In this paper a new method for the design and optimization of microstrip parallel coupled-line bandpass filters is presented which allows for the specification of frequency bandwidths and arbitrary source and load impedance transformation. The even- and odd-mode theory and the relationships between impedance, transmission and scattering matrices and their properties are used to construct a positive definite error function using the insertion losses at discrete frequencies in the pass, transition and stop bands. The dispersion relations for the coupled line are also taken into account. The minimization of the error function determines the widths, gap spacings and lengths of the coupled-line filter, for the optimum design and realization of filter specifications. The proposed filter design and optimization method is coded by computer programs and the results of simulation, fabrication and testing of sample filters together with comparisons with available full-wave analysis softwares, indicate the efficacy of the proposed method. Filter design with up to 50% bandwidth and the design of shorter lengths of coupled line sections are achievable by the proposed method in part due to the incorporation of impedance matching.

A novel UWB system for a new indoor short distance radio-communication is examined. Various types of UWB systems have been proposed in the literature. Particularly direct sequence (DS) systems and time hopping (TH) systems are attractive due to low power consumption and a simple transceiver construction. In this paper, we consider to apply modulated and modified Hermite pulses (MMHP) for both DS-UWB and TH-UWB systems. Furthermore, MMHP are extended to a novel pulse set referred as limited bandwidth MMHP set in order to reduce various interferences. It is composed of pseudo-orthogonal pulses that have both good auto-correlation characteristics in all orders and low cross-correlation characteristics between different orders. The proposed pulse set also have some specific notches, which can be used to reduce narrow-band interference (NBI). Additionally, we propose a novel pulse shape hopping that employs the proposed MMHP set. Multi-user interference (MUI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI) can be reduced by such a pulse shape hopping scheme for the DS or TH UWB signal format. Simulation results show significant performance improvements by using the proposed UWB system.

Irregular Repeat-Accumulate (IRA) codes, introduced by Jin et al., have a linear-time encoding algorithm and their decoding performance is comparable to that of irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Meanwhile the authors have introduced detailedly represented irregular LDPC code ensembles specified with joint degree distributions between variable nodes and check nodes. In this paper, by using density evolution method [7],[8], we optimize IRA codes specified with joint degree distributions. Resulting codes have higher thresholds than Jin's IRA codes.

This paper discusses the on-line frequency identification problem for a measured sinusoidal signal by using the adaptive method and filter theory. The proposed method is based on an identity between the sinusoidal signal and its second order derivative. For a set of chosen parameters, the proposed method is robust to the initial phase, the amplitude, and the frequency in a wide range. The convergence rate can be adjusted by the chosen parameters. The estimation error mainly depends on the frequency of the sinusoid, the measurement noise and a key design parameter.

A new Kalman carrier synchronization algorithm is developed for high-order QAM transmission to reduce complexity compared to the conventional Kalman approach. The state model in the proposed algorithm employs only phase, instead of both phase and frequency, as in the conventional method. A reduced-observation model is also introduced to eliminate matrix operations in the Kalman recursions. Simulations results show that the one-state Kalman algorithm has better performance and lower complexity than the two-state Kalman algorithm. The cable modem downstream system is applied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

In this paper, the relationship between correlation interval (CI) and estimate is investigated. Then a special correlation interval is explored that is adaptive to all levels of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and velocity conditions, and the mean square error is deduced. Finally, we propose an iterative algorithm that achieves the special correlation interval and calculates the Doppler spread by increasing the resolution on time-domain iteratively. Simulation results show that compared with conventional schemes, performance of the proposed algorithm is basically independent of velocity variation and less sensitive to SNR, especially in low SNR environments. It achieves high accurate estimation directly without any post-rectification.

In this letter, a blind frequency offset estimation algorithm is proposed for OFDM systems. The proposed method exploits the intrinsic phase shift between neighboring samples in a single OFDM symbol, incurred by a frequency offset. The proposed algorithm minimizes a novel cost function, which is the squared error of the candidate frequency offset compensated signals from two different observation windows. Also, the solution of the proposed algorithm is given by an explicit equation, which does not require any iterative calculation. It is shown that the performance of the proposed method is better than those of the conventional methods, especially in the presence of multipath channels. This is due to the fact that the proposed method is insensitive to inter-symbol interference (ISI).

Pneumatic pressure, which is easy enough to be handled in comparison with hydraulic pressure and is endowed with high safety, is available for a power source of a robot arm to be utilized in concert with human beings to do various types of work. But pneumatic pressure is so low in comparison with hydraulic pressure that an air cylinder having a diameter long enough and stroke wide enough is required to obtain great output power. In this study, therefore, the investigation was made with layout of air cylinders and transmission mechanisms of the motion power directed toward the driving joints to be followed by development of a new humanoid robot arm with seven degrees of freedom in which air cylinders are compactly incorporated. To be concrete with this, contrivance was made with an endoskeleton structure allowing almost all of the structure materials of the individual arm joints to be shared by the air cylinder with incorporation of the air cylinder in the axes of the upper arm joint and forearm joints by paying attention to the fact that the cylinder itself has high strength. The evaluation experiments driving the robot arm referred to above were conducted by means of I-PD control. The results suggested that the mechanism of the robot with seven degrees of freedom having pneumatic actuators proposed in this study is useful as the humanoid robot arm. The quick and accurate motions were accomplished with I-PD control which is relatively easy to be dealt with but not suitable for non-linear actuator system.

Designable task allocation systems which consist of identical agents using stochastic automata are suggested. From the viewpoint of the group response and the individual behavior, the performances of a simple model and an improved one are compared numerically. Robots experiments are performed to compare between the two models.

This paper proposes a co-channel interference cancellation method for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. Maximum-likelihood multi-user detection (ML-MUD), which is one of the co-channel interference cancellation methods at a receiver side, has excellent bit error rate (BER) performance. However, computational complexity of the ML-MUD is prohibitive, because the ML-MUD must search for the most probable symbol vector from all candidates of the transmitted signals. We apply sphere decoding (SD) to the ML-MUD in order to reduce the computational complexity of the ML-MUD, and moreover we propose a modified version of the SD suitable for the ML-MUD. The proposed method extracts desired signal components from a received signal vector and a channel matrix decomposed the upper triangular form, and then performs the SD to the low dimensional model in order to detect the transmitted signals of the desired user. Computer simulation confirms that the proposed method can suppress the undesired signals and detect the desired signals, offering significant reduction of the computational complexity of the conventional method.

This paper proposes a 15-bit 10-MS/s pipelined ADC based on the incomplete settling principle. The traditional complete settling stage is improved to the incomplete settling structure through dividing the sampling clock of the traditional stage into two parts for discharging the sampling and feedback capacitors and completing the sampling, respectively. The proposed ADC verifies the correction and validity of optimizing ADCs' conversion speed without additional power consumption through the incomplete settling. This ADC employs scaling-down scheme to achieve low power dissipation and utilizes full-differential structure, bottom-plate-sampling, and capacitor-sharing techniques as well as bit-by-bit digital self-calibration to increase the ADC's linearity. It is processed in 0.18 µm 1P6M CMOS mixed-mode technology. Simulation results show that 82 dB SNDR and 87 dB SFDR are obtained at the sampling rate of 10 MHz with the input sine frequency of 100 kHz and the whole static power dissipation is 21.94 mW.

Recently, lattice reduction aided (LRA) detectors have been introduced into Vertical Bell-Labs Layered Space-Time (V-BLAST) systems to obtain nearly optimal bit error rate (BER) performance for only small additional complexity. In this paper, the layer error characteristics of LRA-V-BLAST detectors are investigated and compared with those of conventional V-BLAST ones. Two important conclusions are drawn for the LRA-V-BLAST detectors. First, the variation of their mean square error (MSE) within each detection iteration is not as large as in conventional V-BLAST detectors. Second, thanks to lattice reduction there exists an inherent sub-optimal detection order from the last to the first layer. These conclusions allow LRA-V-BLAST detectors to avoid optimal ordering to further reduce the complexity. LRA-V-BLAST detectors without optimal ordering are shown to obtain almost the same BER performance of LRA-V-BLAST detector with optimal ordering.

The present paper introduces a new construction of a class of binary periodic sequence set having a zero-correlation zone (hereinafter binary ZCA sequence set). The cross-correlation function and the side-lobe of the auto-correlation function of the proposed sequence set is zero for the phase shifts within the zero-correlation zone. The present paper shows that such a construction generates a binary ZCA sequence set by using a cyclic difference set and a collection of mutually orthogonal complementary sets.

The pseudo-transient method is discussed in this paper as one of practical methods to find DC operating points of nonlinear circuits when the Newton-Raphson method fails. The mathematical description for this method is presented and an effective pseudo-transient algorithm utilizing compound pseudo-elements is proposed. Numerical examples are demonstrated to prove that our algorithm is able to avoid the oscillation problems effectively and also improve the simulation efficiency.

Providing multimedia services with a quality-of-service guarantee in mobile wireless networks presents more challenges due to user's mobility and limited bandwidth resource. In order to provide seamless multimedia services in the next-generation wireless networks, efficient call admission control algorithm must be developed. A novel borrowing-based call admission control policy is proposed in this paper as a solution to support quality-of-service guarantees in the mobile multimedia wireless networks. Based on the existing network conditions, the proposed scheme makes an adaptive decision for bandwidth allocation and call admission by employing attribute-measurement mechanism, dynamic time interval reservation strategy, and service-based borrowing strategy in each base station. We use the dynamically adaptive approaches to reduce the connection-blocking probability and connection-dropping probability, and to increase the bandwidth utilization, while the quality-of-service guarantees can be maintained at a comfortable level for mobile multimedia wireless networks. Extensive simulation results show that our proposed scheme outperforms the previously proposed scheme in terms of connection-blocking probability, connection-dropping probability, and bandwidth utilization, while providing highly satisfying degree of quality-of-service in mobile communication systems.

In heterogeneous mobile networks, infrastructure multihop techniques enable mobile stations (MSs) with only a single wireless interface to connect with other networks via multiple-interface MSs (MMSs). That is, MMSs can become gateways between two different mobile networks. Cooperation between different mobile networks linked by MMSs can yield many benefits, including coverage expansion, load balancing, and throughput improvement. We studied how to control these cooperative benefits. We developed a network control mechanism, Cooperative Networking, which controls the cooperative benefits in heterogeneous infra-multihop networks. The proposed mechanism assigns a cooperation rule to MSs. By following the rule, every MS chooses a path to a base station, such as direct connection to 3G networks or infra-multihop connection to wireless local area networks (WLANs). Cooperation rules are designed according to the cooperative benefits, which are selected based on the needs of network operators or users. We call a selected cooperative benefit a networking policy. In our proposed cooperative networking mechanism, network operators can adaptively select a networking policy appropriate for network conditions and the needs of users. Computer simulation results validated our proposed mechanism.

There is a certain level of requirements for system performance that intrusion detection systems on the Internet need. One of them is to lower the rate of "False Positive" and "False Negative." Another one is to have a convenient user interface so that users can manage system security easily with the detection systems. However, scan detection systems on public domain show a high rate of false detection and have difficulty in detecting various scanning techniques. In addition, since current scan detection systems are based on the command interface, the systems have been poor at user interface and therefore it is difficult to apply them to system security management. Hence, we first propose a set of new filter rules, which detect various scan attacks based on port scanning techniques. Secondly, a set of ABP-Rules derived from attacker's behavioral patterns is proposed in order to minimize the False Positive rate. With these methods, we implement a new real-time scan detection system, overcoming the limitations of current real-time scan detection systems. Also the implemented system contains a GUI interface for user's convenience of managing the network security, which was developed with Tcl/Tk.

To support multimedia applications effectively in mobile networks, the handover latency or packet losses during handover should be very small. Addressing this issue, we present a cooperative mobile router-based handover (CoMoRoHo) scheme for long-vehicular multihomed mobile networks. The basic idea behind CoMoRoHo is to enable different mobile routers to access different subnets during a handover and cooperatively receive packets destined for each other. In general, packet losses are directly proportional to handover latency; however, the overlapped reception of packets from different subnets makes possible to minimize packet losses even without reducing handover latency. To evaluate the scheme, we carried out performance modeling of the CoMoRoHo scheme in comparison with the Fast Handover for Mobile IPv6 (FMIPv6) protocol in regard to the handover latency, packet loss, signaling overhead, and packet delivery overhead in access networks. The analysis results show that CoMoRoHo outperforms FMIPv6 by reducing the packet losses as well as signaling overheads by more than 50%. Moreover, CoMoRoHo imposes lower packet delivery overheads required for preventing packets from being dropped from access routers. We thus conclude that CoMoRoHo is a scalable scheme because its performance remains intact even when the access network is overloaded.

In this paper, the problem of Redundant Duplicated RREQ Network-wide Flooding (RDRNF), induced by multiple sensor nodes during route discovery in event-driven wireless sensor networks, is described. In order to reduce the number of signaling messages during the route discovery phase, a novel extension, named the Localized Route Discovery Extension (LRDE), to the on-demand ad hoc routing protocol, is proposed. The LRDE reduces energy consumption during route discovery. The heuristically and temporarily selected Path Set-up Coordinator (PSC) plays the role of a route request broker that alleviates redundant route request flooding. The LRDE also sets a route path be aggregation-compatible. The PSC can effectively perform data aggregation through the routing path constructed by the LRDE. The simulation results reveal that significant energy is conserved by reducing signaling overhead and performing data aggregation when LRDE is applied to on-demand routing protocols.

Effective and simply realizable rate compatible low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are proposed. A parity check matrix is constructed with the progressively increased column weights (PICW) order and adopted to achieve a punctured LDPC coding scheme for a wide range of the code rates of the rate compatible systems. Using the proposed rate compatible punctured LDPC codes, low complex adaptive communication systems, such as wireless communication systems, can be achieved with the reliable transmissions.