Connection State Estimating Device, Connection State Estimating Method and Storage Medium

A connection state estimating device comprising:

• inter-device distance acquiring means for acquiring a network distance between respective devices in a communication network including a plurality of devices;
• candidate distance calculating means for assuming branch point candidates at which three devices extracted from the plurality of devices are connected together and calculating the network distance between each of the assumed branch point candidates and each of the extracted three devices;
• grouping means for classifying all the branch point candidates assumed to be connected with one of the devices into groups on the basis of the network distance between one of the devices and each branch point candidate;
• representative value calculating means for calculating representative values of the network distances calculated using the candidate distance calculating means per group of the branch point candidates classified using the grouping means and per device assumed to be connected with each of the branch point candidates belonging to one of the groups;
• and
• network connection state estimating means for selecting one or more devices from within the devices assumed to be connected with any one of all the branch point candidates and the representative value relating to each device on the basis of a result of calculation of the representative value obtained for each device and regarding the representative value relating to each of the selected devices as the network distances between each of the selected devices and the one branch point candidate, established as a branch point, at which all the selected devices are connected together.

A connection state estimating method comprising the steps of:

• acquiring a network distance between respective devices in a communication network including a plurality of devices using inter-device distance acquiring means;
• assuming branch point candidates at which three devices extracted from the plurality of devices are connected together and calculating the network distance between each of the assumed branch point candidates and each of the extracted three devices using candidate distance calculating means;
• classifying all the branch point candidates assumed to be connected with one of the devices into groups on the basis of the network distance between one of the devices and each branch point candidate using grouping means;
• calculating representative values of the network distances calculated using the candidate distance calculating means per group of the branch point candidates classified using the grouping means and per device assumed to be connected with each of the branch point candidates belonging to one of the groups using representative value calculating means;
• and
• selecting one or more devices from within the devices assumed to be connected with any one of all the branch point candidates and the representative value relating to each device on the basis of a result of calculation of the representative value obtained for each device and regarding the representative value relating to each of the selected devices as the network distances between each of the selected devices and the one branch point candidate, established as a branch point, at which all the selected devices are connected together using network connection state estimating means.