WO2011142102A1 - Communication terminal and communication control method - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a communication terminal, whereby timing of receiving notification information is shortened, while suppressing power consumption of a battery of the communication terminal. Also disclosed is a communication control method. The communication terminal (101) is provided with: an internal power supply (105); a wireless communication unit (103); a connecting unit (107) which is connected to an external apparatus; and a control unit (109), which controls the wireless communication unit (103) so as to receive the notification information in a predetermined cycle, by driving the wireless communication unit (103) using power supplied from the internal power supply (105), and which controls the wireless communication unit (103) so as to receive the notification information in a cycle shorter than the predetermined cycle, by driving the wireless communication unit (103) using power supplied via the connecting unit (107) when the power is supplied via the connecting unit (107).

Description

Communication terminal and communication control method Cross-reference to related applications

This application claims the priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-108754 (filed on May 10, 2010), the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

The present invention relates to a communication terminal and a communication control method.

Currently, PHS (Personal Handyphone) is mainly used as a communication system compliant with a wireless communication standard using a TDMA-TDD (Time Division Multiple Access-Time Division Division-Duplex) communication method. System) and i-Burst (registered trademark) system. These specifications are stipulated in ARIB STD-28 and ARIB STD-97 of the Radio Industries Association (ARIB). Especially for the i-Burst system, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) / ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions) HC-SDMA (High-Capacity--Spatial-Division-Multiple-Access), which is standardized in WTSC-2005-032.

In such a communication system, a communication terminal generally receives broadcast information broadcasted by a base station and realizes time synchronization with the base station. Further, the communication terminal operates based on information included in the broadcast information. For example, the notification information includes a disaster warning regarding prediction of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, and the communication terminal can notify the user in advance of the disaster by display, sound, light, etc. according to the reception of the disaster warning. . Here, the reception timing of the notification information by the conventional communication terminal will be described with reference to FIG.

I1 to i17 in FIG. 4 represent the transmission timing of the broadcast information by the base station. For example, in PHS, the transmission timing of notification information is every 100 milliseconds. The notification information after i7 includes contents changed compared to the notification information before i6, such as a disaster warning. i2 and i14 represent the reception timing of the reference notification information, which is a part of the notification information, by the communication terminal. For example, in PHS, the reception timing of the reference notification information is every 1.2 seconds. Reference | standard alerting | reporting information is information which shows the presence or absence of the change of the content of alerting | reporting information.

In order to receive the reference notification information, the communication terminal supplies power to a low noise amplifier circuit (LNA: Low Noise Amplifier) in advance so that a radio signal (RF: Radio Frequency) can be received. Then, the communication terminal receives the reference notification information (i2 and i14) and confirms whether the notification information has been changed. When the communication terminal receives the reference notification information (i2) indicating that there is no change in the notification information, the communication terminal temporarily stops the power supply to the low noise amplifier circuit and matches the transmission timing of the next reference notification information (i14). Power supply is resumed, and the next reference notification information (i14) is received. In addition, when the communication terminal receives the reference notification information (i14) indicating that the notification information is changed, the communication terminal does not stop the power supply to the low-noise amplifier circuit and is transmitted next (i15). To recognize changes.

In order to shorten the power supply time to the low noise amplifier circuit, the timing at which the communication terminal receives the reference notification information from the base station as shown in FIG. 4 is generally longer than the transmission timing of the notification information by the base station. . The power consumption of the battery can be reduced as the power supply time to the low noise amplifier circuit is shortened and the number of times of receiving the reference notification information is reduced. As a result, the waiting time of the communication terminal can be extended. However, on the other hand, since the number of times of receiving the reference notification information is reduced, it becomes impossible to respond quickly to the change contents of the notification information.

For example, as shown in FIG. 5, it is assumed that a disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami is predicted and a disaster alarm is generated after the transmission timing of the second notification information (i24) from a certain reference notification information (i22) in the PHS. Then, the disaster warning is included in the third and subsequent notification information (notification information after i25). The communication terminal recognizes that there is a change in the notification information in the next reference notification information (i34), that is, the notification information includes a disaster warning. Then, the communication terminal receives the next notification information (i35) and recognizes the content of the disaster alarm. That is, in FIG. 5, the disaster alarm content recognition delay time from when the disaster alarm occurs until the communication terminal recognizes the content of the disaster alarm is about 1 second. In this conventional method, the disaster alarm content recognition delay time can be 1.3 seconds at the maximum. This delay time means a delay in information transmission to the user, and becomes more problematic as the broadcast information contains highly urgent information such as a disaster warning. In particular, when an earthquake occurs, it takes only a few seconds from the occurrence of a disaster warning to the actual occurrence of an earthquake, so there is a possibility that sufficient time cannot be secured for responding to the earthquake. Therefore, the reception timing of the reference notification information should be as short as possible. However, the shorter the time, the more the power consumption of the communication terminal increases, and the standby time is shortened as described above. That is, shortening the reception timing of broadcast information and increasing the standby time are in a trade-off relationship.

In recent years, an invention relating to this trade-off has been made (for example, see Patent Document 1). The communication terminal repeats reception of broadcast information from the base station until the standby cell is determined when the power is turned on or when the communication terminal shifts from the outside of the service area to the standby state. In Patent Document 1, the reception timing of the notification information changes according to the number of times when it is determined that no standby cell is found. Specifically, when this number exceeds a predetermined number, the reception timing of the broadcast information becomes longer. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent the power from being consumed by continuously receiving the broadcast information when there is no standby cell.

JP 2004-120258 A

However, in Patent Document 1, control of notification reception timing is performed only when a standby cell is not found, and control of notification reception timing when standby is possible is not studied. For this reason, the invention described in Patent Document 1 shortens the reception timing of broadcast information in order to respond quickly to changes in the broadcast information as described above, and lengthens the standby time while suppressing power consumption. It is not a solution for the trade-off.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention made in view of the above problems is to provide a communication terminal and a communication control method that shorten the reception timing of broadcast information while suppressing the power consumption of the battery of the communication terminal. .

In order to solve the above-described problems, a communication terminal according to the first invention
An internal power supply,
A wireless communication unit;
A connection for connecting to an external device;
-Driving the wireless communication unit with power from the internal power supply, controlling the wireless communication unit to receive broadcast information at a predetermined period;
-When power is supplied through the connection unit, the wireless communication unit is driven by the power through the connection unit, and the wireless communication is received at a cycle shorter than the predetermined cycle. And a control unit for controlling the unit.

In addition, it is preferable that the control unit stops power supply from the internal power supply when power is supplied through the connection unit.

Further, it is desirable that the notification information includes emergency information.

As described above, the solution of the present invention has been described as an apparatus. However, the present invention can be realized as a method, a program, and a storage medium that stores the program substantially corresponding to these, and the scope of the present invention. It should be understood that these are also included.

For example, a communication control method that realizes the first invention of the present invention as a method is as follows:
In a communication control method in a communication terminal including an internal power supply and a wireless communication unit,
Driving the wireless communication unit with power from the internal power source and receiving notification information at a predetermined period;
When power is supplied to the communication terminal from the outside of the communication terminal, the wireless communication unit is driven with the power and the broadcast information is received at a cycle shorter than the predetermined cycle.

According to the communication terminal and the communication control method according to the present invention configured as described above, when power is supplied to the communication terminal via the connection unit, the broadcast information is received with a short period by the power. Therefore, even if the period for receiving the notification information is shortened, the internal power supply (battery) is not used. Therefore, the reception timing of the notification information can be shortened while suppressing the power consumption of the battery of the communication terminal.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a communication control method performed by a communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a transmission / reception timing diagram of broadcast information when there is external power feeding according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a transmission / reception timing diagram of conventional broadcast information. FIG. 5 is a transmission / reception timing diagram of notification information when a conventional earthquake warning occurs.

Hereinafter, an embodiment according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. The communication terminal 101 includes a wireless communication unit 103, an internal power source 105, a charging unit 106, a connection unit 107, and a control unit 109.

The communication terminal 101 is a wireless communication terminal such as a mobile phone or PHS. The wireless communication unit 103 is for transmitting / receiving data to / from a base station (not shown). The wireless communication unit 103 includes a low noise amplifier circuit (LNA) necessary for receiving a wireless signal (RF). When power is supplied to the low noise amplifier circuit via a regulator (not shown), the wireless communication unit 103 can receive various data such as broadcast information broadcast by the base station. The broadcast information includes not only information necessary for the communication terminal 101 to synchronize with the base station but also emergency information representing an alarm such as an earthquake or tsunami. This broadcast information is transmitted from the base station to the communication terminal 101 at a constant cycle. Although the communication terminal 101 can receive all the notification information, the power consumption is large when all the notification information is received. Therefore, the communication terminal 101 can also receive reference notification information indicating whether or not there is a change point of the notification information, which is a part of the notification information. For example, in PHS, the transmission timing of broadcast information is every 100 milliseconds, and the reception timing of reference broadcast information is every 1.2 seconds. The internal power supply 105 supplies power to each functional block of the communication terminal 101, and is a battery, for example. The charging unit 106 is for charging the internal power source 105 with the electric power when the electric power is supplied from the outside of the communication terminal 101. The connection unit 107 is for connecting the communication terminal 101 and an external device (not shown), and is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port, for example. The external device is a personal computer or a charger. The communication terminal 101 can receive power from an external device via the connection unit 107. For example, when the communication terminal 101 is connected to an external device with a USB cable, the communication terminal 101 can receive 5V power. The control unit 109 controls and manages the entire communication terminal 101 including each functional block of the communication terminal 101. Here, the control unit 109 is configured as software executed on any suitable processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), or a dedicated processor specialized for each process (for example, DSP (Digital Signal Processor)). Can also be configured.

The control unit 109 will be described in more detail. The control unit 109 controls the wireless communication unit 103 so as to drive the wireless communication unit 103 with power from the internal power source 105 and receive notification information at a predetermined cycle. Further, when power is supplied through the connection unit 107, the control unit 109 drives the wireless communication unit 103 with the power through the connection unit 107 so as to receive the notification information at a cycle shorter than a predetermined cycle. The wireless communication unit 103 is controlled. That is, the control unit 109 changes the timing for receiving the notification information depending on whether or not power is supplied from the external device via the connection unit 107. The control unit 109 increases the drive time of the wireless communication unit 103 and shortens the reception timing of the notification information only when there is external power feeding. Therefore, the power consumption of the internal power supply 105 can be suppressed and the reception timing of the broadcast information can be shortened.

A communication control method performed by the communication terminal 101 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a communication control method performed by a communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a transmission / reception timing diagram of broadcast information when there is external power feeding according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 3, i101 to i117 represent transmission timings of broadcast information by the base station. The notification information of i101 to i104 does not include a disaster warning in the notification information, and i105 to i117 include a disaster warning in the notification information. i102 and i114 represent the reception timing of a part of the reference notification information of the notification information by the communication terminal. The reference notification information of i102 indicates that there is no change in the notification information, and the reference notification information of i114 indicates that there is a change in the notification information.

The control unit 109 detects power supply via the connection unit 107, that is, the presence or absence of external power supply (step S101). When there is no external power supply (No in step S101), the control unit 109 supplies the power from the internal power source 105 to the low noise amplifier via the regulator, and drives the wireless communication unit 103 (step S102). Then, the wireless communication unit 103 receives the reference notification information (notification information) at a predetermined cycle (step S103).

The control unit 109 confirms whether or not the notification information has been changed from the reference notification information (step S104). If there is no change in the notification information (No in step S104), the reference notification information is continuously received at a predetermined cycle (step S103). When there is a change in the broadcast information (Yes in step S104), the wireless communication unit 103 receives the broadcast information transmitted from the base station next to the reference broadcast information and confirms the change content of the broadcast information (step S104). S105). If the wireless communication unit 103 receives not the reference notification information but the notification information in step S103, step S105 is not necessary.

In step S101, when there is an external power supply (Yes in step S101), the control unit 109 supplies power from the external power supply to the low noise amplifier via the regulator, and drives the wireless communication unit 103 (step S106). At this time, the control unit 109 can stop the power supply from the internal power supply 105 (step S107). Note that the present invention is not limited to stopping the power supply of the internal power supply 105, and the control unit 109 can drive the wireless communication unit 103 by both the power supply of the internal power supply 105 and the external power supply.

And the radio | wireless communication part 103 receives alerting | reporting information with a period shorter than the predetermined period in step 103 (step S108). For example, as shown in FIG. 3, all notification information (notification information of i104 to i117) after the start of external power feeding is received. As shown in FIG. 3, it is assumed that a disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami is predicted and a disaster warning is generated after the transmission timing of the second notification information (i104) from a certain reference notification information (i102). At this time, the control unit 109 can recognize the content of the disaster alarm by receiving the third notification information (i105). In the case of PHS, the disaster alarm content recognition delay time is a maximum of 100 milliseconds.

When the internal power source 105 is a secondary battery, the control unit 109 can control the charging unit 106 so that the internal power source 105 is charged using external power feeding (step S109).

As long as there is an external power supply through the connection unit 107 (Yes in step S110), steps S108 to S109 are repeated.

When there is no external power supply through the connection unit 107 (No in step S110), the control unit 109 stops charging the internal power source 105 (step S111) and resumes power supply from the internal power source 105 (step S112). And the radio | wireless communication part 103 will receive reference | standard alerting | reporting information with the predetermined period in step S103 again.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the control unit 109 of the communication terminal 101 drives the wireless communication unit 103 with the power from the internal power source 105 and controls the wireless communication unit 103 so as to receive broadcast information at a predetermined cycle. In addition, when power is supplied through the connection unit 107, the wireless communication unit 103 is driven by the power through the connection unit 107 so that the notification information is received at a cycle shorter than a predetermined cycle. The unit 103 is controlled. That is, using the power supply (external power supply) via the connection unit 107, the broadcast information reception interval is shortened. Therefore, the power of the internal power supply 105 is not consumed to shorten the reception timing of the broadcast information. Therefore, the reception timing of the notification information can be shortened while suppressing the power consumption of the internal power supply 105 of the communication terminal 101.

In the present embodiment, when power is supplied via the connection unit 107, the control unit 109 stops power supply from the internal power source 105. That is, all functions of the communication terminal 101 are realized by external power feeding. Therefore, the user can continue to use the communication terminal 101 as long as there is external power feeding.

In the present embodiment, the notification information includes emergency information. The more urgent information is, the more the communication terminal 101 needs to quickly recognize the information content and notify the user. In case of emergency, it is assumed that the fire department, police, emergency center, etc. will be contacted to request first aid and rescue, and family members will be contacted to convey their own safety. The need for storage increases. Therefore, it is particularly effective when the notification information is emergency information that the reception timing of the notification information can be shortened while suppressing the power consumption of the internal power supply 105.

Although the present invention has been described based on the drawings and examples, it should be noted that those skilled in the art can easily make various changes and modifications based on the present disclosure. Therefore, it should be noted that these variations and modifications are included in the scope of the present invention.

For example, functions included in each member, each means, each step, etc. can be rearranged so as not to be logically contradictory, and a plurality of means, steps, etc. can be combined or divided into one. Is possible.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Communication terminal 103 Wireless communication part 105 Internal power supply 106 Charging part 107 Connection part 109 Control part i1-i17, i21-i37, i101-i117 Notification information transmission timing

Claims (4)

An internal power supply,
A wireless communication unit;
A connection for connecting to an external device;
-Driving the wireless communication unit with power from the internal power supply, controlling the wireless communication unit to receive broadcast information at a predetermined period;
-When power is supplied through the connection unit, the wireless communication unit is driven by the power through the connection unit, and the wireless communication is received at a cycle shorter than the predetermined cycle. A communication terminal comprising a control unit for controlling the unit. The communication terminal according to claim 1,
The control unit stops power feeding from the internal power supply when power is supplied through the connection unit. The communication terminal according to claim 1,
The communication information includes emergency information. In a communication control method in a communication terminal including an internal power supply and a wireless communication unit,
Driving the wireless communication unit with power from the internal power source and receiving notification information at a predetermined period;
When power is supplied to the communication terminal from the outside of the communication terminal, the communication control method includes a step of driving the wireless communication unit with the power and receiving notification information in a cycle shorter than the predetermined cycle.

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