This paper presents a new Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) demodulation method using the Short Time-Discrete Fourier Transform (ST-DFT) analysis to combat large frequency offset with time variation in low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications systems. This demodulation method can demodulate the received signal only by searching for the instantaneous spectrum energy peaks without complicated carrier recovery. In addition, it is insensitive to the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) degradation caused by the excessively wide bandwidth of the receiver front-end band pass filter. Furthermore, the ST-DFT analysis combined with a differential encoding scheme gives FSK demodulation method a potential robustness against large and fast time-varying frequency offset.

In software-based wireless multimedia communications systems, each mobile terminal will be able to select its best-suited transmission format according to its quality of service (QoS) and channel condition. In this paper, we focus attention on "access scheme selectability" in such a software-based system, and discuss the traffic performance improvement due to adaptive access scheme selection. Assuming a software-based TDMA/CDMA system where time division multiple access (TDMA) and direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) schemes are flexibly selectable, we evaluate the traffic performance in terms of average delay with a typical multimedia service model to be supported in future wireless communications systems. In the TDMA/CDMA system, how to determine an appropriate access scheme for a user is a key issue. Therefore, we discuss the selection algorithm for efficiently supporting heterogeneous multimedia services. Our computer simulation results show that the software-based system with a simple access scheme selection algorithm can significantly improve the traffic performance as compared with conventional hardware-based systems.

Many reports have investigated TCP performance over wireless links, where a high and time-invariant frame error rate is assumed for cellular systems. However, the frame error rate is temporally and geographically changeable by fading and interference in cellular systems. On the other hand, SINR-based transmission power control, which is employed for the randomization of frame errors in DS-CDMA cellular systems, can not always work properly depending on the control parameters or the channel characteristics. In this paper, we investigate the TCP performance over the wireless links in a DS-CDMA cellular system by computer simulation. From the simulation results, it has been found that the assumption of random frame error is valid only for a part of the TCP performance even in the system with an SINR-based transmission power control scheme.

It is well known that Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme is robust to frequency selective fading in wireless channels. However, once delayed signals beyond a guard interval of an OFDM symbol are introduced in a channel with large delay spread, inter-symbol interference causes a severe degradation in the transmission performance. In this paper, we propose a novel pre-Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) OFDM adaptive antenna array, which requires only one FFT processor at a receiver, for suppressing such delayed signals. We analytically derive the optimum weights for the beamformer based on the Maximum Signal-to-Noise-and-Interference power Ratio (SNIR) and the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) criteria, respectively. Computer simulation results show its good performance even in a channel where Directions of Arrival (DoAs) of arriving waves are randomly determined.

In wireless links between ground stations and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), wireless signals may be attenuated by obstructions such as buildings. A three-dimensional RSS (Received Signal Strength) map (3D-RSS map), which represents a set of RSSs at various reception points in a three-dimensional area, is a promising geographical database that can be used to design reliable ground-to-air wireless links. The construction of a 3D-RSS map requires higher computational complexity, especially for a large 3D area. In order to sequentially estimate a 3D-RSS map from partial observations of RSS values in the 3D area, we propose a graph Laplacian-based sequential smooth estimator. In the proposed estimator, the 3D area is divided into voxels, and a UAV observes the RSS values at the voxels along a predetermined path. By considering the voxels as vertices in an undirected graph, a measurement graph is dynamically constructed using vertices from which recent observations were obtained and their neighboring vertices, and the 3D-RSS map is sequentially estimated by performing graph Laplacian regularized least square estimation.

In the field of education such as elementary and middle schools, teachers want to take care of schoolchildren during physical trainings and after-school club activities. On the other hand, in the field of sports such as professional and national-level sports, physical or technical trainers want to manage the health, physical and physiological conditions of athletes during exercise trainings in the grounds. In this way, it is required to monitor vital signs for persons during exercises, however, there are several technical problems to be solved in its realization. In this paper, we present the importance and necessity of vital monitoring for persons during exercises, and to make it possible periodically, reliably and in real-time, we present the solutions which we have so far worked out and point out remaining technical challenges in terms of vital/physical sensing, wireless transmission and human interface.

In this paper, we discuss the applicability of H filtering algorithm for a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) in mobile communications environments. A comparison of bit error rate (BER) performance between a H2 filtering (recursive least squares) algorithm-based and an a priori H filtering algorithm-based fractionally-tap-spaced DFEs in various fading channels is presented. Against, our results are rather pessimistic of the H equalizer, namely, as compared with the H2 equalizer, at most the same or a little better BER performance of the H equalizer is obtained only when the ratio of the average received energy per bit to the white noise power spectral density and the normalized fading rate are large enough, especially in Rician fading channels. Moreover, the H equalizer has the problems of how to choose an appropriate prescribed positive value and computational complexity, therefore it may not be considered as an attractive alternative to the H2 equalizer for wireless communications systems.

When we collect vital data from exercisers by putting wireless sensor nodes to them, the reliability of the wireless data collection is dependent on the position of node on the body of exerciser, therefore, in order to determine the suitable body position, it is essential to evaluate the data collection performances by changing the body positions of nodes in experiments involving human subjects. However, their fair comparison is problematic, because the experiments have no repeatability, that is, we cannot evaluate the performances for multiple body positions in an experiment at the same time. In this paper, we predict the performances by a software network simulator. Using two main functions such as a channel state function and a mobility function, the network simulator can repeatedly generate the same channel and mobility conditions for nodes. Numerical result obtained by the network simulator shows that when collecting vital data from twenty two footballers in a game, among three body position such as waist, forearm and calf, the forearm position gives the highest data collection rate and the predicted data collection rates agree well with the ones obtained by an experiment involving real subjects.

In this paper, we propose a novel spatial filtering technique for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals called "VIrtual Subcarrier Assignment (VISA)." Here, virtual subcarrier is a subcarrier which is not used for data transmission. When a wireless terminal is equipped with multiple antennas, VISA can easily achieve a space division multiple access (SDMA) by assigning a different spectral position of virtual subcarrier to a different user. To realize VISA in an already-existing OFDM-based wireless local area network (WLAN), we discuss an antenna weight control method in the preamble of a signal burst format designed for the IEEE802.11a standard and evaluate the bit error rate (BER) performance in typical indoor wireless environments.

Target location estimation is one of many promising applications of wireless sensor networks. However, until now only few studies have examined location estimation performances in real environments. In this paper, we analyze the effect of walking people on target location estimation performance in three experimental locations. The location estimation is based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, and the experimental locations are a corridor of a shopping center, a foyer of a conference center and a laboratory room. The results show that walking people have a positive effect on the location estimation performance if the number of RSSI measurements used in the ML estimation is equal or greater than 3, 2 and 2 in the case of the experiments conducted in the corridor, foyer and laboratory room, respectively. The target location estimation accuracy ranged between 2.8 and 2.3 meters, 2.5 and 2.1 meters, and 1.5 and 1.4 meters in the case of the corridor, foyer and laboratory room, respectively.

Adaptive array antennas, which control their own patterns by means of feed-back or feed-forward control, are effective tools for gain enhancement and interference suppression. However, when applying them to mobile terminals, the problems of hardware complexity and power consumption need to be taken into consideration. One solution is the use of analog device-based adaptive array antennas, such as Reactively Steered Adaptive Array (RESAA) antennas and phased array antennas, which have the attractive characteristics of low cost and power consumption. In this paper, we propose an adaptive beamforming method based on a one-dimension search algorithm for phased array antennas with Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) phase shifters, taking into consideration their slow operating speed due to mechanical structure of the devices. Furthermore, a smoothing processing is introduced to prevent the effect of noise and a multi-resolution alogrithm is proposed to help the system form beams more quickly and stably. Numerical results based on the IEEE 802.11a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standard show that the proposed method has good interference suppression and gain enhancement capabilities in multipath fading channels.

In this letter, we present a space division multiple access (SDMA) approach for IEEE802.11a-based system employing pre-fast Fourier transform (FFT) adaptive array antenna (AAA) at base station (BS). As the core idea, we propose a preamble subcarrier assignment method to generate different preambles for different users using the same signal burst structure defined by IEEE802.11a, by which BS can effectively distinguish each user from other users and accurately estimate the channel impulse response (CIR) for each user. In this way, SDMA can be easily realized with no significant change in IEEE802.11a-based system. The performance of the proposed SDMA system is evaluated by computer simulation using a realistic spatio-temporal indoor wireless channel model.

Phased array antennas are attractive in terms of low cost and power consumption. This paper proposes a controlling scheme based on a bisection method for phased array antennas employing phase shifters with slow switching speed, which is typical for Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) switches. Computer simulation results, assuming the IEEE 802.11a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standard, show that the proposed scheme has good gain enhancement capability in multipath fading channels.

A multicarrier modulation is considered as an effective technique in high speed digital transmission under the multipath fading. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the bit error rate (BER) performance of the multicarrier modulation/differential detection scheme, and show the trade-offs between the BERs and the number of carriers or the guard period to clarify the optimum values to minimize the BER in the number of carriers and the guard period.

This paper describes the post-detection diversity improvement of a binary DPSK system in the fast Rician fading environment encountered in mobile satellite communication system. Firstly, the error probability is presented by a closed form which contains no special functions, then the optimum weighting factors in diversity branches to minimize the bit error rate (BER) are investigated. To minimize the BER, the maximum likelihood ratio detection principle is used for the detector outputs with exponential-type probability density function. Some unknown channel parameters contained in the optimum weighting factors are estimated by the channel estimators in diversity branches. Finally, the theoretical BER performances of three kinds of mobile satellite communication systems (satellite/aircraft, satellite/land mobile and satellite/ship) are presented.

Recently, code division multiple access scheme with time division duplex (CDMA/TDD) has drawn considerable attention as means to realize efficient wireless multimedia communications system. In this paper, we propose two time slot allocation algorithms for CDMA/TDD systems to efficiently accommodate multimedia traffic. Assuming a practical multiple cell environment and a multimedia service model which consists of several kinds of circuit-switched and packet-switched services with different quality of services (QoSs), we evaluate the average delay (average time from call generation to channel assignment) of the CDMA/TDD system with the proposed algorithms, and compare the performance with that of CDMA with frequency division duplex (CDMA/FDD) and time division multiple access with TDD (TDMA/TDD) systems. Our computer simulation results show that the CDMA/TDD system with one of the proposed algorithms, which can effectively avoid interference among users with different QoSs, can improve the average delay performance as compared with the other systems.

This paper presents a wideband differential amplifier operating at 141GHz in 40-nm CMOS. It is composed of five differential common source stages with cross-coupled capacitors. A small-signal gain of 20dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 22GHz are achieved. It consumes 75mW from a 0.94-V voltage supply. The die area with balun and pads is 945×842µm2 and the size of the core not including input/output matching networks is 201×284µm2. The small core area is made possible by using a refined “fishbone” layout technique.