In this letter, we propose an adaptive multiuser receiver using a Hopfield network for code-division multiple-access communications and its performance is compared with that of the other types of multiuser receiver via computer simulation. The proposed adaptive receiver estimates both the signal amplitudes and spreading sequences for all the users using training data.

In this paper, we study three-dimensional motion estimation using optical flow. We construct a weighted quotient-form objective function that provides an unbiased estimator. Using this objective function with a certain projection operator as a weight drastically reduces the computational cost for estimation compared with using the maximum likelihood estimator. To reduce the variance of the estimator, we examine the weight, and we show by theoretical evaluations and simulations that, with an appropriate projection function, and when the noise variance is not too small, this objective function provides an estimator whose variance is smaller than that of the maximum likelihood estimator. The use of this projection is based on the knowledge that the depth function has a positive value (i. e., the object is in front of the camera) and that it is generally smooth.

Understanding unknown objects in images is one of the most important fields of the computer vision. We are confronted with the problem of dealing with the ambiguity of the image information about unknown objects in the scene. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new object recognition method based on the fuzzy relation system and the fuzzy integral. In order to deal with the ambiguity of the image information, we apply the fuzzy theory to object recognition subjects. Firstly, we define the degree of similarity based on the fuzzy relation system among input images and object models. In the next, to avoid the uncertainty of relations between the input image and the 2-D aspects of models, we integrate the degree of similarity obtained from several input images by the fuzzy integral. This proposing method makes it possible to recognize the unknown objects correctly under the ambiguity of the image information. And the validity of our method is confirmed by the experiments with six kinds of chairs.

Air interfaces of the future mobile communication are widely spreading, because of the multimedia service demands, technology trends and radio propagation conditions. Radio-Highway Networks are expected to realize the universal, seamless and multi-air-interface capability for mobile access networks, and play an important role in the future multimedia radio communications. For the radio-highway networks, this paper newly proposes natural bandpass sampling - asynchronous time division multiple access (NBS-ATDMA) method, where radio signals are natural bandpass sampled at the radio base station and are asynchronously multiplexed on the optic fiber bus link and intelligently transmitted to its desired radio control station. We theoretically analyze the loss probability of the radio signal due to collision in the network and the carrier-to-noise power ratio of received radio signals at the radio control station. Moreover, in order to reduce the loss probability, two access control methods, carrier sense and pulse width control, are proposed, and it is clarified that these improve the number of base station connected to radio highway networks.

Shortened prime codes (SPR-codes) are presented, which can maintain the fixed code weight for any arbitrary number of codewords while still preserve the same cross and auto-correlation constraints as original prime codes. The use of SPR-codes can reduce both cost and power loss of optical encoders/decoders. Tunable all-optical SPR-code encoders are also designed, which are based on rapidly tunable optical delay lines. It is shown that using this type of encoders not only can further reduce the coding power loss, but also can achieve a very cost-effective fashion.

Mathematical morphology is inheriently suitable for range image processing because it can deal with the shape of a function in a natural and intuitive way. In this paper, a new approach to the extraction of the corner-edge-surface structure from 3D range images is proposed. Morphological operations are utilized for segmenting range images into smooth surface regions and high-variation surface regions, where the high-variation surface regions are further segmented into regions of edge type and regions of corner type. A new 3D feature, HV-skeleton, can be extracted for each high-variation surface region. The HV-skeletons can be thought of as the skeletons of high-variation surface regions and are useful for feature matching. The 3D features extracted by our approach are invariant to 3D translations and rotations, and can be utilized for higher-level vision tasks such as registration and recognition. Experimental results show that the new 3D feature extraction method works well for both simple geometric objects and complex shaped objects such as human faces.

This paper proposes a new method that can robustly recover 3D structure and 3D motion of 3D moving objects from a few multi-views. It recovers 3D feature points by obtaining intersections of back-projection lines which are connected from the camera's optical centers thorough projected feature points on the image planes corresponding to the different cameras. We show that our method needs only six views to suppress false 3D feature points in most cases by discussing the relation between the occurrence probability of false 3D feature points and the number of views. This discussion gives us a criterion to design the optimal multi-camera system for recovering 3D structure and 3D motion of 3D moving objects. An experimental multi-camera system is constructed to confirm the validity of our method. This system can take images from six different views at once and record motion image sequence from each view over a period of a few seconds. It is tested successfully on recovering the 3D structure of Vinus's plaster head and on recovering the 3D structure and 3D motion of a moving hand.

This paper describes our newly developed intelligent sensor system which comprises two eyes and four ears on a movable head. It can acquire its dynamical visual and auditory image of its surrouding 3-D environment while showing humanlike behavior naturally and autonomously. The most important feature of the sensor system is in an autonomous and optimum sensory architecture of it. This enables the sensor to achieve 1) repid (5 ms) and accurate (2 deg) auditory localization, 2) rapid (0.5 s/65536 pixel) extraction of visual motion in marginal view, 3) rapid (several TV frames' time) eye movement and binocular fixation to a suddenly appeared object, 3) rapid (0.1 s/4096 pixel) extraction of 3-D object profile and image features, which is activated by its own auditory localization and motion detection. We describe in this paper the several key items for realizing this sensor.

Theoretically, corresponding pairs of feature points between two stereo images can determine their 3-D locations uniquely by triangulation. In the presence of noise, however, corresponding feature points may not satisfy the epipolar equation exactly, so we must first correct the corresponding pairs so as to satisfy the epipolar equation. In this paper, we present an optimal correction method based on a statistical model of image noise. Our method allows us to evaluate the magnitude of image noise a posteriori and compute the covariance matrix of each of the reconstructed 3-D points. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by doing numerical simulation and real-image experiments.

We have proposed a connection-based optical wavelength division multiplexing network architecture. For the networks such as inter-office LANs, the guarantee of the bandwidths of connection-oriented calls is necessary. Notable features of the network are that multicast can be executed without copying the same data, and that time slots are rearrangeable to increase the throughput. The topology is passive star and a network controller (NWC) is connected to manage the time slot assignment. Each station's transmitting wavelength is fixed and is different from that of other stations. Each receiver changes the receiving wavelength slot by slot. Stations reserve time slots with permission of the NWC. Once a time slot is reserved the station can use the slot in every frame until the reservation is cancelled. This feature guarantees the bandwidths of connection-oriented calls. Upon receiving a time slot request, the NWC searches for a not-in-use slot common to the source station's transmitter (Tx) and the destination station's receiver (Rx). If there is no common empty slot and both the Tx and the Rx have empty slots, the NWC rearranges the already allocated time slots to create a new common empty slot. Simulations were performed to estimate the blocking rates for various cases of call bandwidth including multi-bitrate (the case in which various bandwidth calls are generated in a network) and multicast call, the calculation load of the NWC when it assigns a time slot including rearrangement, and the success rate of rearrangement. It was found that the blocking rate with the rearrangement is greatly reduced (1/10) compared with the case without rearrangement of the same throughput when the number of slots in a frame is more than 120, the number of stations in the network is 60 and the blocking rate without the rearrangement is less than 10-2. Over 100 Gbps throughput can be achieved when the number of slots in a frame is 120-240, the number of stations is 60, the bitrate of a transmitter is 2.5Gbps and the blocking rate is about 10-2. The rearrangement is especially effective in the case of multi-bitrate in which the blocking rate can be reduced to 1/100 that of the case without rearrangement at some point. It is also shown that a slot assignment including rearrangement can be executed sufficiently quickly (5s). These results indicate that practical realization of this access control architecture is possible.

A quasi-synchronous (QS) code division multiple access (CDMA) system is proposed for mobile communications. In the proposed method, which uses the time division duplex (TDD) mode of transmission, a mobile receiver can measure propagation delay changes. It then accordingly adjusts its transmission time so its signal can arrive at base station synchronously with other mobile units. A simple control unit is used at the mobile unit in order to reduce any error due to the propagation delay changes. The system operates as follows. At the start of a call, a mobile unit is quasi-synchronised through feedback control from the base station. The mobile unit then maintains synchronous status without any further base station feedback. The degree of the quasi-synchronous accuracy is determined by a clock in mobile units. This paper shows performance results based on using a clock rate of ten times faster than the spreading rate. Orthogonal codes are used for spreading the signals. The results demonstrate that the reverse link CDMA multiuser interference is to a great degree removed.

A channel equalization technique on a time division duplex CDMA/TDMA system for wireless multimedia networks is investigated, and the bit error rate performance of the system is theoretically analyzed. The assumed network connects mobile terminals to a node of ATM based high speed LAN through a radio central unit. Only human interface facilities are implemented into the terminal so that users access integrated services through the node of the network. The uplink (from a mobile terminal to a radio central unit) employs a CDMA scheme to transmit human interface signals and the downlink employs a TDMA scheme to transmit display interface signals. Both the CDMA and the TDMA signals occupy the same frequency band. To mitigate bit error rate degradation due to fading, the radio central unit estimates the impulse response of the channel from the received CDMA signals and subtracts the replica signal to cancel the major intersymbol interference (ISI) component. Numerical results using the Nakagami-m fading model and recent propagation measurements show that the proposed TPC technique compensates the fading attenuation and the proposed CEQ cancels the major ISI component. The bit error rate performance of the downlink with the proposed CEQ is superior to that with the DFE by 12dB of the symbol SNR at the BER=10-6 over a specular channel, and the system with the proposed CEQ achieves a BER=10-6 at the symbol SNR=12dB. Furthermore, the channel equalizer is implemented without increases in complexity of the terminal because all the processing on the equalization is carried out only in the radio central unit.

A transmission power control technique on a TDD-CDMA/TDMA system for wireless multimedia networks is proposed. The assumed network connects mobile terminals to a node of an ATM based high speed LAN through a radio central unit. Only human interface facilities are implemented into the terminal so that users access integrated services through the node of the network. The uplink (from a mobile terminal to a radio central unit) employs a CDMA scheme to transmit human interface signals (2.4kbit/s) and the downlink employs a TDMA scheme to transmit display interface signals (24 Mbit/s). Both the CDMA and the TDMA signals occupy the same frequency band. To mitigate bit error rate degradation due to the fading, the radio central unit estimates the impulse response of the channel from the received CDMA signals and controls the transmission power of the TDMA signals to compensate the fading attenuation. The bit error rate performance of the downlink with the proposed transmission power control is theoretically analyzed under several fading conditions. Numerical results using the Nakagami-m fading model and recent propagation measurements show that the proposed power control technique compensates the fading attenuation and improves the bit error rate performances. The bit error rate of the downlink is reduced from 10-2 to 10-5 at the symbol SNR of 20dB by employing the proposed transmission power control, which is less sensitive to the severity of the fading. Furthermore, the proposed transmission power control is implemented without increasing the terminal complexity because all the processing on the power control of the downlink is carried out only in the radio central unit.

This paper describes the multiple access performance of parallel combinatory spread spectrum (PC/SS) communication systems in nonfading and Rayleigh fading multipath channels. The PC/SS systems can provide the high-speed data transmission capability by transmitting multiple pseudo-noise sequences out of a pre-assigned sequence set. The performance is evaluated in terms of average bit error rate (BER) by numerical computation. In nonfading white gaussian channel, the PC/SS systems are superior to conventional direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) systems under the identical spreading factor condition. In Rayleigh fading channel, the performance of the PC/SS system without diversity is poorer than that of the DS/SS system. By including the explicit and implicit diversity, the performance of the PC/SS system becomes better than that of conventional DS/SS systems. A longer spreading sequence is assignable to a PC/SS system having the spreading factor equal to that in the conventional DS/SS system. Hence, the error control coding is easily. It is found that the PC/SS systems including diversity and Reed-Solomon coding improves the multiple access performance.

This paper presents a theoretically best algorithm within the framework of our image noise model for reconstructing 3-D from two views when all the feature points are on a planar surface. Pointing out that statistical bias is introduced if the least-squares scheme is used in the presence of image noise, we propose a scheme called renormalization, which automatically removes statistical bias. We also present an optimal correction scheme for canceling the effect of image noise in individual feature points. Finally, we show numerical simulation and confirm the effectiveness of our method.

In case of object recognition using 3-D configuration data, the scale and poses of the object are important factors. If they are not known, we can not compare the object with the models in the database. Hence we propose a strategy for object recognition independently of its scale and poses, which is based on Hopfield neural network. And we also propose a strategy for estimation of the camera motion to reconstruct 3-D configuration of the object. In this strategy, the camera motion is estimated only with the sequential images taken by a moving camera. Consequently, the 3-D configuration of the object is reconstructed only with the sequential images. And we adopt the multiple regression analysis for estimation of the camera motion parameters so as to reduce the errors of them.

A novel wireless multimedia network employing a time division duplex CDMA/TDMA scheme is proposed. The network connects mobile multimedia terminals to an ATM based LAN through a radio central unit, and provides both uplink and downlink with unbalanced data rates in the same frequency band. The uplink (from a mobile terminal to a radio central unit) employs a CDMA scheme to transmit low speed human interface signals (-2.4kbit/s), and the downlink employs a TDMA scheme to transmit high speed video signals (-24Mbit/s). The data rates of both links are independent from that of the LAN. The uplink also employs a RAKE receiver and a forward error correction (FEC) scheme using a BCH code in order to reduce bit errors caused by multipath fading. To mitigate channel degradation caused by the near-far problem and multipath fading, a transmission power control (TPC) method for both links and a channel equalizer (CEQ) for the downlink are proposed. The control signals for the TPC and the CEQ are estimated from the impulse response of the channel which is extracted as the output of the matched filters in the CDMA receiver. Theoretical analyses are performed to evaluate the bit error rate (BER) characteristics of the proposed network. The BER performance is derived for a general multipath fading condition modeled by the Nakagami-m distribution and a typical delay profile. Numerical calculation using recent propagation measurements shows the bit error rates of both uplink and downlink to be less than 10-6 when both of the TPC and the CEQ are employed if there are some specular components in the received signals. This excellent performance can cut a way to realize a mobile multimedia terminal for customer premises. Furthermore, the configuration of the mobile terminal is quite simple even if the high speed TDMA signals are received over a multipath fading channel.

This paper studies the problem of reconstructing a planar surface from stereo images of multiple feature points that are known to be coplanar in the scene. We present a direct method by applying maximum likelihood estimation based on a statistical model of image noise. The significant fact about our method is that not only the 3-D position of the surface is reconstructed accurately but its reliability is also computed quantitatively. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated by doing numerical simulation.

This paper describes a flexible point-to-multipoint access protocol for the fiber-optic passive double star (PDS) system. To provide various types of services, and permit flexibility in changing transport capacity, a time division multiple access (TDMA) scheme for the PDS system is considered. Dynamic time slot multiplexing based on TDMA is proposed to provide required time slots efficiently according to service changes. The effectiveness of dynamic time slot multiplexing is calculated and compared to fixed time slot multiplexing for telephony services. A TCM/TDMA frame structure and an access protocol enabling dynamic time slot multiplexing are proposed. ONU bandwidth is dynamically assigned by using a set of pointers. The ONU access protocol causes no interruption to operating ONUs on the same PDS system during the configuration or reconfiguration of an ONU. The access time is analyzed to estimate the performance of the access protocol. The probability density of access time is calculated for the number of ONUs connected. The calculation results indicate that a PDS system can accommodate up to around 60 ONUs within the maximum access time specified by ITU-T. The experimental results also agree fairly well with the theoretical values.

With the foreseen growth of communication capacity, further capacity and flexibility enhancements are required for future transport networks. Photonic switching is expected to be a key technology to solve the potential bottleneck, which could be found in transport network nodes. This paper first explains the "Optical Fiber Freeway" concept, as an example of future transport networks. Following this, the possible optical transport network structure using photonic switching technologies, for realizing the Optical Fiber Freeway concept, is explained. An Optical CrossConnect (OXC) and optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ADM) are key components. Examples of recent development of photonic switching systems toward these targets are also reviewed. An OXC using photonic Space-Division (SD) switching technology has been proposed and demonstrated. This type of OXC will realize flexible reconfiguration and optical hitless switching, and it can meet the introduction of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique. Line failure restoration operation at 2.4Gb/s has been successfully demonstrated. An optical packet network with a slotted ring/bus structure using a wavelength address technique has been proposed as a packet/cell based optical ADM. The experimental system employs a practical media access control system as well as a fast-wavelength switched transmitter suppressing thermally induced wavelength drift. Cell communication at 622Mb/s has been demonstrated with the experimental system. These results show that hardware technologies have been developed steadily. With a future study on an all optical network management scheme, a high capacity and flexible optical network would be realized.