PROXIMITY MEASUREMENT METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DEVICE TO DEVICE COMMUNICATION IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• US 20140160965A1
• Filed: 12/05/2013
• Published: 06/12/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: MOON, Jung Mo, NA, Jee Hyeon, KIM, Dae Ik, PARK, Woo Goo
• Granted Patent: US 9,635,535 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals

Abstract

Disclosed is a proximity measurement method and apparatus for device-to-device (D2D) communication in a mobile communication system. The proximity measurement method may include determining whether a cell identification (ID) is included in a packet received from a gateway, verifying whether the cell ID matches a pre-stored cell ID when the cell ID is included, extracting, from the packet, Internet Protocol addresses of mobile terminals transmitting and receiving the packet when the cell ID matches the pre-stored cell ID, searching for IP addresses matched to the extracted IP addresses based on a proximity list including IP addresses of mobile terminals performing D2D communication, and registering, when the extracted IP addresses are absent in the proximity list, the extracted IP addresses in the proximity list and measuring proximity between the mobile terminals.

Claims

1. A proximity measurement method for device-to-device (D2D) communication in a proximity measurement apparatus, the proximity measurement method comprising:

determining whether a cell identification (ID) is included in a packet received from a gateway;

verifying whether the cell ID matches a pre-stored cell ID when the cell ID is included;

extracting, from the packet, Internet Protocol addresses of mobile terminals transmitting and receiving the packet when the cell ID matches the pre-stored cell ID;

searching for IP addresses matched to the extracted IP addresses based on a proximity list including IP addresses of mobile terminals performing D2D communication; and

registering, when the extracted IP addresses are absent in the proximity list, the extracted IP addresses in the proximity list and measuring proximity between the mobile terminals.

2. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, wherein the pre-stored cell ID includes a cell ID of the proximity measurement apparatus and a cell ID of an adjacent base station.

3. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, wherein the extracting comprises extracting the IP addresses of the mobile terminals from an IP packet in the packet.

4. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, wherein the proximity list includes IP addresses of two pairs of mobile terminals on which D2D communication or proximity measurement is in progress.

5. The proximity measurement method of claim 4, wherein the searching comprises searching for IP addresses of a pair of mobile terminals matched to the extracted IP addresses.

6. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, further comprising:

after the measuring of the proximity,

activating a delay timer to delay the proximity measurement for a preset period of time when the mobile terminals are in a state of being incapable of D2D communication as a result of measuring the proximity.

7. The proximity measurement method of claim 6, wherein the IP addresses of the mobile terminals in the state of being incapable of D2D communication are deleted from the proximity list when the delay timer expires.

8. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, further comprising:

before the determining,

generating a tunnel header including the cell ID when the packet is received from the mobile terminals; and

adding the tunnel header to the packet and transmitting the packet to the gateway.

9. The proximity measurement method of claim 1, further comprising:

after the measuring,

routing the packet between the mobile terminals directly based on the measured proximity.

10. A proximity measurement apparatus for device-to-device (D2D) communication, comprising:

an identification (ID) verification unit to determine whether a cell ID is included in a packet received from a gateway and to verify whether the cell ID matches a pre-stored cell ID when the cell ID is included;

an Internet Protocol (IP) address search unit to extract, from the packet, IP addresses of mobile terminals transmitting and receiving the packet when the cell ID matches the pre-stored cell ID, and to search for IP addresses matched to the extracted IP addresses based on a proximity list including IP addresses of mobile terminals performing D2D communication; and

a proximity measurement unit to, when the extracted IP addresses are absent in the proximity list, register the extracted IP addresses in the proximity list and to measure proximity between the mobile terminals.

11. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

an ID storage unit to store a cell ID of the proximity measurement apparatus and a cell ID of an adjacent base station.

12. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 10, wherein the IP address search unit extracts the IP addresses of the mobile terminals from an IP packet in the packet, and searches for the IP addresses matched to the extracted IP addresses based on the proximity list including IP addresses of two pairs of mobile terminals on which D2D communication or proximity measurement is in progress.

13. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 12, wherein the IP address search unit searches for IP addresses of a pair of mobile terminals matched to the extracted IP addresses based on the proximity list.

14. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 10, wherein the proximity measurement unit activates a delay timer to delay the proximity measurement for a preset period of time when the mobile terminals are in a state of being incapable of D2D communication as a result of measuring the proximity.

15. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 14, wherein the proximity measurement unit to delete, from the proximity list, the IP addresses of the mobile terminals in the state of being incapable of D2D communication as the preset period of time passes.

16. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a tunnel header generation unit to generate a tunnel header including the cell ID when the packet is received from the mobile terminals, to add the tunnel header to the packet, and to transmit the packet to the gateway.

17. The proximity measurement apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a routing unit to route the packet between the mobile terminals directly based on the measured proximity.