In order to reconstruct 3-D Euclidean shape by the Tomasi-Kanade factorization, one needs to specify an affine camera model such as orthographic, weak perspective, and paraperspective. We present a new method that does not require any such specific models. We show that a minimal requirement for an affine camera to mimic perspective projection leads to a unique camera model, called symmetric affine camera, which has two free functions. We determine their values from input images by linear computation and demonstrate by experiments that an appropriate camera model is automatically selected.

Parallel programs for distributed memory machines are not easy to create and maintain, especially when they involve sparse matrix computations. In this paper, we propose a program translation system for generating parallel sparse matrix computation codes utilizing PSBLAS. The purpose of the development of the system is to offer the user a convenient way to construct parallel sparse code based on PSBLAS. The system is build up on the idea of bridging the gap between the easy-to-read program representations and highly-tuned parallel executables based on existing parallel sparse matrix computation libraries. The system accepts a MATLAB program with annotations and generates subroutines for an SPMD-style parallel program which runs on distributed-memory machines. Experimental results on parallel machines show that the prototype of our system can generate fairly efficient PSBLAS codes for simple applications such as CG and Bi-CGSTAB programs.

This paper presents an efficient technique for solving a Boolean matching problem in cell-library binding, where the number of cells in the library is large. As a basis of the Boolean matching, we use the notion NP-representative (NPR): two functions have the same NPR if one can be obtained from the other by a permutation and/or complementation(s) of the variables. By using a table look-up and a tree-based breadth-first search strategy, our method quickly computes the NPR for a given function. Boolean matching of the given function against the whole library is determined by checking the presence of its NPR in a hash table, which stores NPRs for all the library functions and their complements. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated through experimental results, which show that it is more than two orders of magnitude faster than the Hinsberger-Kolla's algorithm.

This paper proposes a calibration method for catadioptric camera systems consisting of a mirror whose reflecting surface is the surface of revolution and a perspective camera as typified by HyperOmni Vision. The proposed method is based on conventional camera calibration and mirror posture estimation. Many methods for camera calibration have been proposed and during the last decade, methods for catadioptric camera calibration have also been proposed. The main problem with catadioptric camera calibration is that the degree of freedom of mirror posture is limited or the accuracy of the estimated parameters is inadequate due to nonlinear optimization. On the other hand, our method can estimate five degrees of freedom of mirror posture and is free from the volatility of nonlinear optimization. The mirror posture has five degrees of freedom, because the mirror surface has a surface of revolution. Our method uses the mirror boundary and can estimate up to four mirror postures. We apply an extrinsic parameter calibration method based on conic fitting for this estimation method. Because an estimate of the mirror posture is not unique, we also propose a selection method for finding the best one. By using the conic-based analytical method we can avoid the initial value problem arising from nonlinear optimization. We conducted experiments on synthesized images and real images to evaluate the performance of our method, and discuss its accuracy.

The RC mismatch among S/H stages for time-interleaved ADCs causes a phase error and a gain error and the phase error is dominant. The paper points out that clock skew and the phase error caused by the RC mismatch have similar effects on the sampling error and then can be compensated with the clock skew compensation. Simulation results agree well with the theoretical analysis. With the phase error compensation of RC mismatch, the SNDR in 14b ADC can be improved by more than 15 dB in the case that the bandwidth of S/H circuits is 3 times the sampling frequency. This paper also proposes a method of clock skew and RC mismatch compensation in time-interleaved sample-and-hold (S/H) circuits by sampling clock phase adjusting.

Analog-to-Digital converters (ADCs) for video applications have made exciting progress in miniaturization and power reduction in the past 20 years. This paper mainly describes the key technologies for miniaturization and power reduction of 10-bit video-frequency ADCs. By reviewing useful architectures and circuit schemes for video-frequency ADCs, self-calibration techniques and interleaving techniques are surveyed. The subranging pipeline look-ahead ADC architecture is introduced. It has a potential for reducing power consumption and improving conversion rate when minute deep submicron CMOS devices are used with low supply voltage.

We propose a cell library development methodology for throughput enhancement of character projection equipment. First, an ILP (Integer Linear Programming)-based cell selection is proposed for the equipment for which both of the CP (Character Projection) and VSB (Variable Shaped Beam) methods are available, in order to minimize the number of electron beam (EB) shots, that is, time to fabricate chips. Secondly, the influence of cell directions on area and delay time of chips is examined. The examination helps to reduce the number of EB shots with a little deterioration of area and delay time because unnecessary directions of cells can be removed. Finally, a case study is shown in which the numbers of EB shots are shown for several cases.

In ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) applications, one of the most important issues in the real-time beamforming of microphone arrays is the inability to capture the whole acoustic dynamics via a finite-length of data and a finite number of array elements. For example, the reflected source signal impinging from the side-lobe direction presents a coherent interference, and the non-minimal phase channel dynamics may require an infinite amount of data in order to achieve perfect equalization (or inversion). All these factors appear as uncertainties or un-modeled dynamics in the receiving signals. Traditional adaptive algorithms such as NLMS that do not consider these errors will result in performance deterioration. In this paper, a time domain beamformer using H∞ filtering approach is proposed to adjust the beamforming parameters. Furthermore, this work also proposes a frequency domain approach called SPFDBB (Soft Penalty Frequency Domain Block Beamformer) using H∞ filtering approach that can reduce computational efforts and provide a purified data to the ASR application. Experimental results show that the adaptive H∞ filtering method is robust to the modeling errors and suppresses much more noise interference than that in the NLMS based method. Consequently, the correct rate of ASR is also enhanced.

In this paper, we propose a novel virtual display system for a real object surface by using a video projector, so that the viewer can feel as if digital images are printed on the real surface with arbitrary shape. This system consists of an uncalibrated camera and video projector connected to a same PC and creates a virtual object by rendering 2D contents preserved beforehand onto a white object in a real world via a projector. For geometry registration between the rendered image and the object surface correctly, we regard the object surface as a set of a number of small rectangular regions and perform geometry registration by calculating homographies between the projector image plane and the each divided regions. By using such a homography-based method, we can avoid calibration of a camera and a projector that is necessary in a conventional method. In this system, we perform following two processes. First of all, we acquire the status of the object surface from images which capture the scene that color-coded checker patterns are projected on it and generate image rendered on it without distortion by calculating homographies. After once the projection image is generated, the rendered image can be updated if the object surface moves, or refined when it is stationary by observing the object surface. By this second process, the system always offers more accurate display. In implementation, we demonstrate our system in various conditions. This system enables it to project them as if it is printed on a real paper surface of a book. By using this system, we expect the realization of a virtual museum or other industrial application.

The RGB signals generated by different cameras are not equal for the same scene. Therefore, cameras are characterized based on a CIE standard colorimetric observer. One method of deriving a colorimetric characterization matrix between camera RGB output signals and CIE XYZ tristimulus values is least squares polynomial modeling. Yet, this involves tedious experiments to obtain a camera transfer matrix under various white balance points for the same camera. Accordingly, the current paper proposes a new method for obtaining camera transfer matrices under different white balances using a 33 camera transfer matrix under a specific white balance point.

Authors have developed a wide color gamut and high brightness WUXGA LCD monitor with color calibrators. This monitor has the world's highest performance level for color gamut and brightness for a UXGA rating or greater (number of pixels). This monitor provides the necessary performance in fields requiring advanced color control, such as DTP, prepress operations, printing and moving images. This paper describes the background of the development, technical problems and the results of evaluation.

This investigation proposed two array beamformers SPFDBB (Soft Penalty Frequency Domain Block Beamformer) and FDABB (Frequency Domain Adjustable Block Beamformer). Compared with the conventional beamformers, these frequency-domain methods can significantly reduce the computation power requirement in ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) based applications. Like other reference signal based techniques, SPFDBB and FDABB minimize microphone's mismatch, desired signal cancellation caused by reflection effects and resolution due to the array's position. Additionally, these proposed methods are suitable for both near-field and far-field environments. Generally, the convolution relation between channel and speech source in time domain cannot be modeled accurately as a multiplication in the frequency domain with a finite window size, especially in ASR applications. SPFDBB and FDABB can approximate this multiplication by treating several frames as a block to achieve a better beamforming result. Moreover, FDABB adjusts the number of frames on-line to cope with the variation of characteristics in both speech and interference signals. A better performance was found to be achievable by combining these methods with an ASR mechanism.

Theoretical analyses are carried out on the height dependence of the antenna factor of an EMI antenna to develop an antenna calibration method that can provide the free-space value of the antenna factor. It is found that the antenna factor in general varies with the antenna height in a quasi-periodic way with a period of about λ/2. Thus, the present paper proposes to take an average of the antenna factors over a height range of about λ/2 to obtain an accurate estimate of the free-space antenna factor. Effective antenna arrangements are also proposed for the antenna calibration. Deviations in the estimate from the free-space antenna factor are less than 0.1 dB for tuned dipoles in the frequency range above 50 MHz. But the errors increase up to 0.3 dB at about 35 MHz. For broadband antennas, the free-space antenna factor can be accurately estimated by taking the average of the antenna factors. Errors are estimated to be less than 0.3 dB in the frequency range from 30 MHz to 1000 MHz.

A visualization method of coherent source locations based on the Sampled Pattern Matching (SPM) method is described. Modified SPM method is proposed to improve the S/N, in which the measurement of the electric field distribution is repeated in appropriate time duration and eigenvalue decomposition of the covariance matrix is introduced. A combination of the modified SPM method with the Weighted Subspace Fitting (WSF) method is also proposed to estimate accurate source locations. A calibration technique by using a reference antenna to compensate the complex pattern of the receiving antenna is proposed. Experimental investigation to estimate source location for one dipole antenna and two dipole antennas is also made to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

A fully integrated current-steering 10-b CMOS Digital-to-Analog Converter with on-chip terminated resistors is presented. In order to improve the device-mismatching problem of internal termination resistors, a self-calibrated current bias circuit is designed. With the self-calibrated current bias circuit, the gain error of the output voltage swing is reduced within 0.5%. For the purpose of reducing glitch noises, furthermore, a novel current switch based on a deglitching circuit is proposed. The prototype circuit has been fabricated with a 3 V 0.35 µm 2-poly 3-metal CMOS technology, and it occupies 1350 µm750 µm silicon area with 45 mW power consumption. The measured INL and DNL are within 0.5LSB, respectively. The measured SFDR is about 65 dB, when an input signal is about 8 MHz at 100 MHz clock frequency.

This paper describes a technique for background digital multistage calibration in the removal of nonlinearities caused by design limitations in pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Foreground initialization reduces the calibration time. Furthermore, an improved background skip-and-fill method enables the ADC to trace environmental changes. This method uses a least mean square adaptive algorithm that is digitally implemented with a significantly reduced number of tap coefficients.

The design, manufacture, and test results are presented for a 90polarization-rotating Van Atta array reflector with suppressed scattered field for the 1.27-GHz band. The reflector consists of 48 element antennas, half for horizontal polarization and half for vertical polarization. It receives a horizontally or vertically polarized wave and retransmits a vertically or horizontally polarized wave, respectively. The measured cross-polarized radar cross section of the reflector was 15.8 dBm2 on average, which agreed well with a theoretical prediction. Although the suppression of the scattered field was limited to about -20 dB relative to the retransmitted field, we could suppress more the scattered field by accurate positioning and careful characteristics adjustment of element antennas. Theoretical calculations showed that total phase errors of the element antennas including positioning errors and impedance characteristics errors have to be within 7.5to suppress the scattered field by less than -30 dB.

An RF front-end using a six-port circuit is a promising technology for realization of a compact software defined radio (SDR) receiver. Such a receiver, called a six-port direct conversion receiver (DCR), consists of analog circuit and digital signal processing components. The six-port DCR itself outputs four different linear combinations of received and local signals. The output powers are measured at each port, and the received signal is recovered by solving a set of linear equations. This receiver can easily cover a wide frequency band unlike the conventional DCR since it does not require the precise orthogonality that the conventional one does. In this paper, we propose a novel calibration method for a six-port system that includes nonlinear circuits such as diode detectors. We demonstrated the demodulation performance of a six-port DCR by computer simulation and experiments at 1.9, 2.45, and 5.85 GHz.

Integrated implementation of RF front-end components has been shown to posses many benefits. Furthermore, it presents a new way of approaching RF design. This paper will discuss the recent developments by the author's group in the field of RF front-end technology. This will include stand-alone RF front-end components such as a self-heterodyne mixer as well as more functional front-end circuitry such as digital beamformer arrays, retrodirective arrays and an array error calibration scheme.

Finite-ground microstrip line (FGMSL) open-end discontinuities are characterized via a self-calibrated method of moments (MoM) as a unified circuit model with a fringing capacitance and radiation conductance. By integrating the short-open calibration (SOC) procedure into a determinant MoM, the model parameters are extracted without needing the alternative port impedance. Regardless of non-ideal voltage sources, extracted parameters are observed to achieve a stable convergence as the feeding line is sufficiently extended. After extracted capacitance of a FGMSL open-end with equal strip and finite-ground widths are validated against its traditional MSL counterpart with infinite ground, extensive results are given to originally demonstrate that the capacitance increases as a decelerated function of the finite-ground width and length while the conductance is negligibly small as compared with its imaginary part.