Massive multiple input and multiple output (Massive MIMO) is a key technique to achieve high system capacity and user data rate for the fifth generation (5G) radio access network (RAN). To implement Massive MIMO in 5G, how much Massive MIMO meets our expectation with various user equipment (UEs) in different environments should be carefully addressed. We focused on using Massive MIMO in the low super-high-frequency (SHF) band, which is expected to be used for 5G commercial bands relatively soon. We previously developed a prototype low-SHF-band centralized-RAN Massive MIMO system that has a flexible active antenna system (AAS)-unit configuration and facilitates advanced radio coordination features, such as coordinated beamforming (CB) coordinated multi-point (CoMP). In this study, we conduct field trials to evaluate downlink (DL) multi-user (MU)-MIMO performance by using our prototype system in outdoor and indoor environments. The results indicate that about 96% of the maximum total DL system throughput can be achieved with 1 AAS unit outdoors and 2 AAS units indoors. We also investigate channel capacity based on the real propagation channel estimation data measured by the prototype system. Compared with without-CB mode, the channel capacity of with-CB mode increases by a maximum of 80% and 104%, respectively, when the location of UEs are randomly selected in the outdoor and indoor environments. Furthermore, the results from the field trial of with-CB mode with eight UEs indicate that the total DL system throughput and user data rate can be significantly improved.

This paper describes the results of outdoor mobility measurements and high-speed vehicle tests that clarify the 4-by-8 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) throughput performance when applying distributed MIMO with narrow antenna-beam tracking in a 28-GHz frequency band in the downlink of a 5G cellular radio access system. To clarify suitable transmission point (TP) deployment for mobile stations (MS) moving at high speed, we examine two arrangements for 3TPs. The first sets all TPs in a line along the same side of the path traversed by the MS, and the other sets one TP on the other side of the path. The experiments in which the MS is installed on a moving wagon reveal that the latter deployment case enables a high peak data rate and high average throughput performance exhibiting the peak throughput of 15Gbps at the vehicle speed of 3km/h. Setting the MS in a vehicle travelling at 30km/h yielded the peak throughput of 13Gbps. The peak throughput of 11Gbps is achieved at the vehicle speed of 100km/h, and beam tracking and intra-baseband unit hand over operation are successfully demonstrated even at this high vehicle speed.

In December 2018, satellite broadcasting for 4K/8K ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) will begin in Japan. It will be provided in the 12-GHz (11.7 to 12.75GHz) band with right- and left-hand circular polarizations. BSAT-4a, a satellite used for broadcasting UHDTV, was successfully launched in September 2017. This satellite has not only 12-GHz-band right- and left-hand circular polarization transponders but also a 21-GHz-band experimental transponder. The 21-GHz (21.4 to 22.0GHz) band has been allocated as the downlink for broadcasting satellite service in ITU-R Regions 1 (Europe, Africa) and 3 (Asia Pacific). To receive services provided over these two frequency bands and with dual-polarization, we implement and evaluated a dual-band and dual-circularly polarized parabolic reflector antenna fed by 12- and 21-GHz-band microstrip antenna arrays with a multilayer structure. The antenna is used to receive 12- and 21-GHz-band signals from in-orbit satellites. The measured and experimental results prove that the proposed antenna performs as a dual-polarized antenna in those two frequency bands and has sufficient performance to receive satellite broadcasts.

This paper provides perspectives for future medical healthcare social services and businesses that integrate advanced information and communication technology (ICT) and data science. First, we propose a universal medical healthcare platform that consists of wireless body area network (BAN), cloud network and edge computer, big data mining server and repository with machine learning. Technical aspects of the platform are discussed, including the requirements of reliability, safety and security, i.e., so-called dependability. In addition, novel technologies for satisfying the requirements are introduced. Then primary uses of the platform for personalized medicine and regulatory compliance, and its secondary uses for commercial business and sustainable operation are discussed. We are aiming at operate the universal medical healthcare platform, which is based on the principle of regulatory science, regionally and globally. In this paper, trials carried out in Kanagawa, Japan and Oulu, Finland will be revealed to illustrate a future medical healthcare social infrastructure by expanding it to Asia-Pacific, Europe and the rest of the world. We are representing the activities of Kanagawa medical device regulatory science center and a joint proposal on security in the dependable medical healthcare platform. Novel schemes of ubiquitous rehabilitation based on analyses of the training effect by remote monitoring of activities and machine learning of patient's electrocardiography (ECG) with a neural network are proposed and briefly investigated.

This paper reports a 24GHz ISM band radar module for pedestrian detection in crosswalks. The radar module is composed of an RF transceiver board, a baseband board, and a microcontroller unit board. The radar signal is a sawtooth frequency-modulated continuous-wave signal with a center frequency of 24.15GHz, a bandwidth of 200MHz, a chirp length of 80µs, and a pulse repetition interval of 320µs. The radar module can detect a pedestrian on a crosswalk with a width of 4m and a length of 14m. The radar outputs the range, angle, and speed of the detected pedestrians every 50ms by radar signal processing and consumes 7.57W from 12V power supply. The size of the radar module is 110×70mm2.

Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) is designed for low-bandwidth, low-power, long-distance, large-scale connected IoT applications and realistic for networking in an emergency or restricted situation, so it has been proposed as an attractive communication technology to handle unexpected situations that occur during and/or after a disaster. However, the traditional LPWAN with its default protocol will reduce the communication efficiency in disaster situation because a large number of users will send and receive emergency information result in communication jams and soaring error rates. In this paper, we proposed a LPWAN based decentralized network structure as an extension of our previous Disaster Information Sharing System (DISS). Our network structure is powered by Named Node Networking (3N) which is based on the Information-Centric Networking (ICN). This network structure optimizes the excessive useless packet forwarding and path optimization problems with node name routing (NNR). To verify our proposal, we conduct a field experiment to evaluate the efficiency of packet path forwarding between 3N+LPWA structure and ICN+LPWA structure. Experimental results confirm that the load of the entire data transmission network is significantly reduced after NNR optimized the transmission path.

This paper presents a numerical study of the wireless channel characteristics of liver implants in a frequency range of 4.5-6.5GHz, considering different digital human phantoms by employing two inhomogeneous male and female models. Path loss data for in-body to on-body and in-body to off-body communication scenarios are provided. The influence of respiration-induced organ movement on signal attenuation is demonstrated. A narrower range of attenuation deviation is observed in the female model as compared to the male model. The path loss data in the female body is between 40-80dB which is around 5-10dB lower than the male model. Path loss data for the in-body to off-body scenario in both models suggest that in-body propagation is the main component of total path loss in the channel. The results demonstrate that channel characteristics are subject dependent, and thus indicate the need to take subject dependencies into consideration when investigating in-body communication channels.

We have proposed and demonstrated a mode selective active-MMI (multimode interferometer) laser diode as a mode selective light source so far. This laser diode features; 1) lasing at a selected space mode, and 2) high modulation bandwidth. Based on these, it is expected to enable high speed interconnection into future personal and mobile devices. In this paper, we explain the mode selection, and the high speed modulation principles. Then, we present our recent results concerning high speed frequency response of the fundamental and first order space modes.

The recent widespread use of high-performance terminals has resulted in a rapid increase in mobile data traffic. Therefore, public wireless local area networks (WLANs) are being used often to supplement the cellular networks. Capacity improvement through the dense deployment of access points (APs) is being considered. However, the effective throughput degrades significantly when many users connect to a single AP. In this paper, users are classified into guaranteed bit rate (GBR) users and best effort (BE) users, and we propose a network model to provide those services. In the proposed model, physical APs and the bandwidths are assigned to each service class dynamically using a virtual AP configuration and a virtualized backhaul network, for reducing the call-blocking probability of GBR users and improving the satisfaction degree of BE users. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed model through simulation experiments and discuss its feasibility.

Optical I/O core based on silicon photonics technology and optical/electrical assembly was developed as a fingertip-size optical module with high bandwidth density, low power consumption, and high temperature operation. The advantages of the optical I/O core, including hybrid integration of quantum dot laser diode and optical pin, allow us to achieve 300-m transmission at 25Gbps per channel when optical I/O core is mounted around field-programmable gate array without clock data recovery.

This paper presents a 6th-order quadrature bandpass delta sigma AD modulator (QBPDSM) with 2nd-order image rejection using dynamic amplifier and noise coupling (NC) SAR quantizer embedded by passive adder for the application of wireless communication system. A novel complex integrator using dynamic amplifier is proposed to improve the energy efficiency of the QBPDSM. The NC SAR quantizer can realize an additional 2nd-order noise shaping and 2nd-order image rejection by the digital domain noise coupling technique. As a result, the 6th-order QBPDSM with 2nd-order image rejection is realized by two complex integrators using dynamic amplifier and the NC SAR quantizer. The SPICE simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed QBPDSM in 90nm CMOS technology. Simulated SNDR of 76.30dB is realized while a sinusoid -3.25dBFS input is sampled at 33.3MS/s and the bandwidth of 2.083MHz (OSR=8) is achieved. The total power consumption in the modulator is 6.74mW while the supply voltage is 1.2V.

This paper studies the performance of the quantitative RF power variation in Radio-over-Fiber beam forming system utilizing a phased array-antenna integrating photo-diodes in downlink network for next generation millimeter wave band radio access. Firstly, we described details of fabrication of an integrated photonic array-antenna (IPA), where a 60GHz patch antenna 4×2 array and high-speed photo-diodes were integrated into a substrate. We evaluated RF transmission efficiency as an IPA system for Radio-over-Fiber (RoF)-based mobile front hall architecture with remote antenna beam forming capability. We clarified the characteristics of discrete and integrated devices such as an intensity modulator (IM), an optical fiber and the IPA and calculated RF power radiated from the IPA taking account of the measured data of the devices. Based on the experimental results on RF tone signal transmission by utilizing the IPA, attainable transmission distance of wireless communication by improvement and optimization of the used devices was discussed. We deduced that the antenna could output sufficient power when we consider that the cell size of the future mobile communication systems would be around 100 meters or smaller.

Two-dimensional (2-D) maximally flat finite impulse response (FIR) digital filters have flat characteristics in both passband and stopband. 2-D maximally flat diamond-shaped half-band FIR digital filter can be designed very efficiently as a special case of 2-D half-band FIR filters. In some cases, this filter would require the reduction of the filter lengths for one of the axes while keeping the other axis unchanged. However, the conventional methods can realize such filters only if difference between each order is 2, 4 and 6. In this paper, we propose a closed-form frequency response of 2-D low-pass maximally flat diamond-shaped half-band FIR digital filters with arbitrary filter orders. The constraints to treat arbitrary filter orders are firstly proposed. Then, a closed-form transfer function is achieved by using Bernstein polynomial.

Radar-absorbent materials (RAM) with various characteristics, such as broadband, oblique-incidence, and polarization characteristics, have been developed according to applications in recent years. This paper presents the optimized design method of two flat layers RAM with both broadband and oblique-incidence characteristics for the required RAM performance. The oblique-incidence characteristics mean that the RAM is possible to absorb radio waves continuously up to the maximum incidence angle. The index of the wave-absorption amount is 20dB, corresponding to an absorption rate of 99%. Because determination of the electrical material constant of each layer is the most important task with respect to the received frequency and the incidence angle, we optimized the values by using Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II). Two types of flat-layer RAM composed of dielectric and magnetic materials were designed and their characteristics were evaluated. Consequently, it was confirmed that oblique-incidence characteristics were better for the RAM composed of dielectric materials. The dielectric RAM achieved an incidence angle of up to 60° with broadband characteristics and a relative bandwidth of 77.01% at the transverse-magnetic (TM) wave incidence. In addition, the magnetic RAM could lower the minimum frequency of the system more than the dielectric RAM. The minimum frequency of the magnetic RAM was 1.38GHz with a relative bandwidth of 174.18% at TM-wave incidence and an incidence angle of 45°. We confirmed that it is possible to design RAM with broadband characteristics and continuous oblique-incidence characteristics by using the proposed method.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved significant success in the field of automatic speech recognition. One main advantage of DNNs is automatic feature extraction without human intervention. However, adaptation under limited available data remains a major challenge for DNN-based systems because of their enormous free parameters. In this paper, we propose a filterbank-incorporated DNN that incorporates a filterbank layer that presents the filter shape/center frequency and a DNN-based acoustic model. The filterbank layer and the following networks of the proposed model are trained jointly by exploiting the advantages of the hierarchical feature extraction, while most systems use pre-defined mel-scale filterbank features as input acoustic features to DNNs. Filters in the filterbank layer are parameterized to represent speaker characteristics while minimizing a number of parameters. The optimization of one type of parameters corresponds to the Vocal Tract Length Normalization (VTLN), and another type corresponds to feature-space Maximum Linear Likelihood Regression (fMLLR) and feature-space Discriminative Linear Regression (fDLR). Since the filterbank layer consists of just a few parameters, it is advantageous in adaptation under limited available data. In the experiment, filterbank-incorporated DNNs showed effectiveness in speaker/gender adaptations under limited adaptation data. Experimental results on CSJ task demonstrate that the adaptation of proposed model showed 5.8% word error reduction ratio with 10 utterances against the un-adapted model.

We present a novel hybrid beamforming architecture for high speed 5G technologies. The architecture combines several new concepts to achieve significant hardware and cost reduction for large antenna arrays. Specifically, we employ an on-site code division multiplexing scheme to group several antenna elements into a single analog-to-digital converter (ADC). This approach significantly reduces analog hardware and power requirements by a factor of 8 to 32. Additionally, we employ a novel analog frequency independent beamforming scheme to eliminate phase shifters altogether and allow for coherent combining at the analog front-end. This approach avoids traditional phase-shifter-based approaches typically associated with bulky and inefficient components. Preliminary analysis shows that for an array of 800 elements, as much as 97% reduction in cost and power is achieved using the hybrid beamformer as compared to conventional beamformer systems.

In this paper, a printed inverted-F antenna for radiating circularly polarized wave around its resonant frequency is proposed. To get good axial ratio at the frequency band with 10dB-return loss, a rectangular element is loaded at the feeding line perpendicularly. The axial ratio and the frequency giving the minimum axial ratio can be adjusted by the ratio of the length to the width of the whole antenna and by the dimension of the loaded rectangular element. The operational principle for circular polarization is explained using the electric current distributions. Moreover, the approach of the enhancement for the bandwidth is discussed. The simulated and measured bandwidths of the 10dB-return loss with a 3dB-axial ratio are 2.375GHz-2.591GHz (216MHz) and 2.350-2.534GHz (184MHz), respectively. The proposed antenna's dimension is 0.067λ2c (λc is the wavelength at the center frequency). The proposed antenna is compact and planar, and is therefore useful for circular polarization in the ISM band.

A design method of the differential N-path filter with sampling computation is proposed. It enables the scale of the whole filter to be reduced by approximately half for easier realization. On top of that, the proposed method offers the ability to eliminate the harmonic passbands of the clock frequency and an increase of harmonic rejection. By using the proposed method, previous work involving an 8-path filter can be reduced to 5-path. The proposed differential 5-path filter reduces the scale of the circuit and at the same time has the performance of a 10-path filter from previous work. An example of differential 7-path filter using the same proposed design method is also stated in comparison of the differential 5-path filter. The differential 7-path filter offers the ability to eliminate all the passbands below 10 times the clock frequency with a tradeoff of an increase in circuit scale.

We explore ways to optimize online, permutation-based authenticated encryption (AE) schemes for lightweight applications. The lightweight applications demand that AE schemes operate in resource-constrained environments, which raise two issues: 1) implementation costs must be low, and 2) ensuring proper use of a nonce is difficult due to its small size and lack of randomness. Regarding the implementation costs, recently it has been recognized that permutation-based (rather than block-cipher-based) schemes frequently show advantages. However, regarding the security under nonce misuse, the standard permutation-based duplex construction cannot ensure confidentiality. There exists one permutation-based scheme named APE which offers certain robustness against nonce misuse. Unfortunately, the APE construction has several drawbacks such as ciphertext expansion and bidirectional permutation circuits. The ciphertext expansion would require more bandwidth, and the bidirectional circuits would require a larger hardware footprint. In this paper, we propose new constructions of online permutation-based AE that require less bandwidth, a smaller hardware footprint and lower computational costs. We provide security proofs for the new constructions, demonstrating that they are as secure as the APE construction.

This paper presents a wideband inductorless noise-cancelling balun LNA with two gain modes, low NF, and high-linearity for LTE and intermediate-frequency-band (eg. 3.3-3.6GHz, 4.8-5GHz) 5G applications fabricated in 65nm CMOS. The proposed LNA is bonding tested and exhibits a minimum NF of 2.2dB and maximum IIP3 of -3.5dBm. Taking advantage of an off-chip bias inductor in CG stage and a cross-coupled buffer, the LNA occupies high operation frequency up to 5GHz with remarkable linearity and NF as well as compact area.