Laser speech detection uses a non-contact Laser Doppler Vibrometry (LDV)-based acoustic sensor to obtain speech signals by precisely measuring voice-generated surface vibrations. Over long distances, however, the detected signal is very weak and full of speckle noise. To enhance the quality and intelligibility of the detected signal, we designed a two-sided Linear Prediction Coding (LPC)-based locator and interpolator to detect and replace speckle noise. We first studied the characteristics of speckle noise in detected signals and developed a binary-state statistical model for speckle noise generation. A two-sided LPC-based locator was then designed to locate the polluted samples, composed of an inverse decorrelator, nonlinear filter and threshold estimator. This greatly improves the detectability of speckle noise and avoids false/missed detection by improving the noise-to-signal-ratio (NSR). Finally, samples from both sides of the speckle noise were used to estimate the parameters of the interpolator and to code samples for replacing the polluted samples. Real-world speckle noise removal experiments and simulation-based comparative experiments were conducted and the results show that the proposed method is better able to locate speckle noise in laser detected speech and highly effective at replacing it.

This paper proposes statistical analysis of phase-only correlation (POC) functions under the phase fluctuation of signals due to additive Gaussian noise. We derive probability density function of phase-spectrum differences between original signal and its noise-corrupted signal with additive Gaussian noise. Furthermore, we evaluate the expectation and variance of the POC functions between these two signals. As the variance of Gaussian noise increases, the expectation of the peak of the POC function monotonically decreases and variance of the POC function monotonically increases. These results mathematically guarantee the validity of the POC functions used for similarity measure in matching techniques.

A noise-robust and accuracy-enhanced microwave imaging algorithm is presented for microwave ablation monitoring of cancer treatment. The ablation impact of dielectric change can be assessed by microwave inverse scattering analysis, where the dimension and dielectric drop of the ablation zone enable safe ablation monitoring. We focus on the distorted Born iterative method (DBIM), which is applicable to highly heterogeneous and contrasted dielectric profiles. As the reconstruction accuracy and convergence speed of DBIM depend largely on the initial estimate of the dielectric profile or noise level, this study exploits a prior estimate of the DBIM for the pre-ablation state to accelerate the convergence speed and introduces the matched-filter-based noise reduction scheme in the DBIM framework. The two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain numerical test with realistic breast phantoms shows that our method significantly enhances the reconstruction accuracy with a lower computational cost.

Impulsive noise (IN) is the most dominant factor degrading the performance of communication systems over powerlines. In order to improve performance of high-speed power line communication (PLC), this work focuses on mitigating burst IN effects based on compressive sensing (CS), and an adaptive burst IN mitigation method, namely combination of adaptive interleaver and permutation of null carriers is designed. First, the long burst IN is dispersed by an interleaver at the receiver and the characteristic of noise is estimated by the method of moment estimation, finally, the generated sparse noise is reconstructed by changing the number of null carriers(NNC) adaptively according to noise environment. In our simulations, the results show that the proposed IN mitigation technique is simple and effective for mitigating burst IN in PLC system, it shows the advantages to reduce the burst IN and to improve the overall system throughput. In addition, the performance of the proposed technique outpeformences other known nonlinear noise mitigation methods and CS methods.

In this paper, a balance operation Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA) with low-noise has been implemented for optical receivers in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology, in which the optimal tradeoff emitter current density and the location of high-frequency noise corner were analyzed for acquiring low-noise performance. The Auto-Zero Feedback Loop (AZFL) without introducing unnecessary noises at input of the TIA, the tail current sink with high symmetries and the balance operation TIA with the shared output of Operational Amplifier (OpAmp) in AZFL were designed to keep balanced operation for the TIA. Moreover, cascode and shunt-feedback were also employed to expanding bandwidth and decreasing input referred noise. Besides, the formula for calculating high-frequency noise corner in Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) TIA with shunt-feedback was derived. The electrical measurement was performed to validate the notions described in this work, appearing 9.6 pA/√Hz of input referred noise current Power Spectral Density (PSD), balance operation (VIN1=896mV, VIN2=896mV, VOUT1=1.978V, VOUT2=1.979V), bandwidth of 32GHz, overall transimpedance gain of 68.6dBΩ, a total 117mW power consumption and chip area of 484µm × 486µm.

The notion of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), proposed by Guilley, et al. in 2004, is a property that attempts to characterize the resilience of (n, m)-functions F=(f1,...,fm) (cryptographic S-boxes) against differential power analysis. But how to study the signal-to-noise ratio for a Boolean function still appears to be an important direction. In this paper, we give a tight upper and tight lower bounds on SNR for any (balanced) Boolean function. We also deduce some tight upper bounds on SNR for balanced Boolean function satisfying propagation criterion. Moreover, we obtain a SNR relationship between an n-variable Boolean function and two (n-1)-variable decomposition functions. Meanwhile, we give SNR(f⊞g) and SNR(f⊡g) for any balanced Boolean functions f, g. Finally, we give a lower bound on SNR(F), which determined by SNR(fi) (1≤i≤m), for (n, m)-function F=(f1,f2,…,fm).

This paper proposes a noise reduction technology for a specific frequency band that uses the pulse coding controlled method to automatically set the notch frequency in DC-DC switching converters of communication equipment. For reducing the power levels at the frequency and its harmonics in the switching converter, we often use a frequency-modulated clock. This paper investigates a technology that prevents modulated clock frequency noise from spreading into protected frequency bands; this proposed noise reduction technology does not distribute the switching noise into some specified frequency bands. The notch in the spectrum of the switching pulses is created by the Pulse Width Coding (PWC) method. In communication devices, the noise in the receiving signal band must be as small as possible. The notch frequency is automatically set to the frequency of the received signal by adjusting the clock frequency using the equation Fn = (P+0.5)Fck. Here Fn is the notch frequency, Fck is the clock frequency, and P is a positive integer that determines the noise spectrum location. Therefore, simply be setting the notch frequency to the received signal frequency can suppress the noise present. We confirm with simulations that the proposed technique is effective for noise reduction and notch generation. Also we implement a method of automatic switching between two receiving channels. The conversion voltage ratio in the pulse width coding method switching converter is analyzed and full automatic notch frequency generation is realized. Experiments on a prototype circuit confirm notch frequency generation.

We evaluated the noise properties of a periodically poled lithium niobite phase-sensitive amplifier (PSA) using a phase-locked local oscillator as a pump generated by an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL-LO). To examine whether or not the LO pump generated by an OPLL degrades the noise figure (NF) of the PSA, we compared the noise levels of a PSA using an OPLL-LO with that of one using a master local oscillator (M-LO) that utilizes the master light itself as a pump in the electrical domain. With the OPLL, the phase-locked local light had almost the same frequency noise components as the master light. We observed almost the same output noise spectra for the OPLL-LO PSA and M-LO PSA and confirmed the absence of excess noise components in the OPLL-LO PSA in the 0.1 to 20-GHz range. The OPLL-LO PSA exhibited low-noise amplification with an average NF of 1.7-dB at a 23.2-dB gain within an input power range of -31 to -21dBm, which is a feasible input power for repeater amplifiers used in the optical signal transmission systems. We also investigated the influence of the noisy master light, which emulates the accumulation of optical noise from the amplifiers in the transmission system. The OPLL-LO PSA was highly tolerant to the optical noise because the difference in the NF was negligibly small within a master light OSNR range of 5 to 55dB. These results indicate that the OPLL-LO PSA will be useful as a low-noise repeater amplifier for the spectrally efficient large-capacity photonic networks of the future.

Speech enhancement has been proposed to reduce the impulsive noise whose frequency characteristic is wideband. On the other hand, it is challenging to reduce the ringing sound, which is narrowband in impulsive noise. Therefore, we propose the modeling of the ringing sound and its estimation by a linear predictor (LP). However, it is difficult to estimate the ringing sound only in noisy speech due to the auto-correlation property of speech. The proposed system adopts the 4th order moment-based adaptive algorithm by noticing the difference between the 4th order statistics of speech and impulsive noise. The brief analysis and simulation results show that the proposed system has the potential to reduce ringing sound while keeping the quality of enhanced speech.

This paper presents a miniaturized transformer-based ultra-low-power (ULP) LC-VCO with embedded supply pushing reduction techniques for IoT applications in 65-nm CMOS process. To reduce the on-chip area, a compact transformer patterned ground shield (PGS) is implemented. The transistors with switchable capacitor banks and associated components are placed underneath the transformer, which further shrinking the on-chip area. To lower the power consumption of VCO, a gm-stacked LC-VCO using the transformer embedded with PGS is proposed. The transformer is designed to provide large inductance to obtain a robust start-up within limited power consumption. Avoiding implementing an off/on-chip Low-dropout regulator (LDO) which requires additional voltage headroom, a low-power supply pushing reduction feedback loop is integrated to mitigate the current variation and thus the oscillation amplitude and frequency can be stabilized. The proposed ULP TF-based LC-VCO achieves phase noise of -114.8dBc/Hz at 1MHz frequency offset and 16kHz flicker corner with a 103µW power consumption at 2.6GHz oscillation frequency, which corresponds to a -193dBc/Hz VCO figure-of-merit (FoM) and only occupies 0.12mm2 on-chip area. The supply pushing is reduced to 2MHz/V resulting in a -50dBc spur, while 5MHz sinusoidal ripples with 50mVPP are added on the DC supply.

Intersymbol interference (ISI) is a significant source of degradation in many digital communication systems including our proposed non-far region communication system using large array antennas in the millimeter-wave band in which the main cause of ISI can be attributed to the path delay differences among the elements of an array antenna. This paper proposes a quantitative method to evaluate the ISI estimated from the measured near-field distribution of the array antenna. The influence of the uniformity in the aperture field distribution in ISI is discussed and compared with an ideally uniform excitation. The reliability of the proposed method is verified through a comparison with another method based on direct measurements of the transmission between the actual antennas. Finally, the signal to noise plus interference is evaluated based on the estimated ISI results and ISI is shown to be the dominant cause of the degradation in the reception zone of the system.

Hum noise such as power line interference is one of the critical problems in the biomedical signal acquisition. Various techniques have been proposed to suppress power line interference. However, some of the techniques require more components and power consumption. The notch depth in the conventional N-path notch filter circuits needs a higher number of paths and switches off-resistance. It makes the conventional N-path notch filter less of efficiency to suppress hum noise. This work proposed the new N-path notch filter to hum noise suppression in biomedical signal acquisition. The new N-path notch filter achieved notch depth above 40dB with sampling frequency 50Hz and 60Hz. Although the proposed circuits use less number of path and switches off-resistance. The proposed circuit has been verified using artificial ECG signal contaminated by hum noise at frequency 50Hz and 60Hz. The output of N-path notch filter achieved a noise-free signal even if the sampling frequency changes.

Although the classical vector median filter (VMF) has been widely used to suppress the impulse noise in the color image, many thin color curve pixels aligned in arbitrary directions are usually removed out as impulse noise. This serious problem can be solved by the proposed method that can protect the thin curves in arbitrary direction in color image and remove out the impulse noise at the same time. Firstly, samples in the 3x3 filter window are considered to preliminarily detect whether the center pixel is corrupted by impulse noise or not. Then, samples outside a 5x5 filter window are conditionally and partly considered to accurately distinguish the impulse noise and the noise-free pixel. At last, based on the previous outputs, samples on the processed positions in a 3x3 filter window are chosen as the samples of VMF operation to suppress the impulse noise. Extensive experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can be used to remove the impulse noise of color image while protecting the thin curves in arbitrary directions.

In this paper, the artificial noise (AN)-aided multiple-input single-output (MISO) cognitive radio network with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is considered, in which the cognitive user adopts the power-splitting (PS) receiver architecture to simultaneously decode information and harvest energy. To support secure communication and facilitate energy harvesting, AN is transmitted with information signal at cognitive base station (CBS). The secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) maximization problem is formulated with the constraints of secrecy rate and harvested energy requirements as well as primary user's interference requirements. However, this challenging problem is non-convex due to the fractional objective function and the coupling between the optimization variables. For tackling the challenging problem, a double-layer iterative optimization algorithm is developed. Specifically, the outer layer invokes a one-dimension search algorithm for the newly introduced tight relaxation variable, while the inner one leverages the Dinkelbach method to make the fractional optimization problem more tractable. Furthermore, closed-form expressions for the power of information signal and AN are obtained. Numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed algorithm and the advantages of AN in enhancing the SEE performance.

An effect of complex permeability of noise suppression sheets (NSS) on circuit parameters was investigated by a magnetic circuit analysis using cross-sectional size and material parameters. The series resistance and inductance of the coplanar waveguide (CPW) with a NSS considering the effect of the complex permeability of the NSS were quantitatively estimated. The result indicated that the imaginary and real part of the effective permeability affected the resistance and inductance, respectively. Furthermore, this analysis was applied to an 8-µm-wide CPW with a 0.5-µm-thick Co85Zr3Nb12 film for quantitative estimation of the resistance, the inductance and the characteristic impedance. The estimated parameters were almost similar to the measured values. These results showed that the frequency characteristics of the circuit parameters could be controlled by changing size and material parameters.

Matching circuits using LC elements are widely applied to high-frequency circuits such as power amplifier (PA) and low-noise amplifier (LNA). For determining matching condition of multi-stage matching circuits, this paper shows that any multi-stage LC-Ladder matching circuit with resistive termination can be decomposed to the extended L-type matching circuits with resistive termination containing negative elements where the analytical solution exists. The matching conditions of each extended L-type matching circuit are obtained easily from the termination resistances and the design frequency. By synthesizing these simple analysis solutions, it is possible to systematically determine the solution even in a large number of stages (high order) matching circuits.

This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between noise and bandwidth in visible light communication (VLC) systems. In the past few years, pre-emphasis and post-equalization techniques were proposed to extend the bandwidth of VLC systems. However, these bandwidth extension techniques also influence noise and sensitivity of the VLC systems. In this paper, first, we build a system model of VLC transceivers and circuit models of pre-emphasis and post-equalization. Next, we theoretically compare the bandwidth and noise of three different transceiver structures comprising a single pre-emphasis circuit, a single post-equalization circuit and a combination of pre-emphasis and post-equalization circuits. Finally, we validate the presented theoretical analysis using experimental results. The result shows that for the same resonant frequency, and for high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), VLC systems employing post-equalization or pre-emphasis have the same bandwidth extension ability. Therefore, a transceiver employing both the pre-emphasis and post-equalization techniques has a bandwidth √2 times the bandwidth of the systems employing only the pre-emphasis or post-equalization. Based on the theoretical analysis of noise, the VLC system with only active pre-emphasis shows the lowest noise, which is a good choice for low-noise systems. The result of this paper may provide a new perspective of noise and sensitivity of the bandwidth extension techniques in VLC systems.

This paper presents on-wafer noise figure (NF) de-embedding method of differential low noise amplifier (LNA). The characterization of NF was set up and referred as multi-stage network. The Friis law was applied to improve from the noise contributions from the subsequent stages. The correlated differential NF is accurately obtained after de-embedding the noise contribution from the interconnections and external components. Details of equations and measurement procedure are reported in this work. A 2.4GHz differential LNA was tested to demonstrate the feasibility of measurement and showed precise NF compared with other methods. The result shows an NF of 0.57dB achieved using de-embedding method and 1.06dB obtained without the de-embedding method. This is an improvement of 0.49dB of NF measurement.

Based on the concept of polynomial operators, this paper explores generalized direct-form II structure and its state-space realization for two-dimensional separable-denominator digital filters of order (m, n) where a structure with 3(m+n)+mn+1 fixed parameters plus m+n free parameters is introduced and analyzed. An l2-scaling method utilizing different coupling coefficients at different branch nodes to avoid overflow is presented. Expressions of evaluating the roundoff noise for the filter structure as well as its state-space realization are derived and investigated. The availability of the m+n free parameters is shown to be beneficial as the roundoff noise measures can be minimized with respect to these free parameters by means of an exhaustive search over a set with finite number of candidate elements. The important role these parameters can play in the endeavors of roundoff noise reduction is demonstrated by numerical experiments.

In this article, we propose a method called “continuous noise masking (cNM)” that allows eliminating residual buzziness in a continuous vocoder, i.e. of which all parameters are continuous and offers a simple and flexible speech analysis and synthesis system. Traditional parametric vocoders generally show a perceptible deterioration in the quality of the synthesized speech due to different processing algorithms. Furthermore, an inaccurate noise resynthesis (e.g. in breathiness or hoarseness) is also considered to be one of the main underlying causes of performance degradation, leading to noisy transients and temporal discontinuity in the synthesized speech. To overcome these issues, a new cNM is developed based on the phase distortion deviation in order to reduce the perceptual effect of the residual noise, allowing a proper reconstruction of noise characteristics, and model better the creaky voice segments that may happen in natural speech. To this end, the cNM is designed to keep only voice components under a condition of the cNM threshold while discarding others. We evaluate the proposed approach and compare with state-of-the-art vocoders using objective and subjective listening tests. Experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the effect of residual noise and can reach the quality of other sophisticated approaches like STRAIGHT and log domain pulse model (PML).