disconnection frequency at the position of the communication terminal is above a predetermined value.

2. The communication terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the connection control task establishes a connection between the communication terminal and each of the k base stations, and then updates the connection frequency information at the position of the communication terminal, in a manner that is associated with each of the k base stations.

3. The communication terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the number-of-connection-base-stations setting task derives the value of k as 1 in a case where the disconnection frequency at the position of the communication terminal is below the predetermined value.

4. The communication terminal according to claim 1 , wherein the processor further executes
a monitoring task that monitors whether or not communication at the position of the communication terminal with at least one of the k base stations that are performing communication is discontinued, and
wherein the number-of-connection-base-stations setting task derives the value of k as 2 or greater than 2 when the disconnection of the communication at the position of the communication terminal is detected.

5. The communication terminal according to claim 4 , wherein the monitoring task detects the disconnection of the communication at the position of the communication terminal, and then updates the disconnection frequency information at the position of the communication terminal in a manner that is associated with at least one of the k base stations.

6. The communication terminal according to claim 1 , wherein, in a case where the communication terminal moves a predetermined distance or longer, the determination task determines the connection priority of each of the i base stations based on the connection frequency information and the disconnection frequency information at the position of the communication terminal that corresponds to the acquired position information.

7. A communication method in a communication terminal that is configured to communicate with i base stations, where i is an integer that is equal to or greater than 2, the communication method comprising:
acquiring position information of the communication terminal;
accumulating connection frequency information and disconnection frequency information that relate to communication with each of the i base stations at a position of the communication terminal;
calculating a distance between the position of the communication terminal that corresponds to the acquired position information, and each of the i base stations;
determining a connection priority for preferentially making a connection to each of the i base stations from the position of the communication terminal, based on the connection frequency information and the disconnection frequency information at the position of the communication terminal that corresponds to the acquired position information of the communication terminal and based on a result of the calculation of the distance between the position of the communication terminal and each of the i base stations;
controlling a connection to each of k base stations, in a descending order of the determined connection priorities, where k is an integer that satisfies 1≤k≤i;
performing data communication with the k base stations; and
deriving a value of k as 2 or greater than 2 in a case where disconnection frequency at the position of the communication terminal is above a predetermined value.

Assignees

• Panasonic Ip Man Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kato Osamu
• Asano Hiroaki
• Kanemoto Hideki

Classifications

• H04W72/56 Primary

  based on priority criteria · CPC title

• H04W76/15 Primary

  Setup of multiple wireless link connections · CPC title

• H04W72/0453

  Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA · CPC title

• H04L5/0041

  Frequency-non-contiguous · CPC title

• H04W64/003

  locating network equipment · CPC title