Patent ID: 9258240
Filing Date: 2016-02-09
CPC Classification: H04L,H04W

Claim Text:
1. An available bandwidth estimating device configured to estimate an available bandwidth and set a transmission rate of a transmitting device based on the estimated available bandwidth, the device comprising: a hardware processor; a transmission rate acquiring unit, implemented on the hardware processor, for acquiring the transmission rate, which is an amount of data transmitted by a transmitting device per unit time to a receiving device connected so as to be capable of communicating via a communication network; and an available bandwidth estimating unit, implemented on the hardware processor, for estimating the available bandwidth, which is a communication bandwidth available in a communication path between the transmitting device and the receiving device, based on: a mathematical model representing a relation between the available bandwidth and the transmission rate and constructed by assuming that a function including at least one of a term proportional to the available bandwidth and a term proportional to a time derivative of the available bandwidth is equal to a function in which the transmission rate is a variable; and the acquired transmission rate, wherein the mathematical model is constructed by representing the relation between the available bandwidth and the transmission rate by a dynamic model including a mobile body that can move in a preset moving direction and an elastic body that transforms in the moving direction by a movement amount of the mobile body in the moving direction, the mathematical model is constructed on the assumption that external force applied to the mobile body in the moving direction has a magnitude depending on the transmission rate, and that a distance in the moving direction between a preset reference position and a position of the mobile body is the available bandwidth, the mathematical model is constructed on the assumption that elastic force generated by the elastic body has a magnitude of a value as the result of multiplying an amount of movement of the mobile body from a force-free position, which is a position of the mobile body where the elastic force becomes 0, by an elastic modulus, which is a proportionality factor, and that the elastic force works in a direction opposite to a direction in which the mobile body moves from the force-free position, and the available bandwidth estimating device further comprising: