Recently, a study has been made in which remote control is performed by performing communication with a remote apparatus that is connected in a radio manner. The radio connection makes it possible to start or stop an operation or give a command or the like by grasping an operation state or the like of the remote apparatus.
For example, a study has been made in which an apparatus with a radio communication function is mounted, for example, in a motor vehicle that is to run, and the apparatus is remotely controlled on the basis of a video image captured by a camera oriented in a direction in which the motor vehicle runs. As the remote control is realized, a person who controls the apparatus does not need to be in the same motor vehicle, so that efficiency of a series of operations is improved.
In the example described above, since an apparatus (remotely controlled apparatus) that is to be remotely controlled has been mounted in the motor vehicle that is running, a technique for low-delay remote control is required. In addition, the video image captured by the camera needs to be transmitted to an apparatus (a remote controlling apparatus, a remote controller, or a remote control) that the person who performs the remote control has.
That is, the following two technical requirements need to be satisfied in order to improve efficiency. First, communication from the remote controlling apparatus to the remotely controlled apparatus needs to satisfy a predetermined low-delay performance. Second, communication from the remotely controlled apparatus to the remote controlling apparatus needs to satisfy a predetermined communication capacity and further satisfy the lowest-possible-delay performance.
For example, in a case where a distance between the remote controlling apparatus and the remotely controlled apparatus is short and the apparatuses are connected to each other in a system, such as wireless LAN or Bluetooth (registered trademark), in which short-range communication is assumed, it is considered that the technical requirements described above are able to be satisfied relatively easily. However, it is reasonable to assume that the remote control is generally performed when one goes away and is difficult to perform control or when one goes away and efficiency of control is significantly reduced.
In a case where the distance between the remote controlling apparatus and the remotely controlled apparatus is long, a system with a large coverage, such as an LTE (Long Term Evolution) system whose standardization is under way in the 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) or a WiMAX (registered trademark) system, is suitably used. In the LTE system, a macro cell (eNB, base station apparatus) manages a wide coverage and the remotely controlled apparatus and the remote controlling apparatus are able to perform communication via the macro cell. In the LTE system, Prose (D2D, Device to Device, direct communication, apparatus-to-apparatus communication, device-to-device communication, or the like) is prescribed, and the remote controlling apparatus and the remotely controlled apparatus perform direct communication, so that a low-delay system is realized. PTL 1 discloses an invention in which direct communication and indirect communication (relaying communication, relay, or the like) which uses a relaying station are switched on the basis of cost of the communication.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds