Analysis of connection patterns in a communication network

A network node for a communication network comprising a plurality of communication devices, configured for finding temporally connected connection patterns of the communication devices in the network, the network node comprising:

• processor circuitry;
• and
• a storage unit storing instructions executable by said processor circuitry whereby said network node is operative to:
• identify signalling between the communication devices during a predefined time duration to form a main communication graph in which the plurality of communication devices are nodes;
• partition the main communication graph for a time period comprised in said predefined time duration to capture temporally connected signalling between a group of the plurality of communication devices as illustrated in the main communication graph in a partitioned communication graph;
• form at least one subgraph from the partitioned communication graph, said subgraph comprising m nodes corresponding to m communication devices of said group of the plurality of communication devices, wherein m>1;
• construct a binary vector of the subgraph over the time period divided into a plurality of sampling periods corresponding to components in the binary vector such that, for each component in the binary vector, a component value of the component is set to “1” if, in accordance with the subgraph, signalling occurs between at least two of the m communication devices during the sampling period corresponding to the component, and the component value of the component is otherwise set to “0”;
• and
• test whether the signalling between the different m communication devices used for constructing the binary vector is temporally connected by checking that a number of consecutive “0” component values of the components of the binary vector, if any, between any two “1” component values of the components of the binary vector is less than a predefined value.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for finding temporally connected connection patterns of communication devices in a communication network, the computer program comprising computer program code which is able to, when run on processor circuitry of a network node in the communication network, cause the network node to:

• identify signalling between the communication devices during a predefined time duration to form a main communication graph in which the plurality of communication devices are nodes;
• partition the main communication graph for a time period comprised in said predefined time duration to capture temporally connected signalling between a group of the plurality of communication devices as illustrated in the main communication graph in a partitioned communication graph;
• form at least one subgraph from the partitioned communication graph, said subgraph comprising m nodes corresponding to m communication devices of said group of the plurality communication devices, where m>1;
• construct a binary vector of the subgraph over the time period divided into a plurality of sampling periods corresponding to components in the binary vector such that, for each component in the binary vector, a component value of the component is set to “1” if, in accordance with the subgraph, signalling occurs between at least two of the m communication devices during the sampling period corresponding to the component, and the component value of the component is otherwise set to “0”;
• and
• test whether the signalling between the different m communication devices used for constructing the binary vector is temporally connected by checking that a number of consecutive “0” component values of the components of the binary vector, if any, between any two “1” component values of the components of the binary vector is less than a predefined value.