In this paper, we propose a speedup method of frequency switching time in the phase locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer using the target frequency detector (TFD). The TFD detects the time Ta for any channels where the output of the PLL frequency synthesizer reaches the target frequency for the first time. At Ta, the programmable divider, the reference divider and the phase comparator are reset, and the phase of the PLL frequency synthesizer is initialized and the phase synchronization is achieved. In the proposed method, since the ringing in the transient state does not occur, the output of the PLL frequency synthesizer converges to the target frequency at Ta and the frequency switching time is speeded up. The effectiveness of the proposed method will be confirmed by experimental results.

In this paper, the authors present general views of computer vision and image processing based on optimization. Relaxation and regularization in both broad and narrow senses are used in various fields and problems of computer vision and image processing, and they are currently being combined with general-purpose optimization algorithms. The principle and case examples of relaxation and regularization are discussed; the application of optimization to shape description that is a particularly important problem in the field is described; and the use of a genetic algorithm (GA) as a method of optimization is introduced.

The Conjugate Residual method, one of the iterative methods for solving linear systems, is applied to the problems with a dense coefficient matrix on distributed memory parallel computers. Based on an assumption on the computation and communication times of the proposed algorithm for parallel computers, it is shown that the optimal number of processing elements is proportional to the problem size N. The validity of the prediction is confirmed through numerical experiments on Hitachi SR2201.

A new dynamic programming (DP) based algorithm for monotonic and continuous two-dimensional warping (2DW) is presented. This algorithm searches for the optimal pixel-to-pixel mapping between a pair of images subject to monotonicity and continuity constraints with by far less time complexity than the algorithm previously reported by the authors. This complexity reduction results from a refinement of the multi-stage decision process representing the 2DW problem. As an implementation technique, a polynomial order approximation algorithm incorporated with beam search is also presented. Theoretical and experimental comparisons show that the present approximation algorithm yields better performance than the previous approximation algorithm.

A trinary-phased array, in which a phase quantization unit of phase shifters is 120 degrees is examined. The phase quantization unit of 120 degrees is the roughest value in practical phased array applications. Despite its rough phase quantization, the sidelobe level of less than -9 dB is attained by a genetic algorithm approach.

Computational sensor (smart sensor, vision chip in other words) is a very small integrated system, in which processing and sensing are unified on a single VLSI chip. It is designed for a specific targeted application. Research activities of computational sensor are described in this paper. There have been quite a few proposals and implementations in computational sensors. Firstly, their approaches are summarized from several points of view, such as advantage vs. disadvantage, neural vs. functional, architecture, analog vs. digital, local vs. global processing, imaging vs. processing, new processing paradigms. Then, several examples are introduced which are spatial processings, temporal processings, A/D conversions, programmable computational sensors. Finally, the paper is concluded.

In this paper, a classified vector quantization (CVQ) method using a novel direction based classifier is proposed. The new classifier uses a distortion measure related to the angle between vectors to determine the similarity of vectors. The distortion measure is simple and adequate to classify various edge types other than single and straight line types, which limit the size of image block to a rather small size. Simulation results show that the proposed technique can achieve better perceptual quality and edge integrity at a larger block size, as compared to other CVQs. It is shown when the vector dimension is changed from 16(4 4) to 64(8 8), the average bit rate can be reduced from 0. 684 bpp to 0.191, whereas the PSNR degradation is only about 1.2 dB.

This letter introduces a new digital halftoning technique based on error diffusion along a random space-filling curve. The purpose of introducing randomness is to erase regular patterns which tend to arise in an image area of uniform intensity. A simple algorithm for generating a random space-filling curve is proposed based on a random spanning tree and maze traversal. Some experimental results are also given.

Phase performance in a fiber optic temperature sensor using a mode-division multiplex is studied. The phase shift due to the temperature change of a multimode graded-index optical fiber is analyzed. The intensity fluctuation by the interference of two modes is estimated in computer simulation.

This paper is consisting of the two novel EMC technologies that we have been developed in our laboratory. The first is the technology for measuring the RF (Radio Frequency) nearby magnetic field and estimation of the RF current in the printed circuit board (PCB) by using the small loop antenna with multi-layer PCB structure developed by our laboratory. I introduce the application of our small loop antenna with its physical structure and the analysis of the nearby magnetic field distribution of the printed circuit board applying the discrete Wavelet analysis. We can understand the behavior of the digital circuit in detail, and we can also take measures to meet the specification about the electromagnetic radiation from the digital circuit from the higher order of priority by using these technologies. The second is our proposing novel technology for reducing the electromagnetic radiation from the digital equipment by taking notice of the improvement of the de-coupling in the PCB. We confirmed the remarkable effect of this technology by redesigning the motherboard of the small-sized computer.

Feedback of class memberships is incorporated into multimodal pattern classifiers and their unsupervised learning algorithm is presented. Classification decision at low levels is revised by the feedback information which also enables the reconstruction of patterns at low levels. The effects of the feedback are examined for the McGurk effect by using a simple model.

In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) of 16 differential amplitude phase shift keying (16DAPSK) modems in future mobile communication system is derived analytically. The channel employed in this paper is the frequency-selective and fast Rayleigh fading channel, corrupted by cochannel interference (CCI) and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Exact expressions for the probability distributions of the differential phase and amplitude ratio are derived for the BER calculation. The BER and optimum boundary are obtained for various channel conditions. In addition, the results for the BER in the presence of CCI are provided.

This paper proposes a novel sequential coherent preambleless demodulator that uses phase signals instead of complex signals in the automatic frequency control (AFC) and carrier recovery circuits. The proposed demodulator employs a phase-combined frequency error detection circuit and dual loop AFC circuit to achieve fast frequency acquisition and low frequency jitter. It also adopts an open loop carrier recovery scheme with a sample hold circuit after the carrier filter to ensure carrier signal stability within a packet. It is shown that the frame error rate performance of the proposed demodulator is superior, by 30%, to that offered by differential detection in a frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. The hardware size of the proposed demodulator is about only 1/10 that of a conventional coherent demodulator employing complex signals.

A problem of obtaining an optimal file transfer on a file transmission net N is to consider how to distribute, with a minimum total cost, copies of a certain file of information from some vertices to others on N by the respective vertices' copy demand numbers. This paper proves such a problem to be NP-hard in general.

Crosstalk from digital to analog circuits can be causative of operation fails in analog-digital mixed LSIs. This paper describes modeling techniques and simulation strategies of the substrate coupling noise. A macroscopic substrate noise model that expresses the noise as a function of logic state transition frequencies among digital blocks is proposed. A simulation system based on the model is implemented in the mixed signal simulation environment, where performance degradation of the 2nd order ΔΣADC coupled to digital noise sources is clearly simulated. These results indicate that the proposed behavioral modeling approach allows practicable full chip substrate noise simulation measures.

Wavelength conversion is important since it ensures full flexibility of the WDM network layer. Progress in optical wavelength converter technology is reviewed with emphasis on all-optical wavelength converter types based on semiconductor optical amplifiers.

In this paper, a scheme to remove clouds and their shadows from remotely sensed images of Landsat TM over land has been proposed. The scheme uses the image fusion technique to automatically recognize and remove contamination of clouds and their shadows, and integrate complementary information into the composite image from multitemporal images. The cloud regions can be detected on the basis of the reflectance differences with the other regions. Based on the fact that shadows smooth the brightness changes of the ground, the shadow regions can be detected successfully by means of wavelet transform. Further, an area-based detection rule is developed in this paper and the multispectral characteristics of Landsat TM images are used to alleviate the computational load. Because the wavelet transform is adopted for the image fusion, artifacts are invisible in the fused images. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is demonstrated experimentally.

Wavelength conversion is important since it ensures full flexibility of the WDM network layer. Progress in optical wavelength converter technology is reviewed with emphasis on all-optical wavelength converter types based on semiconductor optical amplifiers.

Template learning has potential application in several areas of Cellular Neural Network research, including texture recognition, pattern detection and so on. In this letter, a recently-developed algorithm called Adaptive Simulated Annealing is investigated for learning CNN templates, as a superior alternative to the Genetic Algorithm.

We propose a real-time low-rate video compression algorithm using fixed-rate multi-stage hierarchical vector quantization. Vector quantization is suitable for mobile computing, since it demands small computation on decoding. The proposed algorithm enables transmission of 10 QCIF frames per second over a low-rate 29.2 kbps mobile channel. A frame is hierarchically divided by sub-blocks. A frame of images is compressed in a fixed rate at any video activity. For active frames, large sub-blocks for low resolution are mainly transmitted. For inactive frames, smaller sub-blocks for high resolution can be transmitted successively after a motion-compensated frame. We develop a compression system which consists of a host computer and a memory-based processor for the nearest neighbor search on VQ. Our algorithm guarantees real-time decoding on a poor CPU.