Thin-film transistors based on Liquid-crystalline phenylterthiophenes, 3-TTPPh-5 and 3-TTPPhF4-6 are fabricated with a spin-coating method. The devices exhibit p-type operation with the mobility on the order of 10-2 cm2V-1s-1. The field-effect mobilities of the transistors using 3-TTPPh-5 and 3-TTPPhF4-6 are almost independent of the temperature above room temperature. In particular, the temperature range in which the mobility is constant is between 230 and 350 K for 3-TTPPh-5.

This paper presents and evaluates a new acoustic imaging system that uses multicarrier signals for correlation division in synthetic transmit aperture (CD-STA). CD-STA is a method that transmits uncorrelated signals from different transducers simultaneously to achieve high-speed and high-resolution acoustic imaging. In CD-STA, autocorrelations and cross-correlations in transmitted signals must be suppressed because they cause artifacts in the resulting images, which narrow the dynamic range as a consequence. To suppress the correlation noise, we had proposed to use multicarrier signals optimized by a genetic algorithm. Because the evaluation of our proposed method was very limited in the previous reports, we analyzed it more deeply in this paper. We optimized three pairs of multicarrier waveforms of various lengths, which correspond to 5th-, 6th- and 7th-order M-sequence signals, respectively. We built a CD-STA imaging system that operates in air. Using the system, we conducted imaging experiments to evaluate the image quality and resolution of the multicarrier signals. We also investigated the ability of the proposed method to resolve both positions and velocities of target scatterers. For that purpose, we carried out an experiment, in which both moving and fixed targets were visualized by our system. As a result of the experiments, we confirmed that the multicarrier signals have lower artifact levels, better axial resolution, and greater tolerance to velocity mismatch than M-sequence signals, particularly for short signals.

The advantages of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are high spectral efficiency, resiliency to RF interference, lower multi-path distortion and others. To further utilize the vast channel capacity of the multiuser OFDM, one has to find the efficient adaptive subcarrier and bit allocation among users. In this paper, we propose a 0-1 integer programming model formulating the optimal subcarrier and bit allocation problem of the multiuser OFDM. We proved that the continuous relaxation of our formulation is tighter than the previous convex optimization formulation based on perspective function and the Lagrangian dual bound of our formulation is equivalent to the linear programming relaxation bound. The proposed Lagrangian dual is seperable with respect to subcarriers and allows an efficient dual maximization algorithm. We compared the performance of the integer programming formulation and the Lagrangian dual of our formulation and the continuous relaxation and the primal heuristic proposed in [3]. Computer simulation on a system employing M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (MQAM) assuming a frequency-selective channel consisting of three independent Rayleigh multipaths is carried out with the optimal subcarrier and bit allocation solution generated by the 0-1 integer programming model.

Some statistical characteristics, including the means and the cross-correlations, of frequency-selective Rician fading channels seen by orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers are derived in this paper. Based on a pairwise error probability analysis, the mean vector and the cross-correlation matrix are used to obtain an upper bound of the overall bit-error rate (BER) in a closed-form for coded OFDM signals with and without inter-carrier interference. In this paper, the overall BER is defined as the average BER of OFDM signals of all subcarriers obtained by considering their cross-correlations. Numerical examples are presented to compare the proposed upper bound of the overall BERs and the overall BERs obtained by simulations.

In this letter we present efficient iterative frequency domain equalization for single-carrier (SC) transmission systems with insufficient cyclic prefix (CP). Based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) criteria, iterative decision feedback frequency domain equalization (IDF-FDE) combined with cyclic prefix reconstruction (CPR) is derived to mitigate inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI). Computer simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme significantly improves the performance of SC systems with insufficient CP compared with previous schemes.

Silicon Mach-Zehnder interferometric (MZI) waveguide modulator incorporating the n-channel junction field-effect transistor (JFET) as a signal modulation unit was designed, fabricated, and analyzed. The proposed MZI with JFET was designed to operate based on the plasma dispersion effect in the infrared wavelength of 1550 nm. The three different modulation lengths (ML) of 500, 1000, and 2000 µm while keeping the overall MZI length constant at 1.5 cm were set as a general design rule for these 10 µm-wide MZIs under study. When the JFET was operated in an active mode by injecting approximately 50 mA current (Is) to achieve a π phase shift, the modulation efficiency of the device was measured to be η = π /(Is· L) 40π/A-mm. The temporal and frequency response measurements also demonstrate that the respectively rise and fall times measured using a high-speed photoreceiver were in the neighborhood of 8.5 and 7.5 µsec and the 3 dB roll-off frequency (f3 dB) measured was in the excess of 400 kHz.

In this paper, a frequency domain adaptive antenna array (FDAAA) algorithm is proposed for broadband single-carrier uplink transmissions in a cellular system. By employing AAA weight control in the frequency domain, the FDAAA receiver is able to suppress the multi-user interference (MUI) and the co-channel interference (CCI). In addition, the channel frequency selectivity can be exploited to suppress the inter-symbol interference (ISI) and to obtain frequency diversity (or the multi-path diversity). Another advantage of the FDAAA algorithm is that its performance is not affected by the spread of angles of arrival (AOA) of the received multi-path signal. In this study the structure of FDAAA receiver is discussed and the frequency domain signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) after weight control is investigated. The performance of the FDAAA algorithm is confirmed by simulation results. It is shown that, the optimal FDAAA weight to obtain the best BER performance is that which fully cancels the interference when single-cell system is considered; On the other hand, when multi-cell cellular system is considered, the optimal FDAAA weight depends on both the cellular structure and the target signal to noise ratio (SNR) of transmit power control (TPC).

We present the recovery of 2.5 Gb/s synchronous 16-point quadrature amplitude modulation data in real-time for an linewidth-times-symbol-duration ratio of 0.00048 after transmission over 1.6 km standard single mode fiber.

This letter provides a tight upper bound on the bit error rate (BER) over the Nakagami-m fading channel for the dual carrier modulation (DCM) scheme, which is adopted by the multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) system. Its tightness is verified with the existing result for Rayleigh fading channel, i.e., for m=1, which would be also valid for a more general fading environment.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing has emerged as a promising air interface scheme for wireless broadband communications. For OFDM systems, frame synchronization has received much attention in the literature, though simple correlators are still widely used in real systems. In this letter, we present the analytical expression of the optimal frame synchronizer for OFDM systems. Frame synchronization is posed as a maximum a posteriori probability estimation. We show that the resulting frame synchronizer consists of a correlation term and a correction term. The correction term accounts for the random data surrounding a synchronization word. Numerical results show the performance gain of the proposed frame synchronizer over a correlation scheme.

In this paper, we propose a simple but effective way of improving the performance of channel estimation (CE) for pilot cyclic prefixed single carrier (PCP-SC) system. The proposed method utilizes the property that the shifting signal of the PCP pilot signal can also be utilized to estimate the channel information. The receiver can continuously estimate the channel information by just shifting the received pilot signal. Regardless of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the pilot type, the proposed method can achieve about a 1.72 dB performance gain in terms of the mean squared error (MSE) of channel estimation with a slight increase in computational complexity. The BER performance with the proposed CE improvement are evaluated in a multipath fading channel using a zero-forcing (ZF) equalizer and an minmum mean squared error (MMSE) equalizer by computer simulation. It is shown that the proposed CE improvment method using an MMSE equalizer which has an unbiased vlaue of noise variance (NV) estimator gives a promising BER performance. The proposed method also benefits the estimation of the SNR for the single carrier system.

In this paper, we propose a novel iterative transmit/receive equalization technique for single-carrier (SC) block transmission in a severe frequency-selective fading channel. Iterative frequency-domain inter-symbol interference (ISI) cancellation (FDIC) is introduced to the previously proposed joint iterative transmit/receive frequency-domain equalization (FDE) based on the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion. 1-tap FDE is employed at the transmitter. At the receiver, a 1-tap FDE and FDIC are jointly used and they are updated in an iterative manner. The transmit FDE weight is derived based on the MMSE criterion by taking into account the reduction of residual ISI in the receiver. To derive the weight, the transmitter assumes that the receiver can partially reduce the residual ISI after the FDIC. We conduct a computer simulation to investigate the achievable bit error rate (BER) performance to confirm the effectiveness of our proposed technique.

Due to the reuse factor reduction, the attendant increase in co-channel interference (CCI) becomes the limiting factor in the performance of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based cellular systems. In the previous work, we proposed the least mean square-blind joint maximum likelihood sequence estimation (LMS-BJMLSE) algorithm, which is effective for CCI cancellation in OFDM systems with only one receive antenna. However, LMS-BJMLSE requires a long training sequence (TS) for channel estimation, which reduces the transmission efficiency. In this paper, we propose a subcarrier identification and interpolation algorithm, in which the subcarriers are divided into groups based on the coherence bandwidth, and the slowest converging subcarrier in each group is identified by exploiting the correlation between the mean-square error (MSE) produced by LMS and the mean-square deviation (MSD) of the desired channel estimate. The identified poor channel estimate is replaced by the interpolation result using the adjacent subcarriers' channel estimates. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can reduce the required training sequence dramatically for both the cases of single interference and dual interference. We also generalize LMS-BJMLSE from single antenna to receiver diversity, which is shown to provide a huge improvement.

A sub-harmonic RF transmitter architecture with simultaneous power combination and carrier-leakage cancellation is proposed. It employs an 8-phase ring-type voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), sub-harmonic mixers, driver amplifiers, and a balun. A signal power is combined with its 180° phase-shifted signal through the balun. Simultaneously carrier-leakage generating in sub-harmonic mixers is canceled by its phase difference. The proposed transmitter achieved 1 dBm 1-dB output compression point (P-1dB) under 1.8 V supply and -40 dBm carrier-leakage in 5 GHz band.

Recently, assuming ideal brick-wall transmit filtering, we proposed a frequency-domain block signal detection (FDBD) with maximum likelihood detection employing QR decomposition and M-algorithm (called QRM-MLD) for the reception of single-carrier (SC) signals transmitted over a frequency-selective fading channel. QR decomposition (QRD) is applied to a concatenation of the propagation channel and discrete Fourier transform (DFT). However, a large number of surviving paths is required in the M-algorithm to achieve sufficiently improved bit error rate (BER) performance. The introduction of filtering can achieve improved BER performance due to larger frequency diversity gain while keeping a lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) than orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). In this paper, we develop FDBD with QRM-MLD for filtered SC signal reception. QRD is applied to a concatenation of transmit filter, propagation channel, and DFT. We evaluate BER and throughput performances by computer simulation. From performance evaluation, we discuss how the filter roll-off factor affects the achievable BER and throughput performances and show that as the filter roll-off factor increases, the required number of surviving paths in the M-algorithm can be reduced.

Frequency-domain equalization (FDE) based on minimum mean square error (MMSE) is considered as a promising equalization technique for a broadband single-carrier (SC) transmission. When a square-root Nyquist filter is used at a transmitter and receiver to limit the signal bandwidth, the presence of timing offset produces the inter-symbol interference (ISI) and degrades the bit error rate (BER) performance using MMSE-FDE. In this paper, we discuss the mechanism of the BER performance degradation in the presence of timing offset. Then, we propose joint MMSE-FDE & spectrum combining which can make use the excess bandwidth introduced by transmit filter to achieve larger frequency diversity gain while suppressing the negative effect of the timing offset.

Mobile operators need to migrate from 2G to 3G networks in a cost-effective manner. Cognitive radio systems are currently being investigated as a promising solution to achieve spectrum efficiency by allowing coexistence of unlicensed (secondary) networks and licensed (primary) networks. However, conventional mechanisms to operate these systems incur additional complexity and fail to maximize network performance. In this paper, we propose a pilot sensing and frequency selection method with low complexity for OFDMA-based cognitive radio systems. Subject to the interference constraints imposed by the primary network, capacity maximization problems involving both up-link and down-link connections are considered for overall network performance improvement. The throughput and outage probability of the proposed method are evaluated by simulations. Our proposed method shows outstanding performance if the channel varies frequently in the primary network and the frequency reuse factor of the primary network is high.

Repetitive synchronization sequences in the time domain can be used to estimate Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO). The Un-Guarded Maximum Likelihood (UGML) estimator and Guarded ML (GML) estimator of CFO in the frequency selective channel are proposed in this paper. The results of theoretical analysis show that the UGML estimator is hard to implement if the channel response is not known while the GML estimator can be easily implemented due to inserted guard sequences. The guard sequences can be easily implemented as Cyclic Prefix (CP) in OFDM system. Therefore, the UGML estimator is only suitable for the systems where the channel response can be predetermined. This paper also gives a comparison with the existing CFO estimator. Theoretical and simulation results show that both the proposed estimators outperform the existing estimator.

This work presents a two-stage ordinal optimization theory-based approach for solving the throughput maximization problems with power constraints of sub-carrier assignment and power allocation in multi-user orthogonal frequency division multiplexing uplink systems. In the first stage, a crude but efficient model is employed to evaluate the performance of a sub-carrier assignment pattern and the genetic algorithm is used to search through the huge solution space. In the second stage, an exact model is employed to evaluate s best sub-carrier assignment patterns obtained in stage 1 and form the select subset. Finally, the best one of the select subset is the good enough solution that we seek. Via numerous tests, this work demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed algorithm and compares it with those of other heuristic methods.

In this letter, an improved channel estimator for MIMO-SCBT systems is proposed. Pilot blocks are constructed using quadriphase complementary sequences (QCSs) which enable both one-sided (OSD) and two-sided (TSD) channel estimation (CE). And OSD-CE and TSD-CE are combined to provide improved performance in frequency-selective fast and slow fading channels and to maintain low-complexity implementations. Simulation results demonstrate the performance merits of the proposed scheme.