Clustering technology is very important in ad hoc networks and sensor networks from the view point of reducing the traffic load and energy consumption. In this paper, we propose a new structure formation mechanism as a tool for clustering. It meets the key clustering requirements including the use of an autonomous decentralized algorithm and a consideration of the situation of individual nodes. The proposed mechanism follows the framework of autonomous decentralized control based on local interaction, in which the behavior of the whole system is indirectly controlled by appropriately designing the autonomous actions of the subsystems. As an application example, we demonstrate autonomous decentralized clustering for a two-dimensional lattice network model, and the characteristics and adaptability of the proposed method are shown. In particular, the clusters produced can reflect the environmental situation of each node given by the initial condition.

As RFID technology is being more widely adopted, it is fairly common to read mobile tags using RFID systems, such as packages on conveyer belt and unit loads on pallet jack or forklift truck. In RFID systems, multiple tags use a shared medium for communicating with a reader. It is quite possible that tags will exit the reading area without being read, which results in tag leaking. In this letter, a reliable tag anti-collision algorithm for mobile tags is proposed. It reliably estimates the expectation of the number of tags arriving during a time slot when new tags continually enter the reader's reading area and no tag leaves without being read. In addition, it gives priority to tags that arrived early among read cycles and applies the expectation of the number of tags arriving during a time slot to the determination of the number of slots in the initial inventory round of the next read cycle. Simulation results show that the reliability of the proposed algorithm is close to that of DFSA algorithm when the expectation of the number of tags entering the reading area during a time slot is a given, and is better than that of DFSA algorithm when the number of time slots in the initial inventory round of next read cycle is set to 1 assuming that the number of tags arriving during a time slot follows Poisson distribution.

Applying Distributed Video Coding (DVC) to mobile devices that have limited computation and power resources can be a very challenging problem due to its high-complexity decoding. To address this, this paper proposes a DVC bitstream organizer. The proposed DVC bitstream organizer reduces the complexity associated with repetitive channel decoding and SI generation in a flexible manner. It allows users to choose a means of minimizing the computational complexity of the DVC decoder according to their preferences and the device's resource limitations. An experiment shows that the proposed method increases decoding speeds by up to 25 times.

The quasi-ARX neurofuzzy (Q-ARX-NF) model has shown great approximation ability and usefulness in nonlinear system identification and control. It owns an ARX-like linear structure, and the coefficients are expressed by an incorporated neurofuzzy (InNF) network. However, the Q-ARX-NF model suffers from curse-of-dimensionality problem, because the number of fuzzy rules in the InNF network increases exponentially with input space dimension. It may result in high computational complexity and over-fitting. In this paper, the curse-of-dimensionality is solved in two ways. Firstly, a support vector regression (SVR) based approach is used to reduce computational complexity by a dual form of quadratic programming (QP) optimization, where the solution is independent of input dimensions. Secondly, genetic algorithm (GA) based input selection is applied with a novel fitness evaluation function, and a parsimonious model structure is generated with only important inputs for the InNF network. Mathematical and real system simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Cognitive radios are intelligent communications, and are expected to more efficiently utilize the radio channel. Modulation identification is one of the key issues in the cognitive radios. Many works were devoted to the classification of symbol-by-symbol modulations, however, few papers on block modulations have been published. In this paper, an identification error analysis is presented for block orthogonal modulations using General Orthogonal Modulation~(GOM). A symbol error probability is derived for the identified block orthogonal modulation. Numerical results of 4-dimensional block orthogonal modulation are presented with simulation results.

Acoustic data transmission is a technique which embeds data in a sound wave imperceptibly and detects it at a receiver. The data are embedded in an original audio signal and transmitted through the air by playing back the data-embedded audio using a loudspeaker. At the receiver, the data are extracted from the received audio signal captured by a microphone. In our previous work, we proposed an acoustic data transmission system designed based on phase modification of the modulated complex lapped transform (MCLT) coefficients. In this paper, we propose the spectral magnitude adjustment (SMA) technique which not only enhances the quality of the data-embedded audio signal but also improves the transmission performance of the system.

In this paper, Source/Drain (S/D) engineering for high performance (HP) Vertical MOSFET (V-MOSFET) in 3Xnm generation and its beyond is investigated, by using gradual S/D profile while degradation of driving current (ION) due to the parasitic series resistance (Rpara) is minimized through two-dimensional device simulation taking into account for gate-induced-drain-leakage (GIDL). In general, it is significant to reduce spreading resistance in the case of conventional Planar MOSFET. Therefore, in this study, we focused and analyzed the abruptness of diffusion layer that is still importance parameter in V-MOSFET. First, for improving the basic device performance such as subthreshold swing (SS), ION, and Rpara, S/D engineering is investigated. The dependency of device performance on S/D abruptness (σS/D) for various Lightly Doped Drain Extension (LDD) abruptness (σLDD) is analyzed. In this study, Spacer Length (LSP) is defined as a function of σS/D. As σS/D becomes smaller and S/D becomes more abrupt, LSP becomes shorter. SS depends on the σS/D rather than the σLDD. ION has the peak value of 1750 µA/µm at σS/D = 2 nm/dec. and σLDD=3 nm/dec. when the silicon pillar diameter (D) is 30 nm and the gate length (Lg) is 60 nm. As σS/D becomes small, higher ION is obtained due to reduction of Rpara while SS is degraded. However, when σS/D becomes too small in the short channel devices (Lg = 60 nm and Lg = 45 nm), ION is degraded because the leakage current due to GIDL is increased and reaches IOFF limit of 100 nA/µm. In addition, as σLDD becomes larger, larger ION is obtained in the case of Lg = 100 nm and Lg = 60 nm because channel length becomes shorter. On the other hand, in the case of Lg = 45 nm, as σLDD becomes larger, ION is degraded because short channel effect (SCE) becomes significant. Next, the dependency of the basic device performance on D is investigated. By slimming D from 30 nm to 10 nm, while SS is improved and approaches the ideal value of 60 mV/Decade, ION is degraded due to increase of on-resistance (Ron). From these results, it is necessary to reduce Rpara while IOFF meets limit of 100 nA/µm for designing S/D of HP V-MOSFET. Especially for the V-MOSFET in the 1Xnm generation and its beyond, the influence of the Rpara and GIDL on ION becomes more significant, and therefore, the trade-off between σS/D and ION has a much greater impact on S/D engineering of V-MOSFET.

We propose a new three-dimensional (3D) NAND flash memory array having Tied Bit-line and Ground Select Transistor (TiGer) [1]. Channels are stacked in the vertical direction to increase the memory density without the device size scaling. To distinguish stacked channels, a novel operation scheme is introduced instead of adding supplementary control gates. The stacked layers are selected by using ground select line (GSL) and common source line (CSL). Device structure and fabrication process are described. Operation scheme and simulation results for program inhibition are also discussed.

In this paper, the authors focus on upstream transmission in TDMA-based IEEE 802.16j and propose two time slot assignment algorithms to decrease end-to-end transmission latency. One of the proposed algorithms assigns time slots considering the hop count from a gateway node, and the other takes the path from the relay node to the gateway node into account. In addition, a restriction in assigning time slots is introduced to reduce the delay at each relay node. The algorithms with the restriction assign later time slots considering the time slot order of links connecting a relay node. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated through simulation experiments from the viewpoints of frame size and end-to-end transmission latency, and it is confirmed that the proposed algorithms achieve small transmission latency regardless of packet generation rate in the network, and decrease the transmission latency by up to 70% compared with the existing algorithm.

A simple image compression scheme is presented for various types of images, which include color/grayscale images, color-quantized images, and bilevel images such as document and digital halftone images. It is a bitplane coding composed of a new context modeling and adaptive binary arithmetic coding. A target bit to be encoded is conditioned by the estimates of the neighboring pixels including non-causal locations. Several functionalities are also integrated. They are arbitrary shaped ROI transmission, selective tile partitioning, accuracy scalability, and others. The proposed bitplane codec is competitive with JPEG-LS in lossless compression of 8-bit grayscale and 24-bit color images. The proposed codec is close to JBIG2 in bilevel image compression. It outperforms the existing standards in compression of 8-bit color-quantized images.

This paper introduces a new problem of maximizing communication performance while sustaining communication connection for a specified time without battery energy depletion on wireless sensor networks. As a solution to the problem, this paper proposes a communication scheme that maximizes the transmission rates of packets from sender sensors to destination sensors while guaranteeing the given connection time. The proposed scheme is designed to work for wireless sensors with multiple radio transmission ranges.

Turbo codes suffer from high decoding latency which hinders their utilization in many communication systems. Parallel decodable turbo codes (PDTCs) are suitable for parallel decoding and hence have low latency. In this article, we analyze the worst case minimum distance of parallel decodable turbo codes with both S-random interleaver and memory collision free Row-Column S-random interleaver. The effect of minimum distance on code performance is determined through computer simulations.

A recursive and efficient method for generating binary vectors in non-increasing order of their likelihood for a set of all binary vectors is proposed. Numerical results on experiments show the effectiveness of this method. Efficient decoding algorithms with simulation results are also proposed as applications of the method.

Program comprehension using dynamic information is one of key tasks of software maintenance. Software visualization with sequence diagrams is a promising technique to help developer comprehend the behavior of object-oriented systems effectively. There are many tools that can support automatic generation of a sequence diagram from execution traces. However it is still difficult to understand the behavior because the size of automatically generated sequence diagrams from the massive amounts of execution traces tends to be beyond developer's capacity. In this paper, we propose an execution trace slicing and visualization method. Our proposed method is capable of slice calculation based on a behavior model which can treat dependencies based on static and dynamic analysis and supports for various programs including exceptions and multi-threading. We also introduce our tool that perform our proposed slice calculation on the Eclipse platform. We show the applicability of our proposed method by applying the tool to two Java programs as case studies. As a result, we confirm effectiveness of our proposed method for understanding the behavior of object-oriented systems.

Reversible color component transforms derived by the LU factorization are briefly described. It is possible to obtain an reversible implementation to a given component transform, even if the original transform is irreversible. Some examples are presented and their performances are compared in image compression.

In a wireless multi-hop network between a source node (S) and a destination node (D), multipath routing in which S redundantly sends the same packets to D through multiple routes at the same time is effective for enhancing the reliability of the wireless data transmission by means of route diversity. However, when applying the multipath routing to a factory where huge robots are moving around, if closer multiple routes are selected, the probability that they are blocked by the robots at the same time becomes higher, so the reliability in terms of packet loss rate cannot be enhanced. In this paper, we propose a multipath routing method which can select physically distant multiple routes without any knowledge on the locations of nodes. We introduce a single metric composed of “the distance between routes” and “the route quality” by means of scalarization in multi-objective maximization problem and apply a genetic algorithm (GA) for searching for adequate routes which maximize the metric. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method can adaptively control the topologies of selected routes between S and D, and effectively reduce the packet loss rates.

In an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system, carrier frequency offset (CFO) causes intercarrier interference (ICI) which significantly degrades the system error performance. In this paper we provide a closed-form expression to evaluate the exact error probabilities of arbitrary 2-D modulation OFDM systems with CFO, and analyze the effect of CFO on error performance.

This paper introduces a unified method of spectrum sensing for all existing analog television (TV) signals including NTSC, PAL and SECAM. We propose a correlation based method (CBM) with a single reference signal for sensing any analog TV signals. In addition we also propose an improved energy detection method. The CBM approach has been implemented in a hardware prototype specially designed for participating in Singapore TV white space (WS) test trial conducted by Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of the Singapore government. Analytical and simulation results of the CBM method will be presented in the paper, as well as hardware testing results for sensing various analog TV signals. Both AWGN and fading channels will be considered. It is shown that the theoretical results closely match with those from simulations. Sensing performance of the hardware prototype will also be presented in fading environment by using a fading simulator. We present performance of the proposed techniques in terms of probability of false alarm, probability of detection, sensing time etc. We also present a comparative study of the various techniques.

In Long-Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced, heterogeneous networks where femtocells and picocells are overlaid onto macrocells are extensively discussed in addition to traditional well-planned macrocell deployment to improve further the system throughput. In heterogeneous network deployment, combined usage of inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) and cell range expansion (CRE) is very effective in improving the system and cell-edge throughput. In this combined usage, the fraction of the sets of user equipment (UEs) connected to the picocells, which are controlled through CRE, and that connected to macrocells affect the gain from the ICIC. Therefore, this paper evaluates the throughput performance of different offset values for CRE and different amounts of protected resources for ICIC in picocell deployments in LTE-Advanced downlink. Simulation results (2–10 picocells and 30 UEs are located within 1 macrocell) assuming a full buffer traffic model show that when the CRE offset value is set between 8 to 20 dB, almost the same user throughput performance is obtained by allocating the appropriate resources to protect UEs that connect to the picocells. Furthermore, the appropriate resource ratio is derived based on the fraction of UEs connected to the picocells through CRE, the fraction of UEs connected to the macrocell, and the number of picocells under the simulation conditions.

When a cognitive radio system dynamically utilizes a frequency band, channel control information must be communicated over the network in order for the currently available carrier frequencies to be shared. In order to keep efficient spectrum utilization, this control information should also be dynamically transmitted through channels such as cognitive pilot channels based on the channel conditions. If transmitters dynamically select carrier frequencies, receivers must receive the control signal without knowledge of its carrier frequencies. A novel scheme called differential code parallel transmission (DCPT) enables receivers to receive low-rate information without any knowledge of the carrier frequency. The transmitter simultaneously transmits two signals whose carrier frequencies are separated by a predefined value. The absolute values of the carrier frequencies can be varied. When the receiver receives the DCPT signal, it multiplies the signal by a frequency-shifted version of itself; this yields a DC component that represents the data signal, which is then demodulated. However, the multiplication process results in the noise power being squared, necessitating high received signal power. In this paper, to realize a bandpass filter that passes only DCPT signals of unknown frequency and that suppresses noise and interference at other frequencies, a DCPT-adaptive bandpass filter (ABF) that employs an adaptive equalizer is proposed. In the training phase, the received signal is the filter input and the frequency-shifted signal is the training input. Then, the filter is trained to pass the higher-frequency signal of the two DCPT signals. The performance of DCPT-ABF is evaluated through computer simulations. We find that DCPT-ABF operates successfully even under strong interference.