End-to-end loss and delay are both fundamental metrics in network performance evaluation, and accurate measurements for these end-to-end metrics are one of the keys to keeping delay/loss-sensitive applications (e.g., audio/video conferencing, IP telephony, or telesurgery) comfortable on networks. In our previous work [1], we proposed a parallel flow monitoring method that can provide accurate active measurements of end-to-end delay. In this method, delay samples of a target flow increase by utilizing the observation results of other flows sharing the source/destination with the target flow. In this paper, to improve accuracy of loss measurements, we propose a loss measurement method by extending our delay measurement method. Additionally, we improve the loss measurement method so that it enables to fully utilize information of all flows including flows with different source and destination. We evaluate the proposed method through theoretical and simulation analyses. The evaluations show that the accuracy of the proposed method is bounded by theoretical upper/lower bounds, and it is confirmed that it reduces the error of loss rate estimations by 57.5% on average.

This paper presents improvement of port-to-port isolation characteristics of a linearly dual-polarized dual-band and wideband multi-ring microstrip antenna (MR-MSA) fed by two L-probes. The linearly dual-polarized dual-band and wideband MR-MSA consists of two circular ring patches and two L-probes arranged in a multi-layered dielectric substrate. By using a thick substrate for the L-probe and arranging two ring patches as radiation elements, the proposed antenna operates wideband and dual-band characteristics. Furthermore, by arranging two L-probes at the orthogonal positions, the proposed antenna can radiate dual linear polarizations. In this paper, for improving port-to-port isolation characteristics of the linearly dual-polarized dual-band and wideband MR-MSA fed by two L-probes, a via connected to the ground plane at the center of the radiation elements is arranged. The fractional bandwidths below -10dB reflection obtained by the simulation of the MR-MSA with the via were 17.0% and 14.4%. Furthermore, the simulated isolation characteristics were more than 21.0dB and 17.0dB in the two bands. Improvement of the isolation characteristics between two ports as well as the dual-band and wideband performance of the proposed MR-MSA with the via were confirmed by the simulation and the measurement.

As smartphones have become widespread in the past decade, Wi-Fi signal-based crowd estimation schemes are receiving increased attention. These estimation schemes count the number of unique MAC addresses in Wi-Fi signals, hereafter called probe requests (PRs), instead of counting the number of people. However, these estimation schemes have low accuracy of crowd estimation under MAC address randomization that replaces a unique MAC address with various dummy MAC addresses. To solve this problem, in this paper, we propose an indoor crowd estimation scheme using the number of PRs under MAC address randomization. The main idea of the proposed scheme is to leverage the fact that the number of PRs per a unit of time changes in proportion to the number of smartphones. Since a smartphone tends to send a constant number of PRs per a unit of time, the proposed scheme can estimate the accurate number of smartphones. Various experiment results show that the proposed scheme reduces estimation error by at most 75% compared to the conventional Wi-Fi signal-based crowd estimation scheme in an indoor environment.

This paper presents the design and measurement of wideband multi-ring microstrip antennas fed by an L-probe for single- and dual-band operation. The proposed antennas consist of one or two square ring patches and an L-probe arranged in a multi-layered dielectric substrate. By using a thick substrate for the L-probe and optimizing the distances between the L-probe and the patches, wideband performance is successfully achieved. The optimal substrate thickness of the L-probe and patches to obtain good wideband performance were determined, and prototype antennas for single- and dual-band operation were fabricated and tested. The measured fractional bandwidths corresponding to reflection coefficients below -10dB were 46.1% for the single-band antenna and 20.3% and 15.7% for the dual-band antenna. The measured gains of the test antennas in the above bandwidths were 0-6.9dBi for the single-band antenna and 3.0-8.6dBi for the dual-band antenna. Although the E-plane radiation patterns were slightly tilted against the frequency, stable broadside radiation was confirmed. The proposed antennas exhibited excellent performance as wideband planar antennas for single- and dual-band operation. The proposed wideband antennas can be easily extended to a dual linearly polarized antenna by using another L-probe in the orthogonal position.

After a natural disaster it is critical to urgently find victims buried under collapsed buildings. Most people habitually carry smartphones with them. Smartphones have a feature that periodically transmits Wi-Fi signals called “Probe Requests” to connect with access points. Moreover, smartphones transmit “Clear to Send” when they receive a “Request to Send” alert. This motivated us to develop a hand-held smartphone finder system that integrates a novel method for accurately locating a smartphone using the Wi-Fi signals, to support rescue workers. The system has a unique graphical user interface that tracks target smartphones. Thus, rescue workers can easily reach victims who have their smartphones with them under collapsed buildings. In this paper, after introducing the localization method, the system architecture of the smartphone finder and its prototype system are described, along with some experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the smartphone finder prototype.

The phaseless antenna measurement technique is advantageous for high-frequency near-field measurements in which the uncertainty of the measured phase is a problem. In the phaseless measurement, which is expected to be used in the frequency band with a short wavelength, a slight positional deviation error of the probe greatly deteriorates the measurement result. This paper proposes a phase retrieval method that can compensate the measurement errors caused by misalignment of a probe and its jig. And this paper proposes a far-field estimation method by phase resurrection that incorporated the compensation techniques. We find that the positioning errors are due to the random errors occurring at each measurement point because of minute vibrations of the probe; in addition, we determine that the stationary depth errors occurring at each measurement surface as errors caused by improper setting of the probe jig. The random positioning error is eliminated by adding a low-pass filter in wavenumber space, and the depth positioning error is iteratively compensated on the basis of the relative residual obtained in each plane. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by estimating the far-field patterns using the results from numerical simulations, and is also demonstrated using measurement data with probe-positioning error. The proposed method can reduce the probe-positioning error and improve the far-field estimation accuracy by more over than 10 dB.

A low frequency electric field probe that integrates data acquisition and storage is developed in this paper. An electric small monopole antenna printed on the circuit board is used as the receiving antenna; the rear end of the monopole antenna is connected to the integral circuit to achieve the flat frequency response; the logarithmic detection method is applied to obtain a high measurement dynamic range. In addition, a Microprogrammed Control Unit is set inside to realize data acquisition and storage. The size of the probe developed is not exceeding 20 mm × 20 mm × 30 mm. The field strength 0.2 V/m ~ 261 V/m can be measured in the frequency range of 500 Hz ~ 10 MHz, achieving a dynamic range over 62 dB. It is suitable for low frequency electric field strength measurement and shielding effectiveness test of small shield.

Chipless RFID tags that use the higher-mode resonances of a transmission line resonator are presented in this paper. We have proposed multimode stepped impedance resonators (SIRs) for this application and reported the fundamental characteristics of an experimental system composed of multimode SIRs with open-circuited ends and a near-field electromagnetic detector using capacitive coupling (electric field) probes for the detector. To improve the frequency response and widen the detection range, we introduced multimode SIRs with short-circuited ends and inductive coupling (magnetic field) probes and measured their properties. To reduce the size of the tag and reader, we examined the frequency responses and found that the optimal configuration consisted of C-shaped tags and detector probes with a spatially orthogonal arrangement. The experimental tag system showed good frequency responses, detection range, and frequency detection accuracy. In particular, the spacing between the tag resonator and the transmission line of the probe, which corresponds to the detection distance, was 5mm or more, and was at least 10 times greater than that of previously reported RFID tag systems using near-field electromagnetic coupling.

In this paper, a parallel flow monitoring technique that achieves accurate measurement of end-to-end delay of networks is proposed. In network monitoring tasks, network researchers and practitioners usually monitor multiple probe flows to measure delays on multiple paths in parallel. However, when they measure an end-to-end delay on a path, information of flows except for the flow along the path is not utilized in the conventional method. Generally, paths of flows share common parts in parallel monitoring. In the proposed method, information of flows on paths that share common parts, utilizes to measure delay on a path by partially converting the observation results of a flow to those of another flow. We perform simulations to confirm that the observation results of 72 parallel flows of active measurement are appropriately converted between each other. When the 99th-percentile of the end-to-end delay for each flow are measured, the accuracy of the proposed method is doubled compared with the conventional method.

Coil-shaped structures are proposed to enhance sensitivity and spatial resolution for EMI near-field probe. This design yields a high sensitivity and a good spatial resolution to find the EMI source in near-field region. Both characteristics are crucial to diagnosis of emissions from electrical and electronic devices. The new design yields a superior sensitivity, which is in general 15 dB greater than conventional probes. This new probe helps practitioners to quickly and correctly locate noise emission source areas on printed circuit boards and devices. Two prototypes of different sizes were fabricated. The larger one provides a high sensitivity while the smaller one can pinpoint emission source locations. The new probe design also has an orientation invariance feature. Its noise response levels are similar for all probe directions. This characteristic can help reduced the probability at miss-detection since sensitivity is largely invariant to its orientation. Extensive measurements were performed to verify the operation mechanism and to assess probe characteristics. It suits well to the electromagnetic interference problem diagnosis.

For network researchers and practitioners, active measurement, in which probe packets are injected into a network, is a powerful tool to measure end-to-end delay. It is, however, suffers the intrusiveness problem, where the load of the probe traffic itself affects the network QoS. In this paper, we first demonstrate that there exists a fundamental accuracy bound of the conventional active measurement of delay. Second, to transcend that bound, we propose INTrusiveness-aware ESTimation (INTEST), an approach that compensates for the delays produced by probe packets in wired networks. Simulations of M/M/1 and MMPP/M/1 show that INTEST enables a more accurate estimation of end-to-end delay than conventional methods. Furthermore, we extend INTEST for multi-hop networks by using timestamps or multi-flow probes.

An L-shaped probe with a surrounding aperture such as a waveguide can generate circular polarization (CP) waves. Circular waveguide antennas using an L-shaped probe have broadband characteristics both in axial ratio (AR) and in input impedance, however cross-polarization (XPOL) is easily generated due to its asymmetrical structure resulting in a radiation pattern that has narrow CP azimuth range. In this paper, design techniques to reduce the XPOL generated from a circular waveguide antenna using an L-shaped probe are proposed. As a result, XPOL is reduced by around 10 dB, and CP is radiated over a wide angle range of 120-150° covering frequencies from 7.35 to 9.75GHz.

We have investigated both the film thickness and surface potential of organic semiconductors deposited on two kinds of electrodes by the simultaneous observation with the dynamic force microscopy (DFM)/Kelvin-probe force microscope (KFM). To clarify the interfacial properties of organic semiconductor, we fabricated samples that imitated the organic light emitting diode (OLED) structure by depositing bis [$N,N '$-(1-naphthyl)-$N,N '$-phenyl] benzidine ($alpha$-NPD) and tris (8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminum (Alq$_{3}$), respectively, on indium-tin-oxide (ITO) as anode and aluminum (Al) as cathode by the vacuum evaporation deposition using intersecting metal shadow masks. This deposition technique enables us to fabricate four different areas in the same substrate. The crossover area of the deposited thin films were measured by the DFM/KFM, the energy band diagrams were depicted and we considered that the charge behavior of the organic semiconductor depended on the material and the structure.

ITS refers to advanced transportation systems in which control technology and information communication technology are applied for the purpose of coping with issues concerning safety, congestion, the environment, resource usage, etc. Here, we will review the history of ITS and look at its prospects for the future, with a focus on the rise of car navigation systems in Japan.

A novel method for calibrating the probes used in standard measurement systems to evaluate SAR (specific absorption rate) of the radio equipment operating at frequencies over 3GHz is proposed. As for the proposed method, the electric-field distribution produced by a waveguide aperture installed in a liquid container is used to calibrate the SAR probe. The field distribution is shown to be the same as that given by a conventional calibration method by analytically deriving a closed-form expression for the field produced by the waveguide aperture with the help of the paraxial approximation. Comparing the approximated and measured distributions reveals that the closed-form expression is valid for the electric-field distribution near the central axis of the aperture. The calibration factor for a commercial SAR probe is evaluated by the proposed method and agrees well with that provided by the manufacturer of the probe.

Active measurement is an end-to-end measurement technique that can estimate network performance. The active measurement techniques of PASTA-based probing and periodic-probing are widely used. However, for the active measurement of delay and loss, Baccelli et al. reported that there are many other probing policies that can achieve appropriate estimation if we can assume the non-intrusive context (the load of the probe packets is ignored in the non-intrusive context). While the best policy in terms of accuracy is periodic-probing with fixed interval, it suffers from the phase-lock phenomenon created by synchronization with network congestion. The important point in avoiding the phase-lock phenomenon is to shift the cycle of the probe packet injection by adding fluctuations. In this paper, we analyse the optimal magnitude of fluctuations corresponding to the given autocovariance function of the target process. Moreover, we introduce some evaluation examples to provide guidance on designing experiments to network researchers and practitioners. The examples yield insights on the relationships among measurement parameters, network parameters, and the optimal fluctuation magnitude.

The probe used in the conventional SAR measurement is usually calibrated in a well filled with tissue-equivalent liquid surrounded by a rectangular waveguide and a matching dielectric window in the frequency range from 800 MHz to 3 GHz. However, below 800 MHz, the waveguides are too large to be used for the calibration. Therefore, we have developed another technique of calibrating the SAR-probe, that is, relating the output voltage of the probe to the field intensity produced by a reference antenna in the tissue-equivalent liquid by using two-antenna method. In this paper, the calibration system using the reference dipole antennas in the liquid at 450 MHz, 900 MHz and 2450 MHz is presented and far-field gain of the reference antenna and calibration factor of the SAR-probe are measured and compared with those obtained by using the conventional waveguide system.

This paper proposes a novel approach to traffic state estimation using mobile phones. In this work, a real-time traffic data collection policy based on the so-called “3R” philosophy, a unique vehicle classification method, and a reasonable traffic state quantification model are proposed. The “3R” philosophy, in which the Right data are collected by the Right mobile devices at the Right time, helps to improve not only the effectiveness but also the scalability of the traffic state estimation model. The vehicle classification method using the simple data collected by mobile phones makes the traffic state estimation more accurate. The traffic state quantification model integrates both the mean speed capacity and the density of a traffic flow to improve the comprehensibility of the traffic condition. The experimental results reveal the effectiveness as well as the robustness of the proposed solutions.

In this paper, we propose a novel feeding structure for a coaxial-excited compact waveguide filter, which is composed of planar resonators called frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs). In our proposed feeding structure, new FSSs located at the input and output ports are directly excited by the coaxial line. By using the FSSs, the transition from the TEM mode to the TE10 mode is realized by the resonance of the FSSs. Therefore, the backshort length from the coaxial probe to the shorted waveguide end can be made much shorter than one-quarter of the guided wavelength. Additionally, the coaxial-excited FSS provides one transmission zero at each stopband. As a design example, a three-stage bandpass filter with 4% bandwidth at the X band is demonstrated. The designed filter has a very compact size of one cavity and has high skirt selectivity with six transmission zeros. The effectiveness of the design is confirmed by the comparison of frequency characteristics obtained by the simulation and measurement.

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.