The authors have proposed Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)-Constant Envelope Modulation, (MIMO-CEM), as a power and complexity efficient alternative to MIMO-OFDM, suitable for wireless backhaul networks in which relay nodes are fixed in their positions. One of the major problems hindering the real application of MIMO-CEM is to estimate MIMO channel characteristics. MIMO-CEM is based upon two contrary schemes; one is nonlinear equalization such as maximum likelihood sequence estimator, which needs accurate channel information to replicate the received signal passing through it. The other is a low resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC), e.g., 1-bit in the default operation that removes the received signal amplitude fluctuation. In this paper, as a solution to the channel estimation problem in MIMO-CEM with low resolution ADC receiver, we propose an adaptive MIMO-CEM channel estimation scheme where iterative adaptive channel estimation is carried out to minimize the error between the received preamble signal and the replicated one. We also prove that Code Division Multiplexing (CDM) preamble transmission is effective in estimating MIMO channel parameters in the presence of large quantization noise. Computer simulation results show that MIMO-CEM with the proposed channel estimator using CDM preambles achieves identical BER performance to that with the ideal channel estimation even in presence of severe quantization noise caused by a low resolution ADC.

A dual-core spot size converter (DC-SSC) is integrated with a lateral grating assisted lateral co-directional coupler (LGLC) tunable laser by using no additional complicated fabrication processes. The excess loss due to the DC-SSC is only 0.5 dB, and narrow full width half maximums (FWHMs) of vertical and horizontal far-field patterns (FFPs) produced by the laser are about 25° and 20°. This integration causes no degradations of the performance of the LGLC laser; in other words, it maintains good lasing characteristics, namely, wide tuning range of over 68 nm and SMSR of over 35 dB in the C-band under a 50 semi-cooled condition.

In this paper, we propose a method capable of shortening the distance from a noise detection microphone to a loudspeaker in active noise control system with non-minimum phase secondary path. The distance can be basically shortened by forming the noise control filter, which produces the secondary noise provided by the loudspeaker, with the cascade connection of a non-recursive filter and a recursive filter. The output of the recursive filter, however, diverges even when the secondary path includes only a minimum phase component. In this paper, we prevent the divergence by utilizing MINT (multi-input/output inverse theorem) method increasing the number of secondary paths than that of primary paths. MINT method, however, requires a large scale inverse matrix operation, which increases the processing cost. We hence propose a method reducing the processing cost. Actually, MINT method has only to be applied to the non-minimum phase components of the secondary paths. We hence extract the non-minimum phase components and then apply MINT method only to those. The order of the inverse matrix thereby decreases and the processing cost can be reduced. We finally show a simulation result demonstrating that the proposed method successfully works.

Recent years, millimeter wave applications for wireless communication have attracted much attention and expected. We focused on an NRD guide and sapphire which have the excellent low loss characteristics in millimeter wave region. In this paper, an NRD guide excited sapphire disk resonator and millimeter wave bandpass filter with narrow bandwidth using proposed resonators were designed and fabricated. As a result, it was realized that the 3-pole bandpass filter with center frequency 58.64 GHz and 3 dB bandwidth 273 MHz. Moreover, its insertion loss was found to be about 1.5 dB.

In this paper, an improved GPS/RFID integration method based on Sequential Iterated Reduced Sigma Point Kalman Filter (SIRSPKF) is proposed for vehicle navigation applications. It is applied to improve the accuracy, reliability and availability of satellite positioning in the areas where the satellite visibility is limited. An RFID system is employed to assist the GPS system in achieving high accuracy positioning. Further, to reduce the measurement noise and decrease the computational complexity caused by the integrated GPS/RFID, SIRSPKF is investigated as the dominant filter for the proposed integration. Performances and computational complexities of different integration scenarios with different filters are compared in this paper. A field experiment shows that both accuracy and availability of positioning can be improved significantly by this low-cost GPS/RFID integration method with the reduced computational load.

The hyper H∞ filter derived in our previous work provides excellent convergence, tracking, and robust performances for linear time-varying system identification. Additionally, a fast algorithm of the hyper H∞ filter, called the fast H∞ filter, is successfully developed so that identification of linear system with impulse response of length N is performed at a computational complexity of O(N). The gain matrix of the fast filter is recursively calculated through estimating the forward and backward linear prediction coefficients of an input signal. This suggests that the fast H∞ filter may be applicable to linear prediction of the signal. On the other hand, an alternative fast version of the hyper H∞ filter, called the J-fast H∞ filter, is derived using a J-unitary array form, which is amenable to parallel processing. However, the J-fast H∞ filter explicitly includes no linear prediction of input signals in the algorithm. This work reveals that the forward and backward linear prediction coefficients and error powers of the input signal are indeed included in the recursive variables of the J-fast H∞ filter. These findings are verified by computer simulations.

High frequency bands such as the 3-GHz band have received much attention as frequency resources for broadband mobile communication systems. Radio Frequency (RF) integrated antennas are considered to be useful as base station antennas in decreasing the feeding loss that is otherwise inevitable in high frequency bands and they ensure sufficient power for broadband transmission. One problem in actualizing RF integrated antennas is miniaturizing the duplexer, which is generally large, among the RF circuitry components. To downsize the duplexer, we consider separately locating the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) antennas. To suppress further the mutual coupling between the Tx and Rx antennas, we investigate a filter integrated antenna configuration. In this paper, we consider an aperture coupled patch antenna as the base antenna configuration and propose a new filter integrated antenna that comprises multiple rectangular elements installed between the coupling slot and radiation element of the Rx antenna. The simulation and measurement results confirm that the new antenna reduces the mutual coupling in the transmission frequency band up to 5.7 dB compared to the conventional slot coupled patch antenna configuration.

This paper proposes a new three-mode resonator, which consists of a parallel-coupled microstrip line resonator embedded with a slotline resonator, and develops a compact low-loss bandpass filter (BPF) with a sharp roll-off response because of four transmission zeros (TZ) located very near the passband. Resonance mechanism and properties of the three modes are first analyzed by using an eigen-mode analysis, and then an equivalent circuit model is established for expressing a novel coupling scheme of the developed BPF. It is made clear from the results of circuit analysis that the four TZs are produced because of multiple paths between the input/output stub lines formed by the three resonant modes and the direct source/load coupling. The validity of the proposed resonator and filter is supported by the comparison between simulated and measured results.

A highly stable microwave exciter system has been developed for 87Sr+ ion microwave frequency standards. The controller was built to optimize the transfer function of the phase-locked loop. The upper limit of the frequency tracking error achieved was 7.7 10-15 at τ = 1 s. A phase frequency discriminator using an FPGA was also made and applied to a phase-locked loop. This paper reports on the design of and results obtained from the microwave exciter for Sr+ ion microwave frequency standards.

A 4th-order programmable continuous-time filter (CTF) for hard-disk-drive (HDD) read channels was developed with 65-nm CMOS process technology. The CTF cutoff frequency and boost are programmable by switching units of the operational trans-conductance amplifier (OTA) banks and the capacitor banks. The switches are operated by lifted local-supply voltage to reduce on-resistance of the transistors. The CTF characteristics were robust against process technology variations and supply voltage and temperature ranges due to the introduction of a digitally assisted compensation scheme with analog auto-tuning circuits and digital calibration sequences. The digital calibration sequences, which fit into the operation sequence of the HDD read channel, compensate for the tuning circuits of the process technology variations, and the tuning circuits compensate for the CTF characteristics over the supply voltage and temperature ranges. As a result, the CTF had a programmability of 100–1000-MHz cutoff frequency and 0–12-dB boost.

This paper is about a new efficient method for the implementation of a Block Proportionate Normalized Least Mean Square (BPNLMS++) adaptive filter using the Fermat Number Transform (FNT) and its inverse (IFNT). These transforms present advantages compared to Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and the inverse (IFFT). An efficient state space method for implementing the FNT over rectangular windows is used in the cases where there is a large overlap between the consecutive input signals. This is called Generalized Sliding Fermat Number Transform (GSFNT) and is useful for reducing the computational complexity of finite ring convolvers and correlators. In this contribution, we propose, as a first objective, an efficient state algorithm with the purpose of reducing the complexity of IFNT. This algorithm, called Inverse Generalized Sliding Fermat Number Transform (IGSFNT), uses the technique of Generalized Sliding associated to matricial calculation in the Galois Field. The second objective is to realize an implementation of the BPNLMS++ adaptive filter using GSFNT and IGSFNT, which can significantly reduce the computation complexity of the filter implantation on digital signal processors.

We present a new framework of the data-reusing (DR) adaptive algorithms by incorporating a constraint on noise, referred to as a noise constraint. The motivation behind this work is that the use of the statistical knowledge of the channel noise can contribute toward improving the convergence performance of an adaptive filter in identifying a noisy linear finite impulse response (FIR) channel. By incorporating the noise constraint into the cost function of the DR adaptive algorithms, the noise constrained DR (NC-DR) adaptive algorithms are derived. Experimental results clearly indicate their superior performance over the conventional DR ones.

The Direct Sampling Mixer (DSM) with a complex coefficient transfer function is demonstrated. The operation theory and the detail design methodology are discussed for the high order complex DSM, which can achieve large image rejection ratio by introducing the attenuation pole at the image frequency band. The proposed architecture was fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process. The measured results agree well with the theoretical calculation, which proves the validity of the proposed architecture and the design methodology. By using the proposed design method, it will be possible for circuit designers to design the DSM with large image rejection ratio without repeated lengthy simulations.

In this paper, a fifth order curer low-pass filter using as switched-capacitor (SC) architecture is proposed and fabricated with TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS process. A fully differential SC is adopted via the bilinear transform of the corresponding analogue RLC passive prototype. To reach the largest possible input dynamic range and save chip area, the method of dynamic range scaling and minimum capacitor scaling is used. Measured results show that the proposed filter achieves a pass-band of 12.1 MHz with a sampling rate of 100 MHz, a SFDR of 50 dB, a stop-band attenuation greater than 50 dB and a power consumption of 48.5 mW at 1.8 V power supply. Including pads, the chip area occupies 1.515 (1.391.09) mm2. This paper has the feature of low noise, excellent linearity of the filter, and high stability. The experimental results show that it has perfect performance for WiMAX applications and standard is recommended.

This paper proposes a new biquad structure based on a flipped voltage follower (FVF) for low-power and wide-bandwidth (BW) low pass filter. The proposed biquad structure consists of an FVF and a source follower (SF) for complex pole pair generation and zero cancellation. The presented design provides good linearity at low power consumption, owing to the voltage follower structures. A power/BW ratio (PBWR) is suggested as a performance metric to compare power efficiency to bandwidth, and the proposed biquad structure shows excellent PBWR, especially for low quality factor (Q) design. As a prototype, a fourth order Bessel filter was fabricated in 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The measured BW, power consumption, IIP3, and FoM are 120 MHz, 180 µW, 15 dBm, and 0.34 fJ, respectively.

We recently determined the values of intrinsic spin-orbit (SO) parameters for In0.52Al0.48As/In0.53Ga0.47As(10 nm)/In0.52Al0.48As (InGaAs/InAlAs) quantum wells (QW), lattice-matched to (001) InP, from the weak localization/antilocalization analysis of the low-temperature magneto-conductivity measurements [1]. We have then studied the subband energy spectra for the InGaAs/InAlAs double QW system from beatings in the Shubnikov de Haas (SdH) oscillations. The basic properties obtained here for the double QW system provides useful information for realizing nonmagnetic spin-filter devices based on the spin-orbit interaction [2].

Conventional features for Automatic Speech Recognition and Sound Event Recognition such as Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) have been shown to perform poorly in noisy conditions. We introduce an auditory feature based on the gammatone filterbank, the Selective Gammatone Envelope Feature (SGEF), for Robust Sound Event Recognition where channel selection and the filterbank envelope is used to reduce the effect of noise for specific noise environments. In the experiments with Hidden Markov Model (HMM) recognizers, we shall show that our feature outperforms MFCCs significantly in four different noisy environments at various signal-to-noise ratios.

An OFDMA-based (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access-based) channel access scheme for dynamic spectrum access has the drawbacks of large PAPR (Peak to Average Power Ratio) and large ACI (Adjacent Channel Interference). To solve these problems, a flexible channel access scheme using an overlap FFT filter-bank was proposed based on single carrier modulation for dynamic spectrum access. In order to apply the overlap FFT filter-bank for dynamic spectrum access, it is necessary to clarify the performance of the overlap FFT filter-bank according to the design parameters since its frequency characteristics are critical for dynamic spectrum access applications. This paper analyzes the overlap FFT filter-bank and evaluates its performance such as frequency characteristics and ACI performance according to the design parameters.

This paper presents analysis and design of a new ultra-low voltage analog front end (AFE) dedicated to strain sensor applications. The AFE, designed in 0.18 µm CMOS process, features a chopper-stabilized instrumentation amplifier (IA), a balanced active MOSFET-C 2nd order low pass filter (LPF), a clock generator and a voltage booster which operate at supply voltage (Vdd) of 0.6 V. The designed IA achieves 30 dB of closed-loop gain, 101 dB of common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) at 50 Hz, 80 dB of power-supply rejection ratio (PSRR) at 50 Hz, thermal noise floor of 53.4 nV/, current consumption of 14 µA, and noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 9.7. The high CMRR and rail-to-rail output swing capability is attributed to a new low voltage realization of the active-bootstrapped technique using a pseudo-differential gain-boosting operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) and proposed current-driven bulk (CDB) biasing technique. An output capacitor-less low-dropout regulator (LDO), with a new fast start-up LPF technique, is used to regulate this 0.6 V supply from a 0.8–1.0 V energy harvesting power source. It achieves power supply rejection (PSR) of 42 dB at frequency of 1 MHz. A cascode compensated pseudo differential amplifier is used as the filter's building block for low power design. The filter's single-ended-to-balanced converter is implemented using a new low voltage amplifier with two-stage common-mode cancellation. The overall AFE was simulated to have 65.6 dB of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), total harmonic distortion (THD) of less than 0.9% for a 100 Hz sinusoidal maximum input signal, bandwidth of 2 kHz, and power consumption of 51.2 µW. Spectre RF simulations were performed to validate the design using BSIM3V3 transistor models provided by GLOBALFOUNDRIES 0.18 µm CMOS process.

In this paper, a high-throughput debloking filter is presented for H.264/AVC standard, catering video applications with 4 K2 K (40962304) ultra-definition resolution. In order to strengthen the parallelism without simply increasing the area, we propose a luma-chroma parallel method. Meanwhile, this work reduces the number of processing cycles, the amount of external memory traffic and the working frequency, by using triple four-stage pipeline filters and a luma-chroma interlaced sequence. Furthermore, it eliminates most unnecessary off-chip memory bandwidth with a highly reusable memory scheme, and adopts a “slide window” buffer scheme. As a result, our design can support 4 K2 K at 30 fps applications at the working frequency of only 70.8 MHz.