Downloading server and mobile station using local-area wireless communication

• US 20030171094A1
• Filed: 02/11/2003
• Published: 09/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Kawai, Takeo
• Granted Patent: US 6,959,173 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/3.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/22 Negotiating communication rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/006 with additional information processing, e.g. for direction or speed determination
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/10 Small scale networks; Flat hierarchical networks

Abstract

A server downloads data to a mobile station mounted in a vehicle through a roadside device using dedicated short range communication (DSRC). The server is capable of computing downloading transmission rate from the roadside device to the mobile station and maximum speed of the vehicle that enables completion of the downloading of the data to the mobile station. The maximum speed is computed based on the computed downloading transmission rate, a communication area of the roadside device, and size of the data. The server is further capable of notifying the maximum speed to the mobile station. By contrast, the mobile station is capable of transmitting information relating to the data to the server, receiving the data to be downloaded in the communication area of the roadside device, and notifying the maximum speed received from the server to a crew of the vehicle.

Claims

1. A downloading server for downloading data, using local-area wireless communication, to a mobile station through one of a plurality of base stations having local-area wireless communication areas, the downloading server comprising:

data-related information receiving means for receiving, from the mobile station, data-related information relating to the data;

speed-condition computing means for computing, based on size of the data, speed-condition of the mobile station, wherein the speed-condition enables the downloading of the data to the mobile station to be completed; and

speed-condition transmitting means for transmitting the speed-condition to the mobile station.

2. A downloading server according to claim 1, further comprising:

transmission rate estimating means for estimating a transmission rate of the downloading of the data,

wherein the speed-condition computing means computes the speed-condition based on each communication area of the plurality of the base stations, the size of the data, and the transmission rate.

3. A downloading server according to claim 2,

wherein the transmission rate estimating means estimates the transmission rate for the downloading of the data based on an averaged transmission rate, for a recent predetermined period, for the downloading of the data from each base station.

4. A downloading server according to claim 1,

wherein the data-related information and the speed-condition are received and transmitted respectively through wide-area wireless communication.

5. A downloading server according to claim 1, further comprising:

base station selecting means for selecting, from the plurality of the base stations, a given base station through which the data are to be downloaded to the mobile station,

wherein the given base station is selected based on current position information of the mobile station, wherein the current position is received from the mobile station.

6. A mobile station which has a crew and to which data are downloaded through one of a plurality of base stations having local-area wireless communication areas from a downloading server including:

data-related information receiving means for receiving, from the mobile station, data-related information relating to the data;

speed-condition computing means for computing, based on size of the data, speed-condition of the mobile station, wherein the speed-condition enables the downloading of the data to be completed; and

speed-condition transmitting means for transmitting the speed-condition to the mobile station, the mobile station comprising;

local-area wireless communication means for receiving the data through local-area wireless communication in the communication area of one of the plurality of the base stations;

data-related information transmitting means for transmitting the data-related information to the downloading server; and

speed-condition notifying means for notifying the crew of the speed-condition received from the downloading server.

7. A mobile station according to claim 6,

wherein the data-related information and the speed-condition are transmitted and received respectively through wide-area wireless communication.

8. A mobile station which has a crew and to which data are downloaded through one of a plurality of base stations having local-area wireless communication areas from a downloading server including:

data-related information receiving means for receiving, from the mobile station, data-related information relating to the data;

base station selecting means for selecting, from the plurality of the base stations, a given base station through which the data are downloaded to the mobile station, based on current position information of the mobile station;

speed-condition computing means for computing, based on size of the data and information of the selected given base station, speed-condition of the mobile station, wherein the speed-condition enables the downloading of the data to be completed; and

speed-condition transmitting means for transmitting the speed-condition to the mobile station, the mobile station comprising;

local-area wireless communication means for receiving the data through local-area wireless communication in the communication area of one of the plurality of the base stations;

data-related information transmitting means for transmitting the data-related information to the downloading server;

current-position information transmitting means for transmitting to the downloading server the current position information; and

speed-condition notifying means for notifying the crew of the speed-condition received from the downloading server.

9. A mobile station according to claim 8,

wherein the data-related information and the current position information are transmitted through wide-area wireless communication and the speed-condition is received through the wide-area wireless communication.

10. A mobile station which has a crew and to which data are downloaded through a base station having a local-area wireless communication area from a downloading server, the mobile station comprising:

local-area wireless communication means for receiving the data through local-area wireless communication in the communication area of the base station;

data-related information transmitting means for transmitting data-related information, relating to the data, to the downloading server;

base-station-related information receiving means for receiving information relating to the base station and size of the data, both of which the downloading server replies based on the transmitted data-related information; and

speed-condition notifying means for notifying the crew of speed-condition that enables the downloading of the data to be completed, wherein the speed-condition is computed based on the information relating to the base station and size of the data.

11. A mobile station according to claim 10,

wherein the information relating to the base station includes information relating to the communication area of the base station and information relating to a transmission rate of the base station, and

wherein the speed-condition notifying means computes the speed-condition, to notify to the crew, based on the size of the data, the information relating to the communication area of the base station, and the information relating to the transmission rate of the base station.

12. A mobile station according to claim 11,

wherein the information relating to the transmission rate includes an averaged downloading transmission rate for a recent predetermined period, and

wherein the speed-condition notifying means computes the speed-condition, to notify to the crew, based on the size of the data, the information relating to the communication area of the base station, and the averaged downloading transmission rate of the base station.

13. A mobile station according to claim 10,

wherein the data-related information and the base-station-related information are transmitted and received respectively through wide-area wireless communication.

14. A data-downloading method for downloading data, using local-area wireless communication, to a mobile station, which has a crew, from a downloading server through one of a plurality of base stations having local-area wireless communication areas, the method comprising steps of:

transmitting data-related information relating to the data from the mobile station to the downloading server;

obtaining in the downloading server, based on the data-related information, information relating to a given base station through which the data are to be downloaded and size of the data;

computing, in at least either of the mobile station and the downloading server, speed-condition that enables the downloading of the data to the mobile station to be completed, based on the information relating to the given base station and the size of the data; and

notifying the computed speed-condition to the crew.