This paper proposes a novel pre-FFT type OFDM adaptive array antenna called "Eigenvector Combining." The eigenvector combining array antenna is a realization of a post-FFT type OFDM adaptive array antenna through a pre-FFT signal processing, so it can achieve excellent performance with less computational complexity and shorter training symbols. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed eigenvector combining array antenna shows excellent bit error rate performance close to the lower bound just with 2 OFDM symbol-long training symbols.

This paper presents low-noise amplifier (LNA)-less 300-GHz CMOS receivers that operate above the NMOS unity-power-gain frequency, fmax. The receivers consist of a down-conversion mixer with a doubler- or tripler-last multiplier chain that upconverts an LO1/n signal into 300 GHz. The conversion gain of the receiver with the doubler-last multiplier is -19.5 dB and its noise figure, 3-dB bandwidth, and power consumption are 27 dB, 27 GHz, and 0.65 W, respectively. The conversion gain of the receiver with the tripler-last multiplier is -18 dB and its noise figure, 3-dB bandwidth, and power consumption are 25.5 dB, 33 GHz, and 0.41 W, respectively. The receivers achieve a wireless data rate of 32 Gb/s with 16QAM. This shows the potential of the moderate-fmax CMOS technology for ultrahigh-speed THz wireless communications.

We have proposed two space division multiple access (SDMA) approaches for OFDM signals: "Virtual Subcarrier Assignment (VISA)" and "Preamble Subcarrier Assignment (PASA)," both of which can enhance the system capacity without significant change of transmitter/receiver structures for already-existing OFDM-based standards such as IEEE802.11a. In order to investigate the performance of the proposed approaches in real wireless scenarios, we conducted a measurement campaign to obtain real channel state data at 5-GHz band in an indoor environment. Using the measured channel data, we can make the performance evaluation realistic. In this paper, after the brief overview of the two proposed SDMA approaches, we describe our measurement campaign in detail. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of VISA-based system and PASA-based system by computer simulations using the measured channel state data and present a comparative study on the performance of the two proposed SDMA approaches in the realistic wireless environment.

In a centralized localization scenario, the limited throughput of the central node constrains the possible number of target node locations that can be estimated simultaneously. To overcome this limitation, we propose a method which effectively decreases the traffic load associated with target node localization, and therefore increases the possible number of target node locations that can estimated simultaneously in a localization system based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and maximum likelihood estimation. Our proposed method utilizes a threshold which limits the amount of forwarded RSSI data to the central node. As the threshold is crucial to the method, we further propose a method to theoretically determine its value. We experimentally verified the proposed method in various environments and the experimental results revealed that the method can reduce the load by 32-64% without significantly affecting the estimation accuracy.

In a wireless multi-hop network between a source node (S) and a destination node (D), multipath routing in which S redundantly sends the same packets to D through multiple routes at the same time is effective for enhancing the reliability of the wireless data transmission by means of route diversity. However, when applying the multipath routing to a factory where huge robots are moving around, if closer multiple routes are selected, the probability that they are blocked by the robots at the same time becomes higher, so the reliability in terms of packet loss rate cannot be enhanced. In this paper, we propose a multipath routing method which can select physically distant multiple routes without any knowledge on the locations of nodes. We introduce a single metric composed of “the distance between routes” and “the route quality” by means of scalarization in multi-objective maximization problem and apply a genetic algorithm (GA) for searching for adequate routes which maximize the metric. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method can adaptively control the topologies of selected routes between S and D, and effectively reduce the packet loss rates.

This paper presents a compact fully-differential distributed amplifier using a coupled inductor. Differential distributed amplifiers are widely required in optical communication systems. Most of the distributed amplifiers reported in the past are single-ended or pseudo-differential topologies. In addition, the differential distributed amplifiers require many inductors, which increases the silicon cost. In this study, we use differentially coupled inductors to reduce the chip area to less than half and eliminate the difficulties in layout design. The challenge in using coupled inductors is the capacitive parasitic coupling that degrades the flatness of frequency response. To address this challenge, the odd-mode image parameters of a differential artificial transmission line are derived using a simple loss-less model. Based on the analytical results, we optimize the dimensions of the inductor with the gradient descent algorithm to achieve accurate impedance matching and phase matching. The amplifier was fabricated in 0.18-µm CMOS technology. The core area of the amplifier is 0.27 mm2, which is 57% smaller than the previous work. Besides, we demonstrated a small group delay variation of ±2.7 ps thanks to the optimization. the amplifier successfully performed 30-Gbps NRZ and PAM4 transmissions with superior jitter performance. The proposed technique will promote the high-density integration of differential traveling wave devices.

For a group of wirelessly networked robots, called "a robot swarm," to accomplish a unified task as a group, it is necessary to generate a set of common coordinates among all member robots and to notify each member robot of its heading direction in the generated common coordinates. However, when the member robots are not equipped with sensors to identify their locations or bearings, they can use only a ranging capability based in the wireless communication protocol being used to network them as a tool to generate a set of common coordinates among them. This paper presents the detailed principles of a method for generating a set of common coordinates/heading direction for a robot swarm with only ranging capability which we have proposed so far. After showing the theoretical Cramer-Rao lower-bound on the location estimation error variance, we demonstrate several computer simulation results for the proposed method with Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI)-based ranging.

Multi-carrier code division multiplexing (MC-CDM) is one of promising multiplexing techniques for fourth-generation mobile downlink communications systems, where high data rate services should be provided even for high speed-cruising mobiles. For MC-CDM-based packet communication, a frequency scheduling method, which adaptively assigns different sub-carriers to different users, is proposed. This paper proposes a frequency scheduling method, which utilizes pre-assignmented subcarriers in the frequency domain for the MC-CDM scheme. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed system in frequency selective fading channels is compared with that of a no-scheduled MC-CDM scheme by computer simulation in both single- and multi-cell environments. From the results, it is found that the proposed system achieves better bit error rate performance than the no-scheduled MC-CDM scheme and can control quality of service (QoS) for active users.

The ability to estimate a target location is essential in many applications of wireless sensor networks. Received signal strength indicator (RSSI)-based maximum likelihood (ML) method in a wireless sensor network usually requires a pre-determined statistical model on the variation of RSSI in a sensing area and uses it as an ML function when estimating the location of a target in the sensing area. However, when estimating the location of a target, due to several reasons, we often measure the RSSIs which do not follow the statistical model, in other words, which are outlier on the statistical model. As the result, the effect of the outlier RSSI data worsens the estimation accuracy. If the wireless sensor network has a lot of sensor nodes, we can improve the estimation accuracy intentionally rejecting such outlier RSSIs. In this paper, we propose a simple outlier RSSI data rejection algorithm for an ML location estimation. The proposed algorithm iteratively eliminates the anchor nodes which measure outlier RSSIs. As compared with the location estimation methods with previously proposed outlier RSSI data rejection algorithms, our proposed method performs better with much less computational complexity.

The use of cooperative nodes is effective for enhancing the reliability of wireless data transmission between a source and a destination by means of transmit diversity effect. However, in its application to wireless multi-hop networks, how to form cooperative node candidates and how to select multiple cooperative nodes out of them have not been well investigated. In this paper, we propose a multiple cooperative node selection method based on a criterion composed of “quality” and “angle” metrics, which can select and order adequate cooperative nodes. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce the packet error rate without any knowledge on node location.

In this paper, we present the theoretical analysis of the bit error rate (BER) performance of Single-Carrier Modulation (SCM) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems under two types of temporally localized man-made noises (generalized shot noise and bursty noise models) environments. The robustness of OFDM system against these two kinds of man-made noises is discussed and then compared with that of SCM system at the same transmission rate. We show that for OFDM system, the BER performance highly depends on the number of subcarriers and the strength of the man-made noise, i.e., the level of the power spectral density of the man-made noise. In addition to the common knowledge on OFDM, we show that OFDM system is sometime less robust to the man-made noises than SCM system.

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.