Major challenges of the conventional spread-transform dither modulation (STDM) watermarking approach are two-fold: (i) it exploits a fixed watermarking strength (more particularly, the quantization index step size) to the whole cover image; and (ii) it is fairly vulnerable to the amplitude changes. To tackle the above challenges, an adaptive spread-transform dither modulation (ASTDM) approach is proposed in this paper for conducting robust color image watermarking by incorporating a new perceptual model into the conventional STDM framework. The proposed approach exploits a new perceptual model to adjust the quantization index step sizes according to the local perceptual characteristics of a cover image. Furthermore, in contrast to the conventional Watson's model is vulnerable to the amplitude changes, our proposed new perceptual model makes the luminance masking thresholds be consistent with any amplitude change, while keeping the consistence to the properties of the human visual system. In addition, certain color artifacts could be incurred during the watermark embedding procedure, since some intensity values are perceptibly changed to label the watermark. For that, a color artifact suppression algorithm is proposed by mathematically deriving an upper bound for the intensity values according to the inherent relationship between the saturation and the intensity components. Extensive experiments are conducted using 500 images selected from Corel database to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed ASTDM approach.

This letter presents the design and analysis of phase noise optimization of a 4-GHz differential Colpitts voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO). A low phase noise is achieved by a Colpitts oscillator and a VCO bias optimization using an amplitude control method. The measured phase noise is -134.8 dBc/Hz at 1.25 MHz offset frequency from 4 GHz operating frequency. The VCO is implemented using 0.24 µm SiGe BiCMOS process with integrated copper inductors. The wide VCO frequency range covers both PCS and IMT bands and draws about 15.9 mA from a 2.7 V power supply.

This paper reviews the standardization work that has been done in question 2 of ITU-T study group 15, which is the lead group on optical access transport technology. The major topics covered are the progress in the G-PON series and the new point-to-point fiber access recommendation. Finally, a brief view of the future plan of XG-PON is presented.

It is well known that the performance of turbo codes can be improved by optimizing the energy allocation on coded symbols. Based on this fact, we propose an optimized 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation for binary turbo codes. In the proposed scheme, the energy allocated on turbo coded symbols is optimized by modifying the constellation of QAM. The proposed 16-QAM constellation combined with a binary turbo code offers better coding gain compared to the conventional combination of binary turbo code and QAM.

This paper proposes new techniques to simulate a MIMO propagation channel using the ray-tracing method for the purpose of decreasing the computational complexity. These techniques simulate a MIMO propagation channel by substituting the propagation path between a particular combination of transmitter and receiver antennas for all combinations of transmitter and receiver antennas. The estimation accuracy calculated using the proposed techniques is evaluated based on comparison to the results calculated using imaging algorithms. The results show that the proposed techniques simulate a MIMO propagation channel with low computational complexity, and a high level of estimation accuracy is achieved using the proposed Vector-Rotation Approximation technique compared to that for the imaging algorithm.

This paper presents a wide tuning range VCO with an automatic frequency, gain, and two-step amplitude calibration loop for Digital TV (DTV) tuner applications. To cover the wide tuning range, the fully digital automatic frequency calibration (AFC) loop is used. In addition to the AFC loop, a two-step negative-Gm tuning loop is proposed to provide the optimum negative-Gm to the LC tank in a wide frequency range with a fine resolution. In the coarse negative-Gm tuning loop, the number of active negative-Gm cells is selected digitally based on the target frequency. In the fine negative-Gm tuning loop, the negative-Gm is tuned finely with the bias voltage of the VCO. Also, the digital VCO gain calibration scheme is proposed to compensate for the gain variation in a wide tuning range. The VCO tuning range is 2.6 GHz, from 1.7 GHz to 4.3 GHz, and the power consumption is 2 mA to 4 mA from a 1.8 V supply. The measured VCO phase noise is -120 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset.

This paper describes a proposed propagation estimation method and TCP/IP-based evaluations for mobile communications employing a stratospheric platform. To estimate a wireless channel, a realistic and detailed description of its physical environment must be accurately defined. Therefore, a building distribution model characterizing the physical environment in areas in Japan is presented. The analyses of the propagation estimation method are based on the "ray-tracing" model. The results from the proposed method are derived depending on elevation and azimuth angles. In order to validate our results, comparisons between the proposed method and our previous measurement are made for a typical semi-urban area in Japan. The comparisons show close agreement between the estimation results and the measurement results. Finally and interestingly, we present communication performance evaluations based on TCP/IP protocol by using the results achieved from our channel estimation with semi-analytical and simulation approach.

A 4+12+16 amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) modulation outperforms other 32-APSK modulations such as rectangular or cross 32-quadrature amplitude modulations (QAMs) which have a high peak to average power ratio that causes non-negligible AM/AM and AM/PM distortions when the signal is amplified by a high-power amplifier (HPA). This modulation scheme has therefore been recommended as a standard in the digital video broadcasting-satellite2 (DVB-S2) system. In this letter, we present a new bits-to-symbol mapping with a better bit error rate (BER) for a 4+12+16 APSK signal in a nonlinear satellite channel.

High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) are recently considered as a green infrastructure to provide high speed multimedia services. The critical issue of HAPS is frequency sharing with satellite systems. Regulating antenna beam pattern using adaptive antenna schemes is one of means to facilitate the sharing with a space receiver for fixed satellite services on the uplink of a HAPS system operating in U bands. In this letter, we investigate antenna beam pattern characteristics of HAPS user terminals with various values of scan angles of main beam, null position angles, and null width.

Fiber access network architectures such as active optical networks (AONs) and passive optical networks (PONs) have been developed to support the growing bandwidth demand. Whereas particularly Swedish operators prefer AON, this may not be the case for operators in other countries. The choice depends on a combination of technical requirements, practical constraints, business models, and cost. Due to the increasing importance of reliable access to the network services, connection availability is becoming one of the most crucial issues for access networks, which should be reflected in the network owner's architecture decision. In many cases protection against failures is realized by adding backup resources. However, there is a trade off between the cost of protection and the level of service reliability since improving reliability performance by duplication of network resources (and capital expenditures CAPEX) may be too expensive. In this paper we present the evolution of fiber access networks and compare reliability performance in relation to investment and management cost for some representative cases. We consider both standard and novel architectures for deployment in both sparsely and densely populated areas. While some recent works focused on PON protection schemes with reduced CAPEX the current and future effort should be put on minimizing the operational expenditures (OPEX) during the access network lifetime.

Basic features of fretting and factors affecting its deleterious effects on the performance of electrical/electronic connection were reviewed. It was shown that although the fretting cannot be eliminated completely, its deleterious effects can be substantially reduced by lubrication and also connection design.

We present recent progress of high-speed Mach-Zehnder modulator technologies for advanced modulation formats. Multi-level quadrature amplitude modulation signal can be synthesized by using parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators. We can generate complicated multi-level optical signals from binary data streams, where binary modulated signals are vectorially summed in optical circuits. Frequency response of each Mach-Zehnder interferometer is also very important to achieve high-speed signals. We can enhance the bandwidth of the response, with thin substrate. 87 Gbaud modulation was demonstrated with a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator.

The ITU-T J.83 Annex B is a widely adopted standard in North America for digital video and audio transmission over coaxial cable. This paper proposes a new parallel processing architecture of the parity checksum generator and syndrome generator specified in the standard for packet synchronization and error detection. The proposed parallel processing architecture removes the performance bottleneck occurring in the conventional serial processing architecture, leading to significant decrease in processing time for generating a parity checksum in transmitter and a syndrome in receiver. Implementation results show that the proposed parallel processing architecture reduces the processing time by 92% for parity checksum generation and by 81% for syndrome generation over the conventional serial processing architecture.

Nonbinary M-ary data processed by data entry systems, such as keyboard devices and character recognition systems, often have various types of error, such as symbol-substitution errors, deletion errors, insertion errors, and adjacent-symbol-transposition errors. This paper proposes nonsystematic M-ary codes capable of correcting these errors. The code is defined as a set of codewords that satisfy three conditions required to correct substitution, deletion/insertion, and adjacent-symbol-transposition errors. Since symbol-substitution errors in data entry systems are usually asymmetric, this paper also presents asymmetric-symbol-substitution error correcting codes capable of correcting deletion, insertion, and adjacent-symbol-transposition errors. For asymmetric-symbol-substitution error correction, we employ a mapping derived from the vertex coloring in an error directionality graph. The evaluation shows that the asymmetric codes have three to five times larger number of codewords than the symmetric codes.

This Letter proposes an optimal gain filter for the perceptual acoustic echo suppressor. We designed an optimally-modified log-spectral amplitude estimation algorithm for the gain filter in order to achieve robust suppression of echo and noise. A new parameter including information about interferences (echo and noise) of single-talk duration is statistically analyzed, and then the speech absence probability and the a posteriori SNR are judiciously estimated to determine the optimal solution. The experiments show that the proposed gain filter attains a significantly improved reduction of echo and noise with less speech distortion.

Frequency dependent properties of accumulation-mode MOS varactors, which are key elements in many RF circuits, are dominated by Non-Quasi-Static (NQS) effects in the carrier transport. The circuit performances containing MOS varactors can hardly be reproduced without considering the NQS effect in MOS-varactor models. For the LC-VCO circuit as an example it is verified that frequency-tuning range and oscillation amplitude can be overestimated by over 20% and more than a factor 2, respectively, without inclusion of the NQS effect.

This primary objective of this study is to demonstrate simulation and ground-based experiment for the attitude control of flexible spacecraft. A typical spacecraft structure consists of the rigid body and flexible appendages which are large flexible solar panels, parabolic antennas built from light materials in order to reduce their weight. Therefore the attitude control has a big problem because these appendages induce structural vibration under the excitation of external forces. A single-axis rotational simulator with a flexible arm is constructed with on-off air thrusters and reaction wheel as actuation. The simulator is also equipped with payload pointing capability by simultaneous thruster and DC servo motor actuation. The experiment of flexible spacecraft attitude control is performed using only the reaction wheel. Using the reaction wheel the performance of the fuzzy-PID controller is illustrated by simulation and experimental results for a single-axis rotational simulator.

In this letter we provide a steering law for redundant single-gimbal control moment gyros. The proposed steering law is an extended version of the singular direction avoidance (SDA) steering law based on the singular value decomposition (SVD). All internal singularities are escapable for any non-zero constant torque command using the proposed steering law.

In situ observation of electrochemical activity and time dependent characteristics of cytochrome c (cyt c) was carried out in 0.01 M phosphate buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) containing 20 µM cyt c solutions at bare indium-tin-oxide (ITO) electrodes by using a cyclic voltammetry (CV) and a slab optical waveguide (SOWG) spectroscopy. The bare ITO electrodes could retain the electrochemical activity of cyt c in the PBS solutions, indicating the great advantage of using ITO electrodes against other electrode materials, such as gold (Au). The CV curves and simultaneously observed the time-resolved SOWG absorption spectra in the consecutive cycles implied that the cyt c molecules could retain its own electrochemical function for a long time.

In-situ measurement of photoelectron spectra of polypyrrole during electrochemical undoping/doping cycles has been carried out by using an open-type electrochemical cell. It has been observed that the ionization potential decreases with decreased electrochemical potential. This result seems to be reasonable because the decreased electrochemical potential corresponds to the undoping or recovery of electrons into vacant state of valence band.