The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus.
Conventionally, when information processing apparatuses are connected to each other without using wired cables, a short-range wireless communication technique such as infra-red communication or Bluetooth (registered trademark) is used. For example, when Bluetooth (registered trademark) devices are wirelessly connected and used, “pairing” is first required. In pairing, information (hereinafter, referred to as advertising packet) required for wireless connection of a Bluetooth (registered trademark) device is registered in a Bluetooth (registered trademark) device to be the partner of the wireless connection. This allows a Bluetooth (registered trademark) device to be recognized.
In the field of such short-range wireless communication technologies, accompanying the spread of IoT (Internet of Things) in recent years, studies and developments to reduce power consumption have been promoted. For example, a wireless communication technique of ultra-low power consumption such as BLE (Bluetooth (registered trademark) Low Energy) has also been developed in which, although the communication range is short and the communication speed is low, the operation is possible for several years without battery replacement. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a technique of an information processing apparatus that includes a unique identifier (IDm) in an advertising packet and performs broadcast communication by BLE. Furthermore, Patent Document 2 discloses a technique of a communication apparatus for controlling BLE based on an event.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2018-23072
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2017-208617
However, in the case of the conventional technique, when there is a plurality of devices (hereinafter referred to as “BLE devices”) to be wireless connection partners by BLE, the following problem occurs. That is, in the case of the conventional technique, as shown in
However, in a case in which the BLE devices displayed as the candidate connection destinations on the screen of the BLE device are the same type, it is difficult to identify them. For example, when the BLE device B and the BLE device C shown in
The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and has an object of making it possible to distinguish a pairing partner among a plurality of apparatuses.
In order to achieve the above object, an information processing apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention is an information processing apparatus performing information communication for one or more other information processing apparatuses, each performing a predetermined function, and the information processing apparatus includes a pairing unit configured to start, using acquisition of information as specifying information that can specify one other information processing apparatus among the one or more other information processing apparatuses as a trigger, processing of acquiring information necessary for pairing to be transmitted from the one other information processing apparatus as pairing information; and perform pairing with the one other information processing apparatus by using the pairing information acquired.
Furthermore, in order to achieve the above object, an information processing apparatus according to another aspect of the present invention is an information processing apparatus performing information communication with other information processing apparatuses for performing a predetermined function, and the information processing apparatus includes a pairing unit configured to execute, using acquisition of information as specifying information that can specify the information processing apparatus by the other information processing apparatus as a trigger, control for transmitting information necessary for pairing to be executed in the other information processing apparatus to the other information processing apparatus as pairing information.
According to the present invention, it is possible to distinguish a pairing partner from among a plurality of apparatuses.
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
The peripheral terminal 2 is a hardware device to be used in connection with the functional module 3, and performs pairing with the central terminal 1 in short-range wireless communication. In short, pairing refers to causing the central terminal 1 to recognize the type, connection state, and the like of the peripheral terminal 2 and the functional module 3 connected thereto by using the short-range wireless communication. More specifically, for example, pairing in BLE refers to processing of registering, in the central terminal 1, an advertising packet transmitted from a peripheral terminal 2-K that is to be wirelessly connected to the central terminal 1, as described above. It should be noted that, in the following description, pairing in BLE shall be performed. That is, the central terminal 1 performs pairing with a predetermined peripheral terminal 2-K (K is any integer value from 1 to m) to thereby recognize the peripheral terminal 2-K and a predetermined functional module 3-K connected to the peripheral terminal 2-K. The functional module 3-K is, for example, a hardware device composed of various sensors such as a temperature sensor, an operating device such as a buzzer, and a driving device such as a motor or a fan.
The central terminal 1 includes a predetermined hardware device or the like. The central terminal 1 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 21, ROM (Read Only Memory) 22, RAM (Random Access Memory) 23, a bus 24, an input/output interface 25, a touch operation input unit 26, a display unit 27, an input unit 28, a storage unit 29, a first short-range wireless communication unit 30, a second short-range wireless communication unit 31, a communication unit 32, a drive 33, and a removable medium 34.
The CPU 21 executes various kinds of processing according to a program recorded in the ROM 22 or a program loaded into the RAM 23 from the storage unit 29. In the RAM 23, information required for the CPU 21 to perform various kinds of processing is also stored as appropriate.
The CPU 21, the ROM 22, and the RAM 23 are interconnected via the bus 24. An input/output interface 25 is also connected to the bus 24. The touch operation input unit 26, the display unit 27, the input unit 28, the storage unit 29, the first short-range wireless communication unit 30, the second short-range wireless communication unit 31, the communication unit 32, and the drive 33 are connected to the input/output interface 25.
The touch operation input unit 26 is composed of, for example, a position input sensor of the capacitive type or the resistive film type (pressure sensitive type) stacked on the display unit 27, and detects the coordinates of the position where the touch operation is performed. The display unit 27 is composed of a display such as a liquid crystal, and displays various kinds of images such as an image relating to program production. Thus, in the present embodiment, the touch panel is composed of the touch operation input unit 26 and the display unit 27.
The input unit 28 is composed of various kinds of hardware and the like, and inputs various kinds of information according to an instruction and operation of the user. The storage unit 29 is composed of a hard disk, DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) or the like, and stores various kinds of information. The first short-range wireless communication unit 30 executes control for performing short-range wireless communication in a method according to, for example, NFC (Near-Field Communication) (registered trademark) standard. The second short-range wireless communication unit 31 executes control for performing short-range wireless communication in a method according to, for example, the BLE (Bluetooth (registered trademark) Low Energy) standard. In the present embodiment, as described above, the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 perform pairing by short-range wireless communication in a method according to the BLE standard. The communication unit 32 controls communication with other devices via the Internet or the like, independently of the first short-range wireless communication unit 30 and the second short-range wireless communication unit 31.
The drive 33 is provided as necessary. The removable medium 34 composed of a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like is appropriately mounted on the drive 33. Programs read from the removable medium 34 by the drive 33 is installed in the storage unit 29 as necessary. Furthermore, the removable medium 34 can also store various kinds of information stored in the storage unit 29 in the same manner as the storage unit 29.
The peripheral terminal 2 is composed of a predetermined hardware device or the like. The peripheral terminal 2 includes a CPU 41, ROM 42, RAM 43, a bus 44, a first short-range wireless communication unit 45, a second short-range wireless communication unit 46, a connection unit 47, and a power supply unit 48.
In the configuration of the peripheral terminal 2, the CPU 41, the ROM 42, the RAM 43, the bus 44, the first short-range wireless communication unit 45, and the second short-range wireless communication unit 46 are basically the same as the configurations of the central terminal 1, and thus will not be described here.
The connection unit 47 provides connection with other hardware devices (e.g., the functional module 3 of
Although not shown, the functional module 3 in the information processing system of
The wireless connection processing can be executed by the cooperation of various kinds of hardware and various kinds of software of the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2. Here, the wireless connection processing refers to processing of wirelessly connecting the peripheral terminal 2 to the central terminal 1.
(Functional Configuration)
The central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 have functional configurations as shown in
(Central Terminal)
As shown in
The pairing unit 101 performs pairing between the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 via the second short-range wireless communication unit 31 using wireless communication with the central terminal 1 by the first short-range wireless communication unit 30 as a trigger. The pairing unit 101 includes a reading control unit 111, a detection unit 112, a pairing execution unit 113, and a connection confirmation unit 114.
The reading control unit 111 executes control for reading information for uniquely specifying one peripheral terminal 2 among the peripheral terminals 2-1 to 2-m (hereinafter referred to as “individual identification information”). More specifically, the reading control unit 111 executes control for reading the individual identification information of one peripheral terminal 2 by short-range wireless communication using NFC (registered trademark) via the first short-range wireless communication unit 30.
The detection unit 112 detects that the individual identification information of the peripheral terminal 2 has been read by the reading control unit 111.
The pairing execution unit 113 acquires the advertising packet transmitted from the peripheral terminal 2 by the short-range wireless communication by BLE using the detection by the detection unit 112 as a trigger through the second short-range wireless communication unit 31, and executes pairing with the one peripheral terminal 2 from which the individual identification information is read.
The connection confirmation unit 114 confirms the type and connection status of the peripheral terminal 2 paired with the central terminal 1 and the functional module 3 connected thereto.
A program creation unit 102 accepts a touch operation by a user and actually creates a program. Here, the program causes the functional module 3 connected to the paired peripheral terminal 2 to perform a predetermined function. The program execution unit 103 extracts a program desired to be executed by the user from the programs created by the program creation unit 102, and executes the extracted program. That is, the program execution unit 103 transmits the execution result (such as a command) of the created program to the peripheral terminal 2 and the functional module 3, to cause the functional module 3 to perform a function.
The display control unit 104 executes control for displaying various kinds of information and the like on the display unit 27. For example, the display control unit 104 may also execute control to display the type of the functional module 3 and the connection status confirmed by the connection confirmation unit 114 on the display unit 27.
The communication control unit 105 performs control and the like for transmitting various kinds of information to the peripheral terminal 2 via the first short-range wireless communication unit 30 or the second short-range wireless communication unit 31.
(Peripheral Terminal)
As shown in
The terminal communication control unit 202 executes control and the like for acquiring various kinds of information transmitted from the central terminal 1 via the second short-range wireless communication unit 46.
When the peripheral terminal 2 and the functional module 3 are connected via the connection unit 47, the functional module communication control unit 203 executes control of communication with the functional module 3.
The main control unit 204 executes main control of various kinds of processing executed by the peripheral terminal 2.
Next, the pairing performed between the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 having the functional configuration shown in
In the example of
Therefore, the user may perform an operation of bringing one of the two peripheral terminals 2-1 and 2-2 that desires pairing (for example, the peripheral terminal 2-2) into contact with or close to the central terminal 1. In this case, the first short-range wireless communication unit 45 of the peripheral terminal 2-2 and the first short-range wireless communication unit 30 of the central terminal 1 perform short-range wireless communication by NFC (registered trademark). An event in which such a central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 (the peripheral terminal 2-2 in this example) are brought into contact with or close to each other to perform short-range wireless communication by NFC (registered trademark) is, hereinafter, referred to as a “touch event”. If the touch event is performed by the peripheral terminal 2-2, the central terminal 1 can determine that the peripheral terminal 2-2 is to be paired.
However, in order to perform pairing between the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2-2, it is necessary for the advertising packet of the peripheral terminal 2-2 to be transmitted after the touch event and during the scanning of the central terminal 1. Therefore, if the scan timing of the central terminal 1 and the transmission timing of the advertising packet of the peripheral terminal 2-2 do not match properly, it takes time from the time the touch event is performed until the pairing between the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2-2 is performed. That is, a first problem arises in that the pairing time becomes longer.
Therefore, in order to solve the first problem, the scanning time by the central terminal 1 may be increased or the scanning interval may be reduced to thereby easily acquire the advertising packet to be transmitted from the peripheral terminal 2-2. However, in this case, since the time for scanning by the central terminal 1 becomes longer in total, a second problem arises in that the power consumption increases. In order to solve the second problem, power consumption can be reduced by reducing the scanning time in total by the central terminal 1. However, the first problem arises conversely.
Furthermore, in order to solve the first problem, the interval for the transmission of the advertising packet by the peripheral terminal 2-2 may be reduced so that the central terminal 1 easily acquires the transmitted advertising packet. However, since the total number of times of transmission by the peripheral terminal 2-2 increases, the second problem arises in that power consumption increases. In order to solve the second problem, if the time required for pairing is increased, the number of transmissions by the peripheral terminal 2-2 may be reduced in total. However, the first problem arises conversely.
Therefore, in order to solve the first problem and the second problem at the same time, the pairing of the example in
As shown in
In this manner, the central terminal 1 can immediately perform pairing with one peripheral terminal 2 (the peripheral terminal 2-2 in the example of
While one embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and modifications, improvements, and the like within a scope which can achieve the object of the present invention are included in the present invention.
For example, in the above-described embodiments, the central terminal 1 performs only scanning and the peripheral terminal 2 performs only packet transmission. However, the present invention is not limited to this configuration. Both the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 may be configured to perform both scanning and packet transmission. In this case, pairing can be performed more efficiently.
In the examples of
Furthermore, for example, in the above-described embodiments, the pairing between the central terminal 1 and the peripheral terminal 2 is performed by short-range wireless communication according to the BLE standard. However, the present invention is not particularly limited thereto. The pairing is not limited to short-range wireless communication, and may be performed by any means.
Furthermore, for example, in the above-described embodiments, both the number of peripheral terminals 2 and the number of functional modules 3 have been described using the symbol m. However, the present invention is not particularly limited thereto. That is, the number of peripheral terminals 2 and the number of functional modules 3 may be the same or differ. That is, s-number of (s is an arbitrary integer value of 1 or more) functional modules 3 may be connected to one peripheral terminal 2.
For example, the series of processing described above can be executed by hardware or software. In other words, the functional configuration of
Furthermore, for example, when a series of processing is executed by software, a program comprising the software is installed on a computer or the like from a network or a recording medium. The computer may be a computer embedded in dedicated hardware. Furthermore, the computer may be a computer capable of performing various kinds of functions by installing various programs and, for example, may be a general-purpose smartphone or a personal computer of the server.
Furthermore, for example, a recording medium including such a program is not only composed of a removable medium (not shown) which is distributed separately from the device main body in order to provide the program to the user, but also composed of a recording medium or the like which is provided to the user in a state in which the recording medium is incorporated in the apparatus main body in advance.
It should be noted that, in the present specification, the step of writing a program recorded on a recording medium includes not only processing performed in a time series following this order, but also processing performed in parallel or individually, even though the processing is not necessarily performed in a time series. In addition, in the present specification, the term “system” is intended to mean an overall device composed of a plurality of devices, a plurality of means, and the like.
In other words, the information processing apparatus to which the present invention is applied can assume various embodiments having the following configurations. In other words, an information processing apparatus (for example, the central terminal 1 of
Furthermore, an information processing apparatus to which the present invention is applied (for example, the peripheral terminal 2 of
This makes it possible to distinguish a pairing partner from among a plurality of apparatuses. Furthermore, as described above with reference to
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2018-117367 | Jun 2018 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP2019/023142 | 6/11/2019 | WO | 00 |