To cut down the sidelobe level of radiation pattern, a novel adaptive algorithm is proposed for electronic steering parasitic antenna. The composite objective function in this algorithm takes both directivity and sidelobe level of pattern into account, and the steepest gradient algorithm is selected to search the optimum value of reactive load. Simulations are carried out to validate the algorithm, simulated results show that the levels of sidelobe are both below -4 dB in different beamforming cases, and the front to back ratios are better than 10 dB.

In this paper, we propose a new multimodal interaction description language, MIML (Multimodal Interaction Markup Language), which defines dialogue patterns between human and various types of interactive agents. The feature of this language is three-layered description of agent-based interactive systems. The high-level description is a task definition that can easily construct typical agent-based interactive task control information. The middle-level description is an interaction description that defines agent's behavior and user's input at the granularity of dialogue segment. The low-level description is a platform dependent description that can override the pre-defined function in the interaction description. The connection between task-level and interaction-level is realized by generation of interaction description templates from the task level description. The connection between interaction-level and platform-level is realized by a binding mechanism of XML. As a result of the comparison with other languages, MIML has advantages in high-level interaction description, modality extensibility and compatibility with standardized technologies.

A batch process is a discontinuous and concurrent process which is suitable for multi-product, small-sized production. The distinctive feature of a batch process is that various decision making processes, such as scheduling, design, operation, etc. are strongly connected with each other. Interaction among these processes is necessary to dynamically and flexibly cope with a variety of unplanned events. This paper aims at presenting a batch scheduling technique based on Petri net models and showing the possibilities of integration between scheduling and design of batch processes. For this purpose, it first views the behavior of a batch operating system as a discrete event system and presents a Petri net model to be used for scheduling, design and operation. It next formulates batch scheduling problems based on Petri net partial languages, proposes their solution technique and last discusses the integration between scheduling and design of batch systems.

A recursive quadratic programming (RQP) approach is proposed for multiuser detection in multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) systems. In this approach, the combinatorial problem associated with the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) detection is relaxed to a quadratic programming (QP) problem first and then a recursive approach is developed to improve the detection performance. Computer simulations are presented which demonstrate that the detector developed based on the proposed approach offers close-to-optimal symbol-error rate (SER) performance which outperforms several existing suboptimal detectors.

Frequency-domain and time-domain novel uniform asymptotic solutions for the scattered fields by an impedance cylinder and a dielectric cylinder, with a radius of curvature sufficiently larger than the wavelength, are presented in this paper. The frequency-domain novel extended UTD and the modified UTD solutions, derived by retaining the higher-order terms in the integrals for the scattered fields, may be applied in the deep shadow region in which the conventional UTD solutions produce the substantial errors. The novel time-domain uniform asymptotic solutions are derived by applying the saddle point technique in evaluating the inverse Fourier transform. We have confirmed the accuracy and validity of the uniform asymptotic solutions both in the frequency-domain and in the time-domain by comparing those solutions with the reference solutions calculated from the eigenfunction expansion (frequency-domain) and from the hybrid eigenfunction expansion and fast Fourier transform (FFT) method (time-domain).

We are developing a helper robot that carries out tasks ordered by the user through speech. The robot needs a vision system to recognize the objects appearing in the orders. It is, however, difficult to realize vision systems that can work in various conditions. Thus, we have proposed to use the human user's assistance through speech. When the vision system cannot achieve a task, the robot makes a speech to the user so that the natural response by the user can give helpful information for its vision system. Our previous system assumes that it can segment images without failure. However, if there are occluded objects and/or objects composed of multicolor parts, segmentation failures cannot be avoided. This paper presents an extended system that tries to recover from segmentation failures using photometric invariance. If the system is not sure about segmentation results, the system asks the user by appropriate expressions depending on the invariant values. Experimental results show the usefulness of the system.

In this paper, a three-way divider is proposed for a partially-corporate feed in an alternating phase-fed single-layer slotted waveguide array. The divider is placed at the middle of the feed waveguide and reduces the long line effects; the frequency bandwidth is doubled. It is a kind of cross junction with one input port and three output ports; most of the power is equally divided into the right and left halves of the feed waveguide while the rest of power goes straight into the center radiating waveguide. Based upon the moment method design of the three-way divider, an inductive post is introduced for wide band power dividing control to the radiating waveguide. Reflection is below -20 dB over a wide bandwidth of 24.3-26.3 GHz, and the range of power dividing ratio ranges from 1/43 to 1/4. The amplitude and the phase from the two output ports to the feed waveguide are well balanced, and the differences are less than 0.1 dB and 5.0 degrees, respectively. The MoM analysis and the wide band design are verified experimentally in the 4 GHz band.

A CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) for low-power ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless applications is presented. To achieve low power consumption and wide operating bandwidth, the proposed LNA employing stagger tuning technique consists of two stacked common-source stages with different resonant frequencies. This work is implemented in 0.18-µm CMOS process and shows a 2.4-9.4-GHz bandwidth. The amplifier provides a maximum forward gain (S21) of 10.9 dB while drawing 7.1 mW from a 1.8-V supply. A noise figure as low as 4.1 dB and an IIP3 of -3.5 dBm have been demonstrated.

The pulsed backlight system has been introduced for reducing motion blurs of LCDs in high motion pictures. But applying the pulsed backlight, full screen flicker and inconsistency of transmissivity for entire frame at a lightening time should be considered. This paper discusses the analysis of blurs in high motion pictures and proposes the design method for more suitable display terminal of LCDs.

A new technique incorporating combinatorial deposition to develop thin-film phosphors by r.f. magnetron sputtering is demonstrated using subdivided powder targets. In comparison with development using conventional r.f. magnetron sputtering, the atomic ratios of Si and Ge as well as the Mn content in Zn2Si1-XGeXO4:Mn thin film phosphors could be more efficiently optimized in order to obtain the highest intensity in electroluminescent and photoluminescent emissions. High luminances of 11800 and 1536 cd/m2 were obtained in Zn2Si0.6Ge0.4O4:Mn thin-film electroluminescent devices fabricated under optimized conditions and driven at 1 kHz and 60 Hz, respectively.

We have developed Interaction Builder (IB), a rapid prototyping tool for constructing web-based Multi-Modal Interaction (MMI) applications. The goal of IB is making it easy to develop MMI applications with speech recognition, life-like agents, speech synthesis, web browsing, etc. For this purpose, IB supports the following interface and functions: (1) GUI for implementing MMI systems without the details of MMI and MMI description language, (2) functionalities of handling synchronized multimodal inputs/outputs, (3) a test run mode for run-time testing. The results of evaluation tests showed that the application development cycle using IB was significantly shortened in comparison with the time using a text editor both for MMI description language experts and for beginners.

In this study, the new signal model suitable for ultrawide band (UWB) indoor environments with random angle spread is proposed to estimate the angle-of-arrivals (AOAs) of clusters in a UWB wireless communication. The subspace based estimation technique adopted for this model is investigated and the estimates of the AOA and distribution parameter on the received clusters are obtained. The proposed model and estimation technique are verified using computer simulations, and the performance of the estimation error is analyzed.

The interference imposed on conventional narrow-band systems by impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB) signals is examined by simulations. The Dirac delta function is employed to model the IR-UWB signal to reduce simulation costs. The simulation results show that the statistical characteristics of this interference deviate from Gaussian noise when the frequency band of the narrow-band system includes a half multiple of the data symbol rate of the IR-UWB system. In the case of pulse-position-modulation UWB signals and biorthogonal-coded bipolar-modulation UWB signals, the performance degradation of the narrow-band system depends on the number of pulse positions and the number of orthogonal codes, respectively.

We had recently measured a chromatic dispersion of optical fiber and a time delay of chirped fiber grating based on a bidirectional modulation of an optical intensity modulator. In this paper, we analyze characteristics of the chromatic dispersion measurement method using a bidirectional modulation of an optical intensity modulator, and give a detailed explanation about the selection of measurement setup parameters to achieve an accurate measurement. We also propose a modified measurement system to decrease relative intensity noise caused by the bidirectional transmission through a device under test.

This letter develops convergence analysis of normalized sign-sign algorithm (NSSA) for FIR-type adaptive filters, based on an assumption that filter tap weights are Gaussian distributed. We derive a set of difference equations for theoretically calculating transient behavior of filter convergence, when the filter input is a White & Gaussian process. For a colored Gaussian input and a large number of tap weights, approximate difference equations are also proposed. Experiment with simulations and theoretical calculations of filter convergence demonstrates good agreement between simulations and theory, proving the validity of the analysis.

In our previous work, the hyper H∞ filter is developed for tracking of unknown time-varying systems. Additionally, a fast algorithm, called the fast H∞ filter, of the hyper H∞ filter is derived on condition that the observation matrix has a shifting property. This algorithm has a computational complexity of O(N) where N is the dimension of the state vector. However, there still remains a possibility of deriving alternative forms of the hyper H∞ filter. In this work, a fast J-unitary form of the hyper H∞ filter is derived, providing a new H∞ fast algorithm, called the J-fast H∞ filter. The J-fast H∞ filter possesses a computational complexity of O(N), and the resulting algorithm is very amenable to parallel processing. The validity and performance of the derived algorithm are confirmed by computer simulations.

The RGB signals generated by different cameras are not equal for the same scene. Therefore, cameras are characterized based on a CIE standard colorimetric observer. One method of deriving a colorimetric characterization matrix between camera RGB output signals and CIE XYZ tristimulus values is least squares polynomial modeling. Yet, this involves tedious experiments to obtain a camera transfer matrix under various white balance points for the same camera. Accordingly, the current paper proposes a new method for obtaining camera transfer matrices under different white balances using a 33 camera transfer matrix under a specific white balance point.

This paper considers the low-frequency scattering by a circular dielectric cylinder and modifies the exact polarizability tensor to extend the valid region of the known low-frequency solution. When compared to the traditional formulation, the proposed solution is shown to be valid for cylinders with a higher dielectric constant and larger radius.

In order to simultaneously combat both of the inter-carrier interferences (ICIs) and multiple access interferences (MAIs) to achieve reliable performance in multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems, this letter proposes a maximum likelihood based scheme for joint frequency offset estimation and multiuser symbol detection. To reduce the computational complexity called for by the joint decision statistic without extra mechanisms, the genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to solve the nonlinear optimization involved. Due to the robustness of the GA, the joint decision statistic can be efficiently solved, and, as shown by furnished simulation results, the proposed approach can offer satisfactory performance in various scenarios.

Normal and dual bases are two popular representation bases for elements in GF(2m). In general, each distinct representation basis has its associated different hardware architecture. In this paper, we will present a unified systolic array multiplication architecture for both normal and dual bases, such a unified multiplication architecture is termed a Hankel multiplier. The Hankel multiplier has lower space complexity while compared with other existing normal basis multipliers and dual basis multipliers.