This paper is aimed to present the design and feasibility investigations of adopting the available on-site optical inspection system, which is commonly used for steel plate dimension measurement, to supply on-line dynamic gap measurements of a non-contacting conveyance structure in a steel mill. Adequate software and hardware implementations based on digital image processing techniques have been adapted to the entire system formulations and estimations. Results show that the system can supply accurate and rapid gap measurements and thus can fulfill the design and operational objectives.

We propose an asynchronous variable-length optical packet switch that is based on a packet compression scheme and delay-line loop buffers, and evaluate the packet loss probability of the proposed switch through simulation and analysis. Simulation results well the analytical results and show the accuracy of our analysis. When the packet compression ratio is low, optical packet interval regulators are useful to improve the packet loss probability characteristics.

Computational color constancy is a classical problem in computer vision. It is an under-constrained problem, which can be solved based on some constraint. Existing algorithms can be divided into two groups: physics-based algorithms and statistics-based approaches. In this paper, we propose a new hypothesis that the images generated under a same illumination have some similar features. Based on this hypothesis, a novel statistics-based color constancy algorithm is given and a new similarity function between images is also defined. The experimental results show that our algorithm is effective and it is more important that the dimension of the features in our algorithm is much lower than many former statistics-based algorithms.

A rate control scheme is described for zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) multiuser multiple-input and multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems with a QR-decomposition maximum likelihood detector (MLD) at the receiver. For selected users, a modulation-and-coding set is selected for each substream by estimating the per-substream post-MLD signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio. Iterative modified QR-decomposition MLD is employed at the receiver to achieve the throughput expected from the transmitter. The simulation results demonstrated that the proposed rate-control scheme achieved the target packet error rate while increasing the throughout for ZFBF-MU-MIMO systems as the number of user candidates increases.

Though machine vision systems for automatically detecting visual defects, called mura, have been developed for thin flat transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, they have not yet reached a level of reliability which can replace human inspectors. To establish an objective criterion for identifying real defects, some index functions for quantifying defect levels based on human perception have been recently researched. However, while these functions have been verified in the laboratory, further consideration is needed in order to apply them to real systems in the field. To begin with, we should correct the distortion occurring through the capturing of panels. Distortion can cause the defect level in the observed image to differ from that in the panel. There are several known methods to restore the observed image in general vision systems. However, TFT-LCD panel images have a unique background degradation composed of background non-uniformity and vignetting effect which cannot easily be restored through traditional methods. Therefore, in this paper we present a new method to correct background degradation of TFT-LCD panel images using principal component analysis (PCA). Experimental results show that our method properly restores the given observed images and the transformed shape of muras closely approaches the original undistorted shape.

This paper introduces an adaptive low complexity pre-processing filter to improve the coding performance of seriously degraded video sequences that is caused by the additive noise. The additive noise leads to a decrease in coding performance due to the high frequency components. By incorporating local statistics and quantization parameter into filtering process, the spurious noise is significantly attenuated and coding efficiency is improved for given quantization step size. In order to reduce the complexity of the pre-processing filter, the simplified local statistics and quantization parameter are introduced. The simulation results show the capability of the proposed algorithm.

We describe the transmission characteristics of a wavelength independent wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON) based on a wavelength channel data rewriter (WCDR). The WCDR is composed of a linear amplifier (LA) and a saturated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), and by using the WCDR in optical network units (ONUs), we can erase the downstream signal and modulate the same wavelength channel with the upstream signal. In this paper, we analyze the data rewriting characteristic, the frequency chirp characteristic and the bit error rate (BER) degradation occasioned by the use of saturated SOAs. Furthermore, we report high-speed transmission with power penalty of less than 1 dB at bit rates of 1.25 Gbit/s, 2.5 Gbit/s and 10 Gbit/s for downstream signals and 1.25 Gbit/s for upstream signals after transmission through 40 km of single-mode fiber.

In this paper, the effects of Bragg scattering on ultra-wideband (UWB) signal transmission from periodic surfaces are reported. First, the frequency dispersive property of Bragg scattering is theoretically and experimentally confirmed. Next, the transfer function of both specular path and Bragg scattering are extracted. Then direct sequence UWB (DS-UWB) transmission simulations are conducted by using a raised cosine pulse that occupied 3.1 to 10.6 GHz and a Gaussian pulse that occupied 8.75 to 9.25 GHz. Finally, the effects of Bragg scattering on UWB systems are discussed.

Effect of the post-growth annealing on the morphology of a Ge mesa selectively grown on Si was studied from the viewpoint of near-infrared photodiode applications. By ultrahigh-vacuum chemical vapor deposition, Ge mesas were selectively grown at 600 on Si (001) substrates partially covered with SiO2 masks. The as-grown Ge mesas showed trapezoidal cross-sections having a top (001) surface and {311} sidewall facets, as similar to previous reports. However, after the subsequent post-growth annealing at ~800 in the ultrahigh-vacuum chamber, the mesas were deformed into rounded shapes having a depression at the center and mounds near the edges. Such a deformation cannot be observed for the samples annealed once after cooled and exposed to the air. The residual hydrogen atoms on the Ge surface from the germane (GeH4) decomposition is regarded as a trigger to the observed morphological instability, while the final mesa shape is determined in order to minimize a sum of the surface and/or strain energies.

The Earth will require sustainable electricity sources equivalent to 3 to 5 times the commercial power presently produced by 2050. Solar Power Satellite (SPS) is one option for meeting the huge future energy demand. SPS can send enormous amounts of power to the Earth as the form of microwave (MW). A highly efficient microwave power transmission (MPT) system is needed for SPS. A critical goal of SPS is to maintain highest Beam Efficiency (BE) because the microwaves from SPS will be converted to utility power unlike the MW from communication satellites. Another critical goal of SPS is to maintain Side Lobe Levels (SLL) as small as possible to reduce interference to other communication systems. One way to decrease SLL and increase BE is the edge tapering of a phased array antenna. However, tapering the excitation requires a technically complicated system. Another way of achieving minimum SLL is with randomly spaced element position but it does not guarantee higher BE and the determination of random element position is also a difficult task. Isosceles Trapezoidal Distribution (ITD) edge tapered antenna was studied for SPS as an optimization between full edge tapering and uniform amplitude distribution. The highest Beam Collection Efficiency (BCE) and lowest SLL (except maximum SLL) are possible to achieve in ITD edge tapering and ITD edge tapered antenna is technically better. The performance of ITD is further improved from the perspective of both Maximum Side Lobe Level (MSLL) and BE by using unequal spacing of the antenna elements. A remarkable reduction in MSLL is achieved with ITD edge tapering with Unequal element spacing (ITDU). BE was also highest in ITDU. Determination of unequal element position for ITDU is very easy. ITDU is a newer concept that is experimented for the first time. The merits of ITDU over ITD and Gaussian edge tapering are discussed.

A wireless transceiver utilizing inductive coupling has been proposed for communication between chips in system in a package. This transceiver can achieve high-speed communication by using two-dimensional channel arrays. To increase the total bandwidth in the channel arrays, the density of the transceiver should be improved, which means that the inductor size should be scaled down. This paper discusses the scaling theory based on a constant magnetic field rule. By decreasing the chip thickness with the process scaling of 1/α, the inductor size can be scaled to 1/α and the data rate can be increased by α. As a result, the number of aggregated channels can be increased by α2 and the aggregated data bandwidth can be increased by α3. The scaling theory is verified by simulations and experiments in 350, 250, 180, and 90 nm CMOS.

Modern applications of pattern recognition generate very large amounts of data, which require large computational effort to process. However, the majority of the methods intended for large-scale problems aim to merely adapt standard classification methods without considering if those algorithms are appropriated for large-scale problems. CombNET-II was one of the first methods specifically proposed for such kind of a task. Recently, an extension of this model, named CombNET-III, was proposed. The main modifications over the previous model was the substitution of the expert networks by Support Vectors Machines (SVM) and the development of a general probabilistic framework. Although the previous model's performance and flexibility were improved, the low accuracy of the gating network was still compromising CombNET-III's classification results. In addition, due to the use of SVM based experts, the computational complexity is higher than CombNET-II. This paper proposes a new two-layered gating network structure that reduces the compromise between number of clusters and accuracy, increasing the model's performance with only a small complexity increase. This high-accuracy gating network also enables the removal the low confidence expert networks from the decoding procedure. This, in addition to a new faster strategy for calculating multiclass SVM outputs significantly reduced the computational complexity. Experimental results of problems with large number of categories show that the proposed model outperforms the original CombNET-III, while presenting a computational complexity more than one order of magnitude smaller. Moreover, when applied to a database with a large number of samples, it outperformed all compared methods, confirming the proposed model's flexibility.

Combination of mutually complementary features is necessary to cope with various changes in pattern classification between normal and pathological voices. This paper proposes a method to improve pathological/normal voice classification performance by combining heterogeneous features. Different combinations of auditory-based and higher-order features are investigated. Their performances are measured by Gaussian mixture models (GMMs), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and a classification and regression tree (CART) method. The proposed classification method by using the CART analysis is shown to be an effective method for pathological voice detection, with a 92.7% classification performance rate. This is a noticeable improvement of 54.32% compared to the MFCC-based GMM algorithm in terms of error reduction.

This letter deals with computationally efficient maximum-likelihood (ML) detection for the quasi-orthogonal space-time block code (QOSTBC) with four transmit antennas. The proposed ML detector uses a permutation based real-valued equivalent channel matrix representation. As a result, the complexity of ML detection problem is moderated from O(2|A|2) to O(4|A|), where |A| is modulation order. Numerical results show that the proposed ML detector provides ML performance and achieves greatly high computational savings.

This paper presents a new interactive learning method for spoken word acquisition through human-machine audio-visual interfaces. During the course of learning, the machine makes a decision about whether an orally input word is a word in the lexicon the machine has learned, using both speech and visual cues. Learning is carried out on-line, incrementally, based on a combination of active and unsupervised learning principles. If the machine judges with a high degree of confidence that its decision is correct, it learns the statistical models of the word and a corresponding image category as its meaning in an unsupervised way. Otherwise, it asks the user a question in an active way. The function used to estimate the degree of confidence is also learned adaptively on-line. Experimental results show that the combination of active and unsupervised learning principles enables the machine and the user to adapt to each other, which makes the learning process more efficient.

We propose and demonstrate a simple one-bus two-ring configuration where the two rings are mutually coupled that has advantages over the one-ring structure. Unlike a one cavity system, it can exhibit near critically-coupled transmission with a broader range of loss. It can also significantly enhance the cavity finesse by simply making the second ring twice the size of the bus-coupled one, with the enhancement proportional to the intensity buildup in the second ring.

Burn-in is a widely used method to improve the quality of products or systems after they have been produced. In this paper, optimal burn-in procedures for a system with two types of failures (i.e., minor and catastrophic failures) are investigated. A new system surviving burn-in time b is put into field operation and the system is used under a warranty policy under which the manufacturer agrees to provide a replacement system for any system that fails to achieve a lifetime of at least w. Upper bounds for optimal burn-in time minimizing the total expected warranty cost are obtained under a more general assumption on the shape of the failure rate function which includes the bathtub shaped failure rate function as a special case.

A new Hybrid-Carry-Selection (HCS) approach for deriving an efficient modulo 2n-1 addition is presented in this study. Its resulting adder architecture is simple and applicable for all n values. Based on 180-nm CMOS technology, the HCS-based modulo 2n-1 adder demonstrates its superiority in Area-Time (AT) performance over existing solutions.

In this paper, an energy-collection-based non-coherent IR-UWB receiver allowing low complexity and low power consumption is proposed for short range data communication. The proposed receiver consists of an on-the-fly integrator, a 1-bit digital sampler, a pre-processor and a digital symbol synchronizer. The on-the-fly integrator for energy collection and the 1-bit digital sampler reduce complexity of IR-UWB system. Furthermore, with a simple digital filter in the pre-processing unit, SNR and robustness of the receiver against time-varying channel are enhanced. Also the receiver complexity is diminished by a simple scheme of symbol synchronization based on rough time information about incoming pulses, not requiring exact timing information. The performance of the proposed receiver is simulated based on IEEE 802.15.4a channel model and the algorithms are implemented and verified on a FPGA.

A design of a low-power CMOS ring oscillator for an application to a 13.56 MHz clock generator in an implantable RFID tag is proposed. The circuit is based on a novel voltage inverter, which is an improved version of the conventional current-source loaded inverter. The proposed circuit enables low-power operation and low sensitivity of the oscillation frequency, fOSC, to decay of the power supply VDD. By employing a gm-boosting subcircuit, power dissipation is decreased to 49 µW at fOSC=13.56 MHz. The sensitivity of fOSC to VDD is reduced to -0.02 at fOSC=13.56 MHz thanks to the use of composite high-impedance current sources.