Group host selection method for device-to-device network and control platform for selecting group host

The present disclosure relates to a group host selection method for a network and a control platform for selecting a group host, in particular to a group host selection method for a device-to-device network and a control platform for selecting a group host.

In the first-generation of the Internet of Things (IoT), a gateway device is configured to collect information of the Internet of Things without analysis and computation. Information analysis and computation are processed by a data center in the Internet of Things.

However, with the increasing amount of information in the Internet of Things and a trend of Big Data, research and development on an Internet of Things system with an edge cloud service capable of collecting, analyzing and computing information simultaneously has become important.

The present disclosure provides a group host selection method for a device-to-device network, the device-to-device network includes a user device and a gateway device, and the group host selection method includes the following steps: calculating a signal reception capability corresponding to a transmission path from the gateway device to the user device; calculating a first computation capability of the gateway device; calculating a second computation capability of the user device; and selecting one of the user device and the gateway device in the device-to-device network to be a group host according to the signal reception capability and the first computation capability of the gateway device and the second computation capability of the user device.

In an embodiment, the transmission path includes a plurality of nodes and the signal reception capability is obtained by a set of received signal fading rates of each two adjacent nodes in the transmission path.

In an embodiment, each of the gateway device and the user device includes a processor and a storage unit, the first computation capability is determined by a remaining load rate of the processor of the gateway device and a remaining usage rate of the storage unit of the gateway device, and the second computation capability is determined by a remaining load rate of the processor of the user device and a remaining usage rate of the storage unit of the user device.

In an embodiment, the group host selection method further includes the following steps: calculating a first response capability of the gateway device; and calculating a second response capability of the user device. The first and second response capabilities are calculated by the following formula:

i is equal to 1-2, D i 's are the first and second response capabilities, T i 's are a first delay time of a first communication circuit in the gateway device and a second delay time of a second communication circuit in the user device, T max is a greater one of the first delay time and the second delay time.

Another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a group host selection method for a device-to-device network, the device-to-device network including a first user device, a second user device and a gateway device, the group host selection method including the following steps: calculating a first signal reception capability of the gateway device according to a first parameter corresponding to a first transmission path from the gateway device to the first user device and a second parameter corresponding to a second transmission path from the gateway device to the second user device; calculating a second signal reception capability of the first user device according to a third parameter corresponding to a third transmission path from the first user device to the second user device; and calculating a third signal reception capability of the second user device according to a fourth parameter corresponding to a fourth transmission path from the second user device to the first user device. One of the first user device, the second user device and the gateway device in the device-to-device network is selected to be a group host according to the first to third signal reception capabilities.

Yet another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a control platform selecting a group host in a device-to-device network, the device-to-device network including a first user device, a second user device and a first gateway device, the control platform including: a processing circuit; and a storage circuit storing a determination module. The determination module instructs the processing circuit to select one of the first user device, the second user device and the gateway device to be the group host according to a first signal reception capability calculated by a first parameter corresponding to a first transmission path from the gateway device to the first user device, and a second parameter corresponding to a second transmission path from the gateway device to the second user device, according to a second signal reception capability calculated by a third parameter corresponding to a third transmission path from the first user device to the second user device, and according to a third signal reception capability calculated by a fourth parameter corresponding to a fourth transmission path from the second user device to the first user device.

The present disclosure provides a group host selection method and a control platform selecting a group host in a device-to-device network, and the selected group host may collect, analyze and compute information simultaneously.

To further understand the techniques, means and effects of the present disclosure, the following detailed descriptions and appended drawings are hereby referred to, such that, and through which, the purposes, features and aspects of the present disclosure can be thoroughly and concretely appreciated. However, the appended drawings are provided solely for reference and illustration, without any intention to limit the present disclosure.

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the present disclosure, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1A shows a diagram of a group host selection method for a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1B shows a partial flowchart of the group host selection method of FIG. 1A .

FIG. 2A shows a diagram of a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2B shows a flowchart of a group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 2A .

FIG. 2C shows a flowchart of another group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 2A .

FIG. 3A shows a diagram of a device-to-device network according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B shows a flowchart of a group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 3A .

FIG. 3C shows a flowchart of another group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 3A .

FIG. 4 shows a diagram of a control platform for selecting a group host in the embodiments in FIG. 3A-3C .

FIG. 5 shows a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 shows a device-to-device network according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.

Embodiments of a group host selection method for device-to-device network and control platform for selecting a group host according to the present disclosure are described herein. Other advantages and objectives of the present disclosure can be easily understood by one skilled in the art from the disclosure. The present disclosure can be applied in different embodiments. Various modifications and variations can be made to various details in the description for different applications without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. The drawings of the present disclosure are provided only for simple illustrations, but are not drawn to scale and do not reflect the actual relative dimensions. The following embodiments are provided to describe in detail the concept of the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the scope thereof in any way.

Reference is made to FIG. 1A . FIG. 1A shows a diagram of a group host selection method for a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the group host selection method includes the following steps: step S 100 is transmitting all routing paths between the user devices (UE) in the device-to-device network to all D2D relay gateways (GW) in the device-to-device network; step S 101 is using each D2D relay gateway and user device in the device-to-device network to calculate a signal reception capability of each routing path according to a received signal strength indication (RSSI) of adjacent two devices among D2D relay gateways and user devices; step S 102 is using a control platform to calculate a computation capability of each routing path according to parameters, such as a CPU (processor) usage rate and a memory usage rate of all D2D relay gateways and user devices in the device-to-device network; step S 103 is using the control platform to calculate a response capability of each routing path according to a response time of each D2D relay gateways and user devices in the device-to-device network; step S 104 is using the control platform to select one of the D2D relay gateways and the user devices to be a group host according to the signal reception capability, the computation capability and the response capability of each routing path; and step 105 is using the control platform to install a service application to the group host. Referring to FIG. 1B , FIG. 1B shows a partial flowchart of the group host selection method of FIG. 1A . After step S 104 , step S 105 further includes sending an address of the group host to all devices.

Reference is next made to FIGS. 2A-2C , and FIGS. 3A-3C . FIG. 2A shows a diagram of a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, FIG. 2B shows a flowchart of a group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 2A , FIG. 2C shows a flowchart of another group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 2A , FIG. 3A shows a diagram of a device-to-device network according to another embodiment of the present disclosure, FIG. 3B shows a flowchart of a group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 3A , and FIG. 3C shows a flowchart of another group host selection method for the device-to-device network of the embodiment in FIG. 3A . As shown in FIG. 2A , the device-to-device network includes a user device n 1 and a gateway device m 1 , and a flowchart of the group host selection method shown in FIG. 2B includes the following steps: step S 200 is calculating a signal reception capability S corresponding to a transmission path R from the gateway device m 1 to the user device n 1 ; step S 201 is calculating a first computation capability P 1 of the gateway device m 1 and a second computation capability P 2 of the user device n 1 , and a computation capability of each of the gateway device m 1 and the user device n 1 is calculated by the following formula 1:

P i =a*C i +b*U i ,i∈{m i ˜m M ,n 1 ˜n N },a+b= 1, a,b> 0  (formula 1)

In the embodiment, i is equal to 1-2, P i 's are the computation capabilities, a is a first coefficient, b is a second coefficient, C i 's are remaining load rates of the processor of each of the gateway device and the user device, U i 's are remaining usage rates of the storage unit of each of the gateway device and the user device. A greater C i of a device represents a greater computation capability of the device, a greater U i represents a greater storage capability of the device. For example, the following the remaining load rates of the processors and the remaining usage rates of the storage units of the user device and the gateway device are shown in the following table 1.

The values of C i , U i of the gateway device m 1 and user device n 1 are shown. Next, step S 202 is selecting one of the user device n 1 and the gateway device m 1 in the device-to-device network to be a group host according to the signal reception capability S and the first computation capability P 1 of the gateway device m 1 and the second computation capability P 2 of the user device n 1 .

In the embodiment, the transmission path R includes two nodes, the gateway device m 1 and the user device n 1 respectively represents a node. In the step of calculating the signal reception capability S, a set of the received signal fading rates of each two adjacent nodes in the transmission path is calculated, and the set of the received signal fading rates only includes one received signal fading rate A n1,m1 between the user device n 1 and the gateway device m 1 . The calculation of the signal reception capability S will be described in detail in formulas 2, 3 below.

Preferably, each of the gateway device m 1 and the user device n 1 includes a processor and a storage unit (not shown), the first computation capability P 1 is determined by a remaining load rate of the processor of the gateway device m 1 and a remaining usage rate of the storage unit of the gateway device m 1 , the second computation capability P 2 is determined by a remaining load rate of the processor of the user device n 1 and a remaining usage rate of the storage unit of the user device n 1 .

However, as shown in FIG. 3A , the device-to-device network includes a first user device n 1 , a second user device n 2 and a gateway device m 1 . The flowchart of the group host selection method in FIG. 3B , different from FIG. 2B , includes the following steps: step S 300 is calculating a first signal reception capability S 1 of the gateway device m 1 according to a first parameter r n1,m1 corresponding to a first transmission path R 1 from the gateway device m 1 to the first user device n 1 and a second parameter r m1,n2 corresponding to a second transmission path R 2 from the gateway device m 1 to the second user device n 2 , calculating a second signal reception capability S 2 of the first user device n 1 according to a third parameter r n1,n2 corresponding to a third transmission path R 3 from the first user device n 1 to the second user device n 2 , and calculating a third signal reception capability S 3 of the second user device n 2 according to a fourth parameter r n2,n1 corresponding to a fourth transmission path R 4 from the second user device n 2 to the first user device n 1 ; and step S 301 is selecting one of the first user device n 1 , the second user device n 2 and the gateway device m 1 in the device-to-device network according to the first to third signal reception capabilities S 1 -S 3 to be a group host.

Different from the embodiments in FIGS. 2A, 2B , it should be further noted that each of the first to fourth transmission paths R 1 -R 4 includes a plurality of nodes, in the step of calculating the first signal reception capability S 1 , the second signal reception capability S 2 and the third signal reception capability S 3 , a set of received signal fading rates of each two adjacent nodes in the first to fourth transmission paths R 1 -R 4 are respectively calculated, and the first signal reception capability S 1 is obtained by the set of the received signal fading rates of the first transmission path R 1 and the second transmission path R 2 , the second signal reception capability S 2 is obtained by the set of the received signal fading rates of the third transmission path R 3 , the third signal reception capability S 3 is obtained by the set of the received signal fading rates of the fourth transmission path R 4 .

Preferably, the first to third signal reception capabilities S 1 -S 3 of the first to fourth transmission paths R 1 -R 4 are calculated by the following formula 2 and formula 3:

In the embodiment, S i 's are the signal reception capabilities, i represents a starting node, j represents an ending node, m 1 -m M represent the gateway devices, M represents a number of the gateway devices, M is equal to 1 here, and n 1 -n N represent the user devices, N represents a number of the user devices, N is equal to 2 here, A i,j represents a set of received signal fading rates between two adjacent node s and node t in a transmission path of communication packages from node i to node j, 10 r(s,t)/100 represents the received signal fading rate from node s to node t, Ω i,j represents that any two of the user devices and the gateway device are node s and node t. The formula may be preferably applied in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2A . It should be noted that, since the ending node is UE in the embodiment in FIG. 2A , and there is only one user device, the signal reception capability of the user device n 1 is 0, and the signal reception capability of the gateway device m 1 is greater than 0. If the group host selection method for the device-to-device network is based only on the signal reception capability, the group host would be the gateway device m 1 .

In addition to the signal reception capability, the group host selection method may also use other values of the devices, such as the computation capability or, as shown in FIG. 2C , the group host selection method can further include the following steps: step S 203 is calculating a first response capability of the gateway device m 1 and a second response capability of the user device n 1 . The first and second response capabilities are calculated by the following formula 4:

In the embodiment, D i 's are the first and second response capabilities, T i 's are a first delay time of a first communication circuit in the gateway device and a second delay time of a second communication circuit in the user device, T max is a greater one of the first delay time and the second delay time. Finally, step S 204 is selecting one of the user device n 1 and the gateway device m 1 in the device-to-device network to be a group host according to the signal reception capability S and the first computation capability P 1 of the gateway device m 1 and the second computation capability P 2 of the user device n 1 .

Similarly, the group host selection method of the embodiment shown in FIG. 3C further includes the following steps: step S 302 is calculating a first response capability of the gateway device m 1 ; calculating a second response capability of the first user device n 1 ; and calculating a third response capability of the second user device n 2 . The first response capability, the second response capability and the third response capability is also calculated by the above formula 4.

In the embodiment, i is equal to 1-3, D i 's are the first to third response capabilities, T i 's are respectively a first delay time of a first communication circuit of the gateway device m 1 , a second delay time of a second communication circuit of the first user device n 1 and a third delay time of a third communication circuit of the second user device n 2 , T max is a greatest one of the first delay time, the second delay time and the third delay time, the delay time above coming from a response time of a hardware when a program in the gateway device or the user device sends a command to the hardware; step S 303 is calculating a first computation capability of the gateway device m 1 , calculating a second computation capability of the first user device n 1 , and calculating a third computation capability of the second user device n 2 . Each of the gateway device m 1 , the first user device n 1 and the second user device n 2 in FIG. 3A , as those in FIG. 2A , includes a processor and a storage unit (not shown), and the first to third computation capabilities P 1 -P 3 of the gateway device m 1 , the first user device n 1 and the second user device n 2 are also calculated by the above formula 1 (1 is equal to 1-3 here). Finally, step S 304 is selecting one of the first user device, the second user device and the gateway device in the device-to-device network to be a group host according to the first to third computation capabilities P 1 -P 3 , the first to third response capabilities D 1 -D 3 , and the first to third signal reception capabilities S 1 -S 3 of the first to fourth transmission paths R 1 -R 4 .

Reference is made to FIG. 5 . FIG. 5 shows a device-to-device network according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in FIG. 5 , r n1,m1 , r n1,m2 , r n2,m1 , r n2,m2 , r n1,n2 , r n2,n1 are parameters from a starting node to a ending node (user device n 1 or user device n 2 ), and corresponding parameters A m1,n1 , A m2,n1 , A m1,n2 , A m2,n2 , A n1,n2 , A n2,n1 are calculated by

A i , j = Π ( s , t ) ∈ Ω i , j ⁢ 10 r s , t 100

in the above formula 3:

A m1,n1 =10 −0.5 =0.316

A m1,n2 =10 −0.45 ·10 −0.6 =10 −1.05 =0.089

A m2,n1 =10 −0.45 ·10 −0.5 =10 −0.95 =0.112

A m2,n2 =10 −0.6 =0.251

A n1,n2 =10 −0.5 ·10 −0.45 ·10 −0.6 =10 −1.55 =0.028

A n2,n1 =10 −0.6 ·10 −0.45 ·10 −0.5 =10 −1.55 =0.028

Next, table 2 is obtained by the above formulas 1-4. As shown in the following table 2, a group host is determined by parameters calculated by the following formula 5:

W i =S i +P i +D i   (formula 5)

i is equal to n 1 , n 2 , m 1 , m 2 corresponding to the first and second user devices and the first and second gateway devices. Finally, the device corresponding to the greatest one of W n1 , W n2 , W m1 , W m2 is the group host, and as shown in the order column, the order is W m2 >W m1 >W n2 >W n1 , and the group host is the gateway device m 2 . It should be noted that, formula 5 should not be construed as limiting the scope of present disclosure, different weighting values may be applied to different capabilities depending on design. Similarly, table 3 are the values of the embodiment shown in FIG. 2A .

The group host here is the gateway device in FIG. 2A . Similarly, the device-to-device network may be extended to the embodiment with M gateway devices and N user devices shown in FIG. 6 .

Please refer to FIG. 4 , which shows a diagram of a control platform for selecting a group host in the embodiments in FIGS. 3A-3C . The control platform 4 shown in FIG. 4 for selecting the group host may be applied to the embodiments in FIGS. 3A-3C , the control platform 4 includes a processing circuit 40 and a storage circuit 41 , the storage circuit 41 storing a determination module 410 and a service providing module 411 , and the control platform 4 may be arranged on any device in the device-to-device network. In the embodiment, the control platform 4 is the gateway device m 2 , and the processing circuit 40 is a processor of the gateway device m 2 . The service providing module 411 provides a first service procedure corresponding to a first service to the group host in the device-to-device network, and the group host performs the first service according to the first service procedure. The group host is selected from one of the first user device n 1 , the second user device n 2 and the gateway device m 1 according to a first signal reception capability S 1 calculated by a first parameter r m1,n1 corresponding to a first transmission path R 1 from the gateway device m 1 to the first user device n 1 and a second parameter r m1,n2 corresponding to a second transmission path R 2 from the gateway device m 1 to the second user device n 2 , according to a second signal reception capability S 2 calculated by a third parameter r n1,n2 corresponding to a third transmission path R 3 from the first user device n 1 to the second user device n 2 , and according to a third signal reception capability S 3 calculated by a fourth parameter r n2,n1 corresponding to a fourth transmission path R 4 from the second user device n 2 to the first user device n 1 . The group host performs the first service according to the first service procedure.

The determination module 410 may be implemented with software or hardware, such as a program or a logic circuit, and may be arranged in a storage unit of each of the first user device n 1 , the second user device n 2 and the first gateway device m 1 in the device-to-device network. The control platform 4 for selecting the group host in FIG. 4 may be applied to the embodiments in FIGS. 3A-3C with the same steps described in the FIGS. 3A-3C , so that details thereon are omitted herein.

In summary, the present disclosure selects a group host to collect, analyze and calculate information in the network simultaneously, and the group host selection method may be performed by a program installed in any device in the device-to-device network.

The aforementioned descriptions merely represent the preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, without any intention to limit the scope of the present disclosure which is fully described only within the following claims. Various equivalent changes, alterations or modifications based on the claims of the present disclosure are all, consequently, viewed as being embraced by the scope of the present disclosure.