A digital noncoherent demodulation scheme is presented for reception of Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) signals with small modulation index. The proposed differential demodulator utilizes oversampled signals to estimate the symbol timing and to compensate the frequency offset. The performance of the proposed receiver is evaluated in terms of the bit-error rate (BER). Numerical results show that the proposed demodulator provides performance comparable to that of conventional baseband differential demodulator, while significantly reducing the implementation complexity suitable for single chip integration with direct conversion radio frequency module. Finally the performance of the proposed receiver is improved by adding a simple decision feedback module.

Internet access via mobile communications networks is growing rapidly; NTT DoCoMo's Internet access service using cellular phones, known as i-mode and started in February 1999, is no exception. The i-mode service enables the user to send e-mail and access Web sites for a variety of information through simple operation of a mobile terminal equipped with a browser. As a result, the traffic to be carried by the PDC (Personal Digital Cellular)-- Packet mobile communication network, which is used to provide the i-mode service, is also increasing rapidly. To meet this growing demand, the switching systems in place are being either increased in capacity or replaced by more powerful ones. To plan this effectively, it is necessary to make an accurate evaluation of the i-mode processing capacity. We have developed a new method of evaluating processing capacity, which is based on the conventional method but takes account of the characteristics specific to the PDC-Packet network. This paper discusses the method of evaluating the processing capacity of switching systems used in the PDC-Packet mobile network.

Recently, it becomes popular to synthesize new viewpoint images based on some sampled viewpoint images of real scene using technique of computer vision. 3D shape reconstruction in Euclidean space is not necessarily required, but information of dense matching points is basically enough to synthesize new viewpoint images. In this paper, we propose a new method for 3D reconstruction from three cameras based on projective geometry. In the proposed method, three input camera images are rectified based on projective geometry, so that the vertical and horizontal directions can be completely aligned with the epipolar planes between the cameras. This rectification provides Projective Voxel Space (PVS), in which the three axes are aligned with the directions of camera projection. Such alignment simplifies the procedure for projection between the 3D space and the image planes in PVS. Taking this advantage of PVS, silhouettes of the objects are projected into PVS, so that the searching area of matching points can be reduced. The consistency of color value between the images is also evaluated for final determination of the matching point. The finally acquired matching points in the proposed method are described as the surface of the objects in PVS. The acquired surface of the objects in PVS also includes knowledge about occlusion. Finally, images from new viewpoints can be synthesized from the matching points and occlusions. Although the proposed method requires only weak calibration, plausible occlusions are also synthesized in the images. In the experiments, images of virtual viewpoints, which were set among three cameras, are synthesized from three real images.

This paper proposes a new method to recover the sign of local Gaussian curvature from multiple (more than three) shading images. The information required to recover the sign of Gaussian curvature is obtained by applying Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to the normalized irradiance measurements. The sign of the Gaussian curvature is recovered based on the relative orientation of measurements obtained on a local five point test pattern to those in the 2-D subspace called the eigen plane. Using multiple shading images gives a more accurate and robust result and minimizes the effect of shadows by allowing a larger area of the visible surface to be analyzed compared to methods using only three shading images. Furthermore, it allows the method to be applied to specular surfaces. Since PCA removes linear correlation among images, the method can produce results of high quality even when the light source directions are not widely dispersed.

We previously developed a novel transmission power control method for code-division multiple access (CDMA) wireless systems that is suitable for the transmission control protocol (TCP) and constant bit rate (CBR) connections. It allows each mobile terminal to send packets to arbitrary slots without negotiation or the use of the ALOHA protocol. It results in high bandwidth utilization for TCP connections without the need to modify the TCP protocol or use a snoop agent. In this paper, we improve our previously developed power control method so as to adapt itself to distance variations and instantaneous fluctuations in the received power due to fading. We show that the developed method enables efficient bandwidth utilization compared with the conventional power control technique under various conditions.

This paper investigates the interference suppression effect from much higher rate dedicated physical channels (DPCHs) of a parallel-type coherent multistage interference canceller (COMSIC) with iterative channel estimation (ICE) by laboratory experiments in the transmit-power-controlled W-CDMA reverse link. The experimental results elucidate that when two interfering DPCHs exist with the spreading factor (SF) of 8 and with the ratio of the target signal energy per bit-to-interference power spectrum density ratio (Eb/I0) of fast transmit power control, ΔEb/I0, of -6 dB (which corresponds to 64 simultaneous DPCHs with SF = 64, i.e., the same symbol rate as the desired DPCH), the implemented COMSIC receiver with ICE exhibits a significant decrease in the required transmit signal energy per bit-to-background noise power spectrum density ratio (Eb/N0) at the average bit error rate (BER) of 10-3 (while the matched filter (MF)-based Rake receiver could not realize the average BER of 10-3 due to severe multiple access interference (MAI)). It is also found that the achieved BER performance at the average BER of 10-3 of the COMSIC receiver with the A/D converter quantization of 8 bits in the laboratory experiments is degraded by approximately 1.0 dB and 4.0 dB compared to the computer simulation results, when ΔEb/I0=-6 dB and -9 dB, respectively, due to the quantization error of the desired signal and path search error for the Rake combiner. Finally, we show that the required transmit Eb/N0 at the average BER of 10-3 of the third-stage COMSIC with ICE is decreased by approximately 0.3 and 0.5 dB compared to that of COMSIC with decision-feedback type channel estimation (DFCE) with and without antenna diversity reception, respectively.

In order to assess the possible impacts of meteors with spacecraft, which is among major hazard in the space environment, it is essential to establish an accurate statistics of their mass and velocity. We developed a radar-optical combined system for detecting faint meteors consisting of a powerful VHF Doppler radar and an ICCD video camera. The Doppler pulse compression scheme is used to enhance the S/N ratio of the radar echoes with very large Doppler shifts, as well as to determine their range with a resolution of 200 m. A very high sensitivity of more than 14 magnitude and 9 magnitude for radar and optical sensors, respectively, has been obtained. Instantaneous direction of meteor body observed by the radar is determined with the interferometry technique. We examined the optimum way of the receiving antenna arrangements, and also of the signal processing. Its absolute accuracy was confirmed by the optical observations with background stars as a reference. By combining the impinging velocity of meteor bodies derived by the radar with the absolute visual magnitude determined by the video camera simultaneously, the mass of each meteor body was estimated. The developed observation system will be used to create a valuable data base of the mass and velocity information of faint meteors, on which very little is known so far. The data base is expected to play a vital role in our understanding of the space environment needed for designing large space structures.

The paper proposes a vision-based system for adaptively inferring the interactional intention of a person coming close to a robot, which plays an important role in the succeeding stage of human/robot cooperative handling of works/tools in production lines. Here, interactional intention is ranged in the meaning of the intention to interact/operate with the robot, which is proposed to be estimated by the human head moving path during an incipient period of time. To implement this intention inference capability, first, human entrance is detected and is modeled by an ellipse to supply information about the head position. Second, B-spline technique is used to approximate the trajectory with reduced control points in order that the system acquires information about the human motion direction and the curvature of the motion trajectory. Finally, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are applied as the adaptive inference engines at the stage of inferring the human interactional intention. The HMM algorithm with a stochastic pattern matching capability is extended to supply whether or not a person has an intention toward the robot at the incipient time. The reestimation process here models the motion behavior of an human worker when he has or doesn't have the intention to operate the robot. Experimental results demonstrate the adaptability of the inference system using the extended HMM algorithm for filtering out motion deviation over the trajectory.

In this paper, we describe a method for estimating external camera parameters in real time. We investigated the effectiveness of this method for annotating real scenes with 3-D virtual objects on a wearable computer. The proposed method enables determining known natural feature points of objects through multiplied color histogram matching and template matching. This external-camera-parameter calculation method consists of three algorithms for PnP problems, and it uses each algorithm selectively. We implemented an experimental system based on our method on a wearable vision system. This experimental system can annotate real objects with 3D virtual objects by using the proposed method. The system was implemented in order to enable effective annotation in a mixed-reality environment on a wearable computing system. The system consists of an ultra small CCD camera set at the user's eye, an ultra small display, and a computer. This computer uses the proposed method to determine the camera parameters. It then renders virtual objects based on the camera parameters and synthesizes images on a display. The system works at 10 frames per second.

It has been over a decade since the "Eigenfaces" approach to automatic face recognition, and other appearance-based methods, made an impression on the computer vision research community and helped spur interest in vision systems being used to support biometrics and human-computer interface. In this paper I give a personal view of the original motivation for the work, some of the strengths and limitation of the approach, and progress in the years since. Appearance-based approaches to recognition complement feature- or shape-based approaches, and a practical face recognition system should have elements of both. Eigenfaces is not a general approach to recognition, but rather one tool out of many to be applied and evaluated in the appropriate context.

This paper presents a variable rate transmission scheme suitable for bandlimited meteor burst channel. Meteor Burst Communication (MBC) is a unique type of radio communication, which is primarily used for non-realtime remote data collection. In the paper, along with conventional BPSK and QPSK modulations, QAM and M-ary Bi-orthogonal modulations are analyzed for software modem implementation in an MBC system. Performance of the modulation methods is presented for both static AWGN channel and meteor burst channel. The proposed scheme for variable rate transmission dynamically estimates the MBC channel and varies the modulation type of a software modem, to control the transmission rate between bursts. The scheme dynamically selects a modulation type and packet length that will maximize the average throughput of the system. Performance of the scheme is analyzed and compared with conventional fixed rate modems. A practical implementation for software modem is suggested that uses a common core modulator/demodulator structure.

The legal firing sequence problem of Petri nets (LFS) is one of fundamental problems in the analysis of Petri nets, because it appears as a subproblem of various basic problems. Since LFS is shown to be NP-hard, various heuristics has been proposed to solve the problem of practical size in a reasonable time. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for this problem. It is based on the partial order verification technique, and reduces redundant branches in the search tree. Moreover, the proposed algorithm can be combined with various types of heuristics.

This paper proposes an automatic dispersion equalization system using extracted clock power monitoring in order to facilitate the field installation of high-speed time-division multiplexed (TDM) systems over existing fiber cables. The proposed scheme adjusts the dispersion of a variable-dispersion equalizer so as to maximize the extracted clock power level. This scheme has a simple configuration, needs no communication channel between the transmitter and the receiver, and is sensitive to parameters such as initial chirping and fiber input power. The clock power dependence on the fiber dispersion is theoretically analyzed assuming that the return-to-zero (RZ) format is used and that pulse broadening is small compared to the bit duration. We show that the clock power is maximized when the dispersion-induced waveform distortion is minimized. Numerical simulations show that the proposed scheme is effective with the non-return-to-zero (NRZ) format and for the case that the optimum total dispersion deviates from zero due to initial and/or self-phase modulation (SPM)-induced chirping. The operation of the proposed automatic equalization system is experimentally confirmed in 20-Gbit/s transmission using both RZ and NRZ formats. Moreover, a 40-Gbit/s transmission experiment over 200 km of dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) is successfully demonstrated using the proposed equalization scheme.

In this paper, we propose a unified high-radix division algorithm for high-speed signal and data processing applications, and present the design and evaluation of high-radix parallel dividers based on the proposed algorithm. By prescaling the input operands and converting some significant digits of a partial remainder into non-redundant representation, the quotient digit can be obtained directly from the partial remainder without using quotient digit selection tables. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed radix-4 and radix-8 divider architectures achieve faster computation with the same level of hardware complexity than the binary counterparts. We also show an experimental fabrication of a radix-4 divider chip in 0.35 µm CMOS technology.

In this paper, we present a design for an optical video transmission system employing a super wide-band FM modulation scheme. We focus on the design of optical transmitters and receivers, especially a wide-band electrical-to-optical converter and optical-to-electrical converter. With this system, it is important to develop optical and microwave devices which have a wide frequency response combined with flat group delay characteristics in order to improve the quality of the video signals after transmission. We also analyze theoretically the hybrid transmission capacity of AM analog video signals and 64QAM signals for digital video and data, and show the FM modulation parameters needed to realize high quality transmission. An experimental evaluation shows that our designed optical transmitter and receiver achieve high quality for the various channel plans for AM/64QAM hybrid transmission. The system has high received optical sensitivity and a wide optical dynamic range, allowing it to distribute analog video, digital video, and Internet data to many users over a wide area.

This paper proposes a non-linear adaptive algorithm, the amplitude banded RLS (ABRLS) algorithm, as an adaptation procedure for time variant channel equalizers. In the ABRLS algorithm, a coefficient matrix is updated based on the amplitude level of the received sequence. To enhance the capability of tracking for the ABRLS algorithm, a parallel adaptation scheme is utilized which involves the structures of decision feedback equalizer (DFE). Computer simulations demonstrate that the novel ABRLS based equalizer provides a significant improvement relative to the conventional RLS DFE on a rapidly time variant communication channel.

Reactive sputtering of a metallic target in DC planar magnetron discharge shows a drastic mode transition between metallic and oxide modes. To describe the experimental results quantitatively, a new reactive sputtering model including the secondary electron emission coefficient of a target has been developed. The model is based on a simple reactive gas balance model proposed by Berg et al., and can quantitatively describe experimental results such as the oxygen flow rate dependence of deposition rate and discharge, observed for MgO sputter-deposition.

In this paper, we propose a new type of hybrid ARQ protocol, in which a channel-adaptive variable rate channel coding scheme is combined with a multi-copy retransmission strategy so as to enhance the system performance under the delay constraint of real-time ATM services in broadband radio access networks. The main feature of a multi-copy retransmission strategy in this scheme is to improve the average throughput for a given Forward Error Correction (FEC) rate, subject to the prescribed cell loss requirement of the real-time wireless ATM services, while augmenting the reliability of channel state information required for a channel-adaptive FEC scheme. Our analysis shows that under a harsh fading channel, the proposed approach is useful for achieving the prescribed cell loss performance without significantly degrading the average throughput performance.

Due to the advancements in Information Technology, such as the Internet and the presence of fierce competition in the market, the business environment is changing rapidly. To cope with these dynamic changes, heterogeneous systems are now required to integrate in order to form alliances with different business units or within individual business units. Since business operations can not be stopped to carry out these changes in the existing systems, the systems are required to integrate flexibly, preserving each constituent's individual characteristics. By implementing Atomic Action through a gateway and across constituent systems in a Heterogeneous Autonomous Decentralized System (HADS), higher degrees of assurance can be achieved through cooperation. However, if all the transactions are passed through a gateway, the response time worsens and the result cannot be obtained within an appropriate timeframe. Hence, a new technique of suppressing the flow passing through the gateway, while achieving a maximum number of successful transaction within the appropriate timeframe, is required.

Tree-based approach has been proven to be most scalable for one-to-many reliable multicast. It efficiently combines distributed recovery with local recovery over a logical tree of the sender and receivers. It has also been known that the performance of the tree-based protocols heavily depends upon the quality of the logical tree. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end scheme to further enhance the scalability of the tree-based approach. By exchanging packet loss information observed at the end hosts, the scheme constructs and maintains a logical tree congruent with the underlying multicast routing tree even in the presence of session membership and multicast route changes. The scheme also groups the tree nodes and assigns separate multicast addresses to them in order to enable efficient multicast retransmission for reducing both delay and exposure. We compare the proposed scheme with Tree-based Multicast Transport Protocol (TMTP), a static tree-based protocol. Extensive simulations up to 300 node sessions reveal that the proposed scheme reduces implosion and exposure more than 20% and 50%, respectively. The results also indicate that the scheme is highly scalable such that the improvement gets more significant as the size of the session increases.