Omni-directional images have been used in wide range of applications including virtual/augmented realities, self-driving cars, robotics simulators, and surveillance systems. For these applications, it would be useful to estimate saliency maps representing probability distributions of gazing points with a head-mounted display, to detect important regions in the omni-directional images. This paper proposes a novel saliency-map estimation model for the omni-directional images by extracting overlapping 2-dimensional (2D) plane images from omni-directional images at various directions and angles of view. While 2D saliency maps tend to have high probability at the center of images (center bias), the high-probability region appears at horizontal directions in omni-directional saliency maps when a head-mounted display is used (equator bias). Therefore, the 2D saliency model with a center-bias layer was fine-tuned with an omni-directional dataset by replacing the center-bias layer to an equator-bias layer conditioned on the elevation angle for the extraction of the 2D plane image. The limited availability of omni-directional images in saliency datasets can be compensated by using the well-established 2D saliency model pretrained by a large number of training images with the ground truth of 2D saliency maps. In addition, this paper proposes a multi-scale estimation method by extracting 2D images in multiple angles of view to detect objects of various sizes with variable receptive fields. The saliency maps estimated from the multiple angles of view were integrated by using pixel-wise attention weights calculated in an integration layer for weighting the optimal scale to each object. The proposed method was evaluated using a publicly available dataset with evaluation metrics for omni-directional saliency maps. It was confirmed that the accuracy of the saliency maps was improved by the proposed method.

This paper proposes a new small multiband printed antenna for wireless telecommunications modules that can realize Machine-to-Machine applications. We reconfigure our previous antenna to cover the 700MHz, 800MHz, and 900MHz bands, and add two new elements (second strips) to cover the 2GHz band. The new antenna achieves operation in quad-bands: 700MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, and 2GHz. Frequency characteristics are analyzed using electromagnetic-simulation software based on the method of moments, and the validity of the numerical results is shown based on measured Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) characteristics and the radiation patterns of a prototype antenna. The proposed antenna is compact with a VSWR bandwidth (≤2) of 27.5% in bands including 700MHz, 800MHz, and 900MHz, and a VSWR bandwidth (≤2) of 10.6% in the band including 2GHz. We clarify that the operating mechanism in the 2GHz band is equivalent to that of a one wavelength folded offset fed dipole antenna comprising a monopole element and second strips, and that the operating frequency in the 2GHz band can be determined by the path length from the tip of the monopole element to the tip of the second strip via a feeding point.

A multiband monopole antenna with modified fractal loop parasitic is presented. Especially, bow-tie stubs and a modified fractal loop are attached to the sides and bottom of a strip line monopole antenna, respectively, in order to generate the multi-resonant frequencies for the applications of wireless communication systems. The characteristics of the presented antenna have been examined by using the simulation software. The comparison between the simulated and measured results confirms the good agreement. The results show good multiband operation with 10 dB impedance bandwidths of 15.55%, 8.75%, and 31.94% at the resonant frequencies of 1.8 GHz, 2.4 GHz, and 3.6 GHz, respectively, which cover the operating band applications of DCS 1800, WLAN (IEEE802.11 b/g), WiMAX, and IMT advanced system (4G mobile communication system).

A small broadband omni-directional printed antenna comprising symmetrically arranged trapezoid elements is investigated for broadband Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) and low center frequency characteristics. Two symmetrical trapezoid elements are printed on the bottom side of the substrate and are connected to a small ground plane printed on the same side over two strips. The trapezoid elements and the strips are excited in an electromagnetically coupled manner by the monopole element set between the trapezoid elements. Two resonance characteristics arise because the resonance part changes depending on the frequency, and a broad bandwidth becomes possible. The center frequency can be lowered by changing the shapes of the trapezoid elements. The monopole element length is a very important parameter for impedance matching. The space between the monopole element and the trapezoid elements is an important parameter for the optimization of two resonance characteristics. The proposed antenna is shown to achieve a VSWR bandwidth (≤2) of 28.9%, a low profile, and omni-directional pattern features. The measured and numerical results are in good agreement.

The ability of a modified bow-tie dipole antenna, which has an asymmetric-feed structure to operate at UHF-band (470-862 MHz) and dual ISM-band (2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz) is demonstrated. Experimental results indicate that the VSWR 2:1 bandwidths achieved were 125.7%, 8.2% and 23.6% at 660 MHz, 2.45 GHz and 5.5 GHz. The proposed modified bow-tie dipole exhibits a nearly omni-directional radiation pattern with very easy to fabricate structure, and so is suitable for various commercial wideband applications.

In this letter, we present a modified printed folded λ/2 dipole antenna design for Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) applications in UHF band (470-862 MHz). The arms of dipole are meandered to yield an asymmetrical structure. Wideband operation is obtained by increasing dipole-area. The impedance matching of the dipole structure is obtained by inserting some slots on the dipole-arms. This antenna combines omni-directional radiation pattern and wide bandwidth in an easy-to-fabricate structure. The experimental results of the constructed prototype are presented.

An antenna with a wide bandwidth is required for ultra-wideband (UWB) system of the future. Several types of wideband antenna that cover the whole frequency range have been proposed. Since the UWB system would cover from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, it is necessary to suppress the interference from other systems using some of this frequency band. This paper presents two types of novel planar monopole antenna: one consists of two connected rectangular plates and another one is an orthogonal type. The return loss characteristics, radiation pattern, and current distribution of these antennas were simulated by using the FDTD method. The proposed antennas had dual frequency and broad bandwidth characteristics at both resonant frequencies. The return loss level at the eliminated frequency between the resonant frequencies was almost 0 dB. The radiation patterns for the whole frequency range were almost omni-directional in the horizontal plane. The current distributions at each frequency were similar to that of a planar rectangular monopole. The radiation patterns thus were omni-directional in the horizontal plane at each resonant frequency. Therefore, the results showed that wide bandwidth characteristics could be achieved with such antennas.

We have built an active omni-directional range range sensor that can obtain an omni-directional depth data through the use of a laser conic plane and a conic mirror. In the navigation of the mobile robot, the proposed sensor system makes a laser conic plane by rotating the laser point source at high speed which creates a two-dimensional depth map, in real time, once an image is captured. Also, since the proposed sensor system measures the actual distance of the target objects, it is able to apply the proposed sensor system to other measurement tasks.