COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND COMMUNICATION METHOD IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

A communication apparatus and a communication method in a wireless communication network are disclosed. A frame-transmitting/receiving unit transmits a frame to another terminal of the wireless communication network or receives a frame another terminal. A transmission rate-measuring unit measures the transmission rate used in a transmission channel of a transmission terminal which transmits a frame to a receiving terminal, the destination of the frame to be transmitted, the transmission rate used in the transmission channel of the receiving terminal, and the transmission rate used in the transmission channel between the transmission terminal and the receiving terminal. A relay target terminal determination unit calculates a first transmission delay in the event data is directly transmitted from the transmission terminal to the receiving terminal on the basis of the measured transmission rate and a second transmission delay in the event data is transmitted from the transmission terminal to the receiving terminal when a relay transmission is performed by a cooperation communication, and determines the transmission terminal as a relay target terminal for providing the cooperation communication if the second transmission delay is smaller than the first transmission delay. A relay control unit enables the identification number of the relay target terminal to be included in a first data frame transmitted to the receiving terminal by the frame-transmitting/receiving unit, enables a relay frame which indicates the start of the cooperation communication to be transmitted to the receiving terminal when a request frame indicating the use of the cooperation communication is received from the relay target terminal, and enables a second data frame transmitted from the relay target terminal to be transmitted to the receiving terminal when a response frame indicating that the cooperation communication is enabled is received from the receiving terminal. The present invention reduces overhead caused by the cooperation communication.