We present an algorithm for efficient rendering of animated hair under a dynamic, low-frequency lighting environment. We use spherical harmonics (SH) to represent the environmental light. The transmittances between a point on a hair strand and the light sources are also represented by SH functions. Then, a convolution of SH functions and the scattering function of a hair strand is precomputed. This allows us to efficiently compute the intensity at a point on the hair. However, the computation of the transmittance is very time-consuming. We address this problem by using a voxel-based approach: the transmittance is computed by using a voxelized hair model. We further accelerate the computation by sampling the voxels. By using our method, we can render a hair model consisting of tens of thousands of hair strands at interactive frame rates.

A 10-gigabit Ethernet passive optical network (10G-EPON) is promising for the next generation of access networks. A protocol processor for 10G-EPON needs to not only achieve 10-Gbps throughput but also to have protocol extendibility for various potential services. However, the conventional protocol processor does not have the ability to install additional protocols after chip fabrication, due to its hardware-based architecture. This paper presents a software-hardware cooperative protocol processor for 10G-EPON that provides the protocol extendibility. To achieve the software-hardware cooperation, the protocol processor newly employs a software-hardware partitioning technique driven by the timing requirements of 10G-EPON and a software-hardware interface circuit with event FIFO to absorb performance difference between software and hardware. The fabricated chip with this protocol processor properly works cooperatively and is able to accept newly standardized protocols. This protocol processor enables network operators to install additional service protocols adaptively for their own services.

Energy conservation is one of the hot topics within the domain of traffic problems. It is well known that shortening the distance between vehicles reduces the aerodynamic drag of the lagging (or following) vehicle and leads to energy savings, which benefits the drivers. Recently, systems have been developed in which trucks or vehicles travel in a platoon with reduced headway from the preceding vehicle by using automated driving or driver assistance systems. The objective of the present study is to investigate how human factors, such as driving style, a driver's condition, or a driver's personal characteristics, influence the decision of a driver to close the gap with a preceding vehicle and obtain the benefit of aerodynamic drag reduction. We developed a realistic experimental paradigm for investigating the relationship between distance and several factors including the driver's personal characteristics and the size of preceding vehicle. Our experimental setup made use of real vehicles on a test track, as opposed to a vehicle simulator. We examined behavior of subjects that drove the following vehicle as well as subjects that sat in the passenger seat in the following vehicle. The experimental results demonstrate that all subjects attempted to reduce the distance to the preceding vehicle in order to gain the benefit. Based on the experimental and questionnaire results, we conclude that there are relationships between the category of subjects and subject's following distances.

In this work we propose a two-party anonymous authenticated key exchange protocol that provides a communication binding property. The proposed protocol makes use of a compact structure to ensure key exchange and anonymity by adopting an anonymous implicit proof on the possession of a credential. We formally prove that the proposed protocol achieves anonymity, AKE-security, and a communication binding property. The protocol yields short communication messages and runs in two rounds. We show that our protocol is efficient via a comparison analysis with best-known anonymous authenticated key exchange protocols.

Device-to-device (D2D) multicast communication is a useful way to improve the communication efficiency of local services. This study considers a scenario of D2D multicast communication in a single frequency network (SFN) system and investigates the frequency resource allocation problem. Firstly, we propose that D2D user equipments (DUEs) do not share frequency with cellular user equipments (CUEs) in the same SFN, but reuse frequency with CUEs in other SFNs, by which the interference between D2D and cellular communications can be avoided. Then, under the principle that two nearest D2D multicast groups cannot reuse the same frequency, the study develops a distance-based fair frequency resource allocation (DFRA) algorithm. The DFRA algorithm ensures control of the interference within a reasonable range and fairly allocate the available frequency resources to the D2D multicast groups. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed resource allocation algorithm is effective in improving the data rate and reducing the outage probability for D2D communications.

In this letter, a cooperative scheme based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in vehicular communication system is proposed. In the conventional scheme, a destination exploits only one base station to communicate information. The proposed scheme can use an extra source from another base station through a relay, since the restriction of power in vehicle are less than cellular device. If a destination is distant from a base station, the performance is degraded. When a destination is distant from a base station, the proposed scheme employing space time block code (STBC) and cyclic delay diversity (CDD) has a higher bit error rate (BER) performance and throughput than the conventional scheme.

The development of high data rate wireless communications systems using Multiple Input — Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna techniques requires detectors with reduced complexity and good Bit Error Rate (BER) performance. In this paper, we present the Semi-fixed Complexity Sphere Decoder (SCSD), which executes the process of detection in MIMO systems with a significantly lower computation cost than the high-performance/reduced-complexity detectors: Sphere Decoder (SD), K-best, Fixed Complexity Sphere Decoder (FSD) and Adaptive Set Partitioning (ASP). Simulation results show that when the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is less than 15dB, the SCSD reduces the complexity by up to 90% with respect to SD, up to 60% with respect to K-best or ASP and by up to 90% with respect to FSD. In the proposed algorithm, the BER performance does not show significant degradation and therefore, can be considered as a complexity reduction scheme suitable for implementing in MIMO detectors.

A code shift keying (CSK) using pseudo-noise (PN) codes for optical wireless communications with intensity/modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) is considered. Since CSK has several PN codes, the data transmission rate and the bit error rate (BER) performance can be improved by increasing the number of PN codes. However, the conventional optical PN codes are not suitable for optical CSK with IM/DD because the ratio of the number of PN codes and the code length of PN code, M/L is smaller than 1/√L. In this paper, an optical CSK with a new PN code, which combines the generalized modified prime sequence code (GMPSC) and Hadamard code is analyzed. The new PN code can achieve M/L=1. Moreover, the BER performance and the data transmission rate of the CSK system with the new PN code are evaluated through theoretical analysis by taking the scintillation, background-noise, avalanche photodiode (APD) noise, thermal noise, and signal dependent noise into account. It is found that the CSK system with the new PN code outperforms the conventional optical CSK system.

To achieve more high speed and high quality systems of wireless communications, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) has been proposed. Moreover, OFDMA considering the multiuser diversity (MUDiv) has been also proposed to achieve more high system performance. On the other hand, the conventional MUDiv/OFDMA requires large complexity to select the subcarrier of each user. To solve this problem, we have proposed a MUDiv/OFDMA based on the low granularity block (LGB). However, it degrades the system performance in the environment which contains many deep faded subcarrier channels. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a cooperative LGB-MUDiv/OFDMA to mitigate the influence due to the deep faded subcarrier channel.

To support the processing of spatial window queries efficiently in a non-flat wireless data broadcasting system, we propose a Two-Tier Spatial Index (TTSI) that uses a two tier data space to distinguish hot and regular data items. Unlike an existing index which repeats regular data items located near hot items at the same time as the hot data items during the broadcast cycle, TTSI makes it possible to repeat only hot data items during a cycle. Simulations show that the proposed TTSI outperforms the existing scheme with respect to access time and energy consumption.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of numerous wireless sensor nodes, each sensor node embedding a tiny communication device enabling the nodes to communicate with each other or the base station. In this paper, we investigate the problem that communication distance must be considered in minimizing the wireless communication energy since the energy consumption is proportional to the 2nd to the 6th power of the distance. Moreover, another problem is that there is a non-uniform energy drain effect in most topologies. Known as the energy hole problem, it can result in premature termination of the entire network. To address these problems, in this paper we first propose a communication routing algorithm that can solve the energy hole problem to the maximum extent possible while minimizing the wireless communication energy by generating an energy efficient spanning tree. This algorithm is beneficial for network lifetimes defined by a high node termination percentage. For the WSNs for which the energy hole problem is critical, we propose two route switching algorithms to solve the energy hole problem; they are beneficial for network lifetimes defined by a low node termination percentage. Simulation results showed that these algorithms avoid the energy hole problem and thereby greatly extend the lifetime of WSNs by more than 3 to 6 times that of ones using direct transmission in a 20-node network and a 50-node network if the lifetime of a WSN is defined by 1% of the number of terminated nodes in the WSN.

Cooperative communication has been proposed to improve the disadvantages of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique without using extra multiple antennas. In an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system, a cooperative communication that each user shares their allocated sub-channels instead of the MIMO system has been proposed to improve the throughput. But the cooperative communication has a problem as the decreased throughput because it is necessary that users send and receive the information to each other to improve reliability. In this letter, the modified cooperative transmission scheme is proposed to improve reliability in the fading channel, and it can solve the problem for BER performance that is dependent on the errors in the first phase that exchanges the information between both users during the first time.

We applied a roll-to-sheet imprinting process to a large-scale substrate. Patterned ruthenium oxide (RuO$_{2}$) electrodes were fabricated on both glass and flexible substrates. The resistivity of the electrodes on a glass substrate was $3.5 imes 10^{-5} Omega $ cm, which indicates that this technique is useful for the fabrication of thin-film transistor (TFT) electrodes.

Due to the high speed mobile environment, the aeronautical Cognitive Radio (CR) communications base on the channel with the time-variant stochastic non-continuous spectrum. The traditional fading channel models, such as Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m and multipath channel models, can not describe the whole property of the channels of CR communications. In this letter, the statistical channel modeling scheme for aeronautical CR communications is proposed with a M/M/s(1) queuing model, which properly describes the random spectrum occupation of the primary users, i.e. aircrafts in aeronautical communications. The proposed channel model can be easily utilized in the channel simulation to testify the validity and efficiency of the aeronautical CR communications.

In this paper, we propose demodulators for the Golden and Alamouti codes in amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative communication with one relay. The proposed demodulators output exact log likelihood ratios (LLRs) with recursion based on the Jacobian logarithm. The cooperative system with the proposed demodulator for the Golden code has the benefit of efficient data transmission, while the system for the Alamouti code has low demodulation complexity. Quantitative analyses of computational complexity of the proposed demodulators are conducted. The transmission performance for various relay location and power settings is evaluated on cooperative orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based wireless local area network (LAN) systems. In evaluations, the optimal relay location and power settings are found. The cooperative system with the proposed demodulators for the Golden and Alamouti codes offers 1.5 and 1.9 times larger areas where 10.8 and 5.4Mbit/s can be obtained than a non-cooperative (direct) system in a typical office environment, respectively.

Joint signal detection and channel estimation based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm has been investigated for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) mobile communications over fast-fading channels. The previous work in [20] developed a channel estimation method suitable for the EM-based iterative receiver. However, it remained possible for unreliable received signals to be repetitively used during the iterative process. In order to improve the EM-based iterative receiver further, this paper proposes spatial removal from the perspective of a message-passing algorithm on factor graphs. The spatial removal performs the channel estimation of a targeted antenna by using detected signals that are obtained from the received signals of all antennas other than the targeted antenna. It can avoid the repetitive use of unreliable received signals for consecutive signal detection and channel estimation. Appropriate applications of the spatial removal are also discussed to exploit both the removal effect and the spatial diversity. Computer simulations under fast-fading conditions demonstrate that the appropriate applications of the spatial removal can improve the packet error rate (PER) of the EM-based receiver thanks to both the removal effect and the spatial diversity.

This paper analyzes the transmission performances of visible light communication (VLC) based on unipolar orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which is compatible with intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD). Three existing unipolar OFDM schemes, namely DC biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM), asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM), and flip-OFDM are investigated and compared. While these three schemes have been analyzed for indoor optical wireless communication (OWC) subject to the limitation on the transmit optical power, they have not been carefully investigated and compared for VLC when a large transmit power is available due to the illumination requirement, and the signal dynamic range (DR) becomes the main limitation. For the analysis, DR expressions of DCO-OFDM, ACO-OFDM, and flip-OFDM signals are first derived. Then, the bit error rate (BER) expression of each unipolar OFDM scheme is derived in terms of the DR. For data rates in the range of 1-10Mbps, under the system parameters based on typical indoor environments, DCO-OFDM is observed to outperform the other two schemes. This superiority of DCO-OFDM is in contrast with previously reported results that indicate the attractiveness of ACO-OFDM and flip-OFDM over DCO-OFDM when the transmit optical power is the main limitation. Finally, light dimming is considered to identify the illumination level below which DCO-OFDM loses this superiority.

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the RF characteristics of a 3W-class cryogenically-cooled receiver amplifier employing a gallium-nitride high electron mobility transistor (GaN HEMT) with a blue light for mobile base stations. In general, a cryogenically-cooled receiver amplifier using a GaN HEMT exhibits unstable DC characteristics similar to those found in the current collapse phenomenon because the GaN HEMT loses thermal energy at cryogenic temperatures. The fabricated cryogenically-cooled receiver amplifier achieves stable DC characteristics by injecting blue light into the GaN HEMT instead of thermal energy. Experimental results show that the amplifier achieves fine stable DC characteristics for deviation in the drain-source current from 42% to 5% and RF characteristics for a maximum power added efficiency from 58% to 68% without and with the blue light at 60,K. The fabricated amplifier is effective in reducing the power consumption at cryogenic temperatures. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first report regarding RF characteristics of a cryogenically-cooled receiver amplifier using a blue light for mobile base stations.

A new theorem is proposed on BIBO (Bounded Input Bounded Output) stability of a general feedback amplifier circuit formulated by BIBO operators. The proposed theorem holds for both linear and nonlinear BIBO operators. The meaning of this theorem is clarified by applying it to continuous-time linear cases.

In non-destructive testing (NDT), ultrasonic echo is often an overlapping multi-echo signals with noise. However, the accurate estimation of ultrasonic time-of-flight (TOF) is essential in NDT. In this letter, a novel method for TOF estimation through envelope is proposed. Firstly, the wavelet denoising technique is applied to the noisy echo to improve the estimation accuracy. Then, the Hilbert transform (HT) is used in ultrasonic signal processing in order to extract the envelope of the echo. Finally, the TOF of each component of multi-echo signals is estimated by the local maximum point of signal envelope. Furthermore, the time resolution of time-overlapping ultrasonic echoes is discussed. Numerical simulation has been carried out to show the performances of the proposed method in estimating TOF of ultrasonic signal.