DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0014] With reference to FIG. 2 , there is shown a system of simulating mobile communication in accordance with the present invention. The system comprises a first machine 10 for simulating a base station controller, two second machines 20 , 30 for simulating base stations, and a plurality of third machines 40 , 50 , 60 , and 70 for simulating mobile stations associated with the base stations. The first, second, and third machines are coupled together by a local area network (LAN). In this embodiment, the LAN is implemented as a well-known Ethernet. As shown, a cell 80 is comprised of the second machine 20 and third machines 40 , 50 , and another cell 90 is comprised of the second machine 30 and third machines 60 , 70 .

[0015] In the Ethernet, each of the first machine 10 , second machines 20 , 30 , and third machines 40 , 50 , 60 and 70 has its own Internet Protocol (IP) address for simulating identification (ID) of mobile devices. IP address of each of the first machine 10 and second machines 20 , 30 is fixed and IP addresses of each of the third machines 40 , 50 , 60 and 70 are dynamically assigned by the first machine 10 . A plurality of different cells are formed in the Ethernet by a plurality of different sub-networks each corresponding to a base station. An association between a mobile station and a cell formed by base station is determined by a dynamically assigned IP address.

[0016] With reference to FIG. 3 , a mobile station simulated by any of the third machines 40 , 50 , 60 , and 70 comprises an upper adaptation layer 101 , a control entity 102 , an event generator 103 , a service entity 104 , a pseudo driver 105 , a network translation program 106 , and a database 107 . The upper adaptation layer 101 is interfaced with a separate upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 . The interfaced upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 comprises a layer 3 (L3) or Radio Resource Control (RRC) 121 and a layer 2 (L2) or Media Access Control (MAC) 122 . Both L3/RRC 121 and L2/MAC 122 are associated with Open System Interconnection (OSI) protocol.

[0017] The control entity 102 is commanded by the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 for setting communication channels and associated physical layer measurement via the upper adaptation layer 101 . The service entity 104 is served to provide services (e.g., channel quality measurement and mapping between transport channel and physical channel) to the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 . The event generator 103 is served to generate simulation events such as event for simulating signal fading or the like so that the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 is capable of testing a handoff procedure or simulating propagation delay or propagation error.

[0018] The pseudo driver 105 is served to send the simulation events to the upper adaptation layer 101 or simulate mobile station driver such as automatic frequency control (AFC) or automatic gain control (AGC). The network translation 106 comprises a translation layer 108 interfaced with the pseudo driver 105 for providing Transport Control Protocol/User Datagram Protocol (TCP/UDP), a network layer 109 for providing a dynamic IP address assignment mechanism, and a driver layer 110 for providing a driver to the Ethernet.

[0019] An enabled mobile station will retrieve information about base station (e.g., radio frequency (RF) and primary scrambling code of broadcasting channel of the base station before shutdown) from a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card at the cell where a previous shutdown was taken place. Such information is sent to a RF component via the L3/RRC 121 of the mobile station for registration at base station. With reference to FIG. 4 , there is shown a flow chart illustrating a process of simulating mobile communication according to the invention. Steps of the process will now be described in detail below. In response to reset of a simulation mobile station, the simulation mobile station enters an initialization so as to fetch a dynamic IP address from the simulation base station controller (step S 401 ).

[0020] An enabled mobile station will retrieve information about base station (e.g., RF and primary scrambling code of broadcasting channel of the base station before shutdown) from the database 107 . Information is sent to the control entity 102 via L3/RRC 121 of the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 . In detail, in response to a receiving of request (REQ) of L3/RRC 121 via the upper adaptation layer 101 , the control entity 102 sends a confirmation (CNF) signal back to L3/RRC 121 for acknowledgement and sends the request (REQ) to the service entity 104 for searching base station.

[0021] In response to a receiving of REQ from the control entity 102 , the service entity 104 calls the associated pseudo driver 105 so as to read corresponding sub-network setting from the database 107 . The pseudo driver 105 may set the network translation 106 , including the translation layer 108 , the network layer 109 , and the driver layer 110 based on the sub-network setting for accessing the Ethernet and in turn for obtaining any assigned dynamic IP address from the simulation first machine 10 (i.e., the base station controller) over the Ethernet.

[0022] In response to the obtaining of dynamic IP address, the simulation mobile station determines whether there exists a simulation base station by receiving a broadcasting packet of the simulation base station (step S 402 ). The simulation base station always broadcasts system information such as RF and primary scrambling code via a broadcasting channel. Thus, in response to the obtaining of dynamic IP address by the simulation mobile station, the broadcasting packet is received by the driver layer 110 and the network layer 109 . The translation layer 108 then filters and obtains the system information by translation. The system information is in turn sent to the pseudo driver 105 which may send indication (IND) to the upper layer adaptation layer 101 for an appropriate protocol data unit (PDU) format translation prior to sending to the L2/MAC 122 of the upper layer protocol 120 for mobile communication. Finally, it is sent to the L3/RRC 121 of the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 for determining whether there exists a corresponding simulation base station.

[0023] The process goes to step S 403 if the determination in step S 402 is positive. Otherwise, the process jumps to step S 407 . In step S 403 , the L3/RRC 121 of the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 will issue a request REQ to the control entity 102 for setting other channels for registration. The control entity 102 then sends the REQ to the service entity 104 . Also, the pseudo driver 105 sets the translation layer 108 for filtering out all packets not belonging to the selected simulation base station. At the same time, the network layer 109 requests the simulation base station controller 10 again to permit it to obtain a dynamic IP address in the sub-network of the simulation base station and establishes an associated channel (Ethernet port) for simulating a cell formed by the simulation base station. Then, the simulation mobile station may perform a registration certification procedure on the simulation base station via the channel.

[0024] In step S 404 , it is determined whether the registration certification procedure is successful. If yes, the process goes to step S 405 . Otherwise, the process jumps to step S 409 .

[0025] In step S 405 , the simulation mobile station enters into a link state for simulating mobile communication. The event generator 103 generates a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) based on a random procedure. The RSSI is in turn sent to the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 by the pseudo driver 105 . Furthermore, the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 determines whether RSSI is larger than a predetermined value. If yes, the process goes to step S 406 . Otherwise, the process jumps to step S 407 . In step S 406 , a handoff is not required. Further, packet receiving and sending are performed for simulating mobile communication. The process then loops back to step S 405 .

[0026] The step S 407 is performed when the determination in step S 402 or S 405 is negative. The upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 will issue a search command to the control entity 102 again for re-searching a simulation base station. Likewise, the control entity 102 will send a command to the service entity 104 . In response to the receiving, the service entity 104 calls the pseudo driver 105 to re-set the translation layer 108 for receiving system information of different simulation base stations on the broadcasting channel to the pseudo driver 105 . Hence, the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 may determine whether there exists a simulation base station based on the system information.

[0027] In step S 408 , it is determined whether there exists a simulation base station. If yes, the process loops back to step S 403 . Otherwise, the process jumps to step S 410 .

[0028] In step S 410 , the simulation mobile station performs a communication error procedure for suspending the service entity 104 , the event generator 103 , the pseudo driver 105 , and the network translation 106 . Only the control entity 102 is able to receive physical layer (L1) system commands (e.g., reset and cell measurement) from the L3/RRC 121 of the upper layer mobile communication protocol 120 . The process is thus terminated.

[0029] In step S 404 , if it determines that the registration certification procedure is fail, the process jumps to step S 409 . In step S 409 , it is determined whether the number of certification failure is larger than a maximum allowable value. If yes, the process loops back to step S 407 . Otherwise, the process loops back to step S 403 .

[0030] From the aforementioned description, the simulation technology for wireless communication of present invention can solve the problem in that associated chipsets have not been developed or are difficult to obtain. Also, it overcomes the problem in inhibiting a complete peer-to-peer verification due to that the corresponding infrastructure for mobile communication has not been established. Because the event generator 103 is provided for simulating the characteristic of the physical layer in present invention, it can perform a simulation of handoff between the base station and the mobile station, and further a simulation of multiple-to-multiple communication.

[0031] Although the present invention has been explained in relation to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.