The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a new bearer service for GSM that greatly improves and simplifies wireless access to packet data networks, e.g., to the Internet. It applies a packet radio principle to transfer user data packets in an efficient way between mobile stations and external packet data networks. This tutorial gives an introduction to GPRS. The article discusses the system architecture and its basic functionality. It explains the offered services, the session and mobility management, the routing, the GPRS air interface including channel coding, and the GPRS protocol architecture. Finally, an interworking example between GPRS and IP networks is shown.

The proliferation and development of cellular voice systems over the past several years has exposed the capabilities and the effectiveness of wireless communications and, thus, has paved the way for wide-area wireless data applications as well. The demand for such applications is currently experiencing a significant increase and, therefore, there is a strong call for advanced and efficient mobile data technologies. This article deals with these mobile data technologies and aims to exhibit their potential. It provides a thorough survey of the most important mobile packet data services and technologies, including MOBITEX, CDPD, ARDIS, and the emerging GPRS. For each technology, the article outlines its main technical characteristics, discusses its architectural aspects, and explains the medium access protocol, the services provided, and the mobile routing scheme.

Selective packet dropping policies have been used to reduce congestion and transmission of traffic that would inevitably be retransmitted. For data applications using best-effort services, packet dropping policies (PDPs) are congestion management mechanisms implemented at each intermediate node that decide, reactively or proactively, to drop packets to reduce congestion and free up precious buffer space. While the primary goal of PDPs is to avoid or combat congestion, the individual PDP designs can significantly affect application throughput, network utilization, performance fairness, and synchronization problems with multiple Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections. Scalability and simplicity are also important design issues. This article surveys the most important selective packet dropping policies that have been designed for best-effort traffic in ATM and IP networks, providing a comprehensive comparison between the different mechanisms.

The TCP/IP protocol suite is the standard requirement for all applications that need to communicate over the Internet. As TCP/IP applications are unable to specify the QoS parameters needed for most Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) services, they tend to use the unspecified bit rate (UBR) service category when running across ATM networks. The UBR service utilizes any bandwidth that is left unused by the rest of the ATM services. This has led the ATM Forum's Traffic Management Group to define a new service category called guaranteed frame rate (GFR). GFR is intended to provide minimum cell rate guarantees and fair access to excess bandwidth left over from higher-priority services. This article first presents a tutorial overview of GFR and then presents a survey of the research work that has been carried out toward the design and implementation of associated ATM switch mechanisms.

The layer3 switch enables us to fast transmit IP datagrams using the cut-through technique. The current layer3 router would become bottleneck in terms of delay performance as the amount of traffic injected into high speed networks gets relatively large. Thus, the layer3 switch should be an important element constructing the next generation Internet backbone. In this paper, we analyze the cut-through rate, the datagram waiting time and the mis-ordered rate of a layer3 switch in case of flow-driven connection setup. In the analysis, by using 3-state Markov modulated Bernoulli process (MMBP), we model the arrival process of IP flow and IP datagram from each source. Furthermore, we investigate impacts of the arrival rate and the average datagram length on the performance.

The performance of TCP/IP over ATM over an asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) was investigated. Because the bandwidth of an ADSL link can vary over time due to changes in the link's physical conditions, which degrades TCP performance, we performed simulations for various ATM traffic controls, including available bit rate (ABR) and generic flow control, used to handle variations in the ADSL bandwidth. This analysis showed that using an ABR control is effective under various traffic conditions. An ABR switch algorithm that can achieve good performance under any condition was investigated.

It is important to establish the technology to accommodate best effort TCP/IP traffic over wide area ATM networks. The UBR (Unspecified Bit Rate) service category is the most typical service category for the best effort traffic, especially in the LAN environment. On the other hand, the VBR (Variable Bit Rate) service category with SCD (Selective Cell Discard) option is considered as the service category which is appropriate for wide area networks due to its fairness and minimum guarantee of the cell transmission using not only PCR (Peak Cell Rate) but SCR (Sustainable Cell Rate) and MBS (Maximum Burst Size). However, there is no actual evaluation for such service. We have, therefore, performed the experimental studies on TCP/IP over VBR with SCD along with UBR and VBR without SCD by VC (Virtual Channel) level policing when each TCP connection is mapped to a different VC. Through these experiments, we measured the link utilization of the effective data and the fairness between each obtained TCP throughput during the congestion of the ATM switch. From the results of the link utilization, the value is over 95% under the various conditions. Therefore, even in the case of the cell losses due to SCD or buffer overflow in ATM switch congestion, average throughput is almost the same as the value which equals the trunk line speed divided by the number of the accommodated TCP connections. From the results of the fairness, VBR with SCD per VC is better than UBR and also obtains better TCP throughput than VBR without SCD. Furthermore, to confirm those characteristics more generally, we adopt the accommodated TCP connections not only with the same TCP send/receive socket buffer size but with different sizes. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness between VBR with SCD and the other service categories, such as UBR and ABR (Available Bit Rate) and GFR (Guaranteed Frame Rate), and conclude that VBR with SCD is one of the most suitable ATM service categories for accommodating best effort traffic.

The rapid growth of the Internet impacts ATM networks to be furnished IP handling capability. This paper discusses networking issues for IP and ATM integration. First, it considers function allocation at the boundary of an ATM backbone network and the Internet. As the result, the paper explains the necessity of built-in IP handling capability into an ATM switching system, and summarizes functional requirements for the system architecture. According to the discussion above, the authors propose the system architecture of the IP/ATM integration in the ATM switching system. The implementation of the proposed architecture is evaluated, and the wire-speed IP handling capability in the ATM switch is confirmed.

Input buffered switches most efficiently use memory and switch bandwidth. With Virtual Output Queueing (VOQ), head-of-line blocking can be avoided, thus breaking the throughput barrier of 58.6%. In this paper a switch architecture based on VOQ is proposed, which offers deterministic and stochastic delay bounds for prioritized traffic. This is achieved by a hybrid static and dynamic arbitration scheme, which matches ports both by a precalculated schedule and realtime calculations. By using weighted dynamic arbitration algorithms 100% throughput with lowest delays under all admissible traffic can be achieved. An integrated global priority scheme allows the multiplexing of realtime and data traffic. Following the arbitration decision, a cell scheduler decides locally in the input ports upon the next connection from which a cell is forwarded. Cell scheduling based on earliest-deadline-first (EDF) is shown to perform similar to its behaviour in an output-queued switch.

This paper proposes the iterative quasi-oldest-cell-first (i-QOCF) scheduling algorithm, a new scheduling algorithm for input-queued ATM switches with virtual output queuing (VOQ). In the i-QOCF scheduling algorithm, each input port and each output port maintains its own list. The length of the list can be N, 2 N, ..., B N, where B is the size of the separate queue for an output port at input ports, and N is the number of output ports. The list maintained by an input port contains the identifiers for those output ports to which that input port will send a cell. The list maintained by an output port contains the identifiers for input ports that have a cell destined for that output port. If we use a list whose length is B N, then the identifiers in the list appear in the oldest order, and i-QOCF gives preference to cells that have been waiting for the longest time. If we use a list whose length is less than B N, then the identifiers in the list appear in the quasi-oldest order, and i-QOCF gives preference to cells that have been waiting for the quasi-longest time. We determine the performance of i-QOCF in a comparison with i-OCF in terms of cell delay time. We find that an input-queued ATM switch with i-QOCF and VOQ can achieve 100% throughput for independent arrival processes. Under uniform traffic, 3-QOCF is enough to achieve convergence during one cell time. If we use 3-QOCF, the list length is 3 N, then its cell delay time is almost the same as that of 4-OCF (Oldest-Cell-First).

Combined input output queued (CIOQ) architecture such as crossbar with speedup has recently been proposed to build a large capacity switch for broadband integrated services networks. It was shown that, for a speedup factor of 2, a CIOQ switch can achieve 100% throughput with a simple maximal matching algorithm. Achieving 100% throughput, however, is not sufficient for per-connection quality of service (QoS) guarantee. In [2],[3], it is proved that a CIOQ switch with a speedup factor of 2 can exactly emulate an output queued (OQ) switch if stable matching is adopted. Unfortunately, the complexity of currently known algorithms makes stable matching impractical for high-speed switches. In this paper, we propose a new matching algorithm called the least cushion first/most urgent first (LCF/MUF) algorithm and formally prove that a CIOQ switch with a speedup factor of 2 can exactly emulate an OQ switch which adopts any service discipline for cell transmission. A potential implementation of our proposed matching algorithm for strict priority service discipline is also presented.

To provide QoS guarantees for each connection, efficient scheduling algorithms, such as WFQ, have been proposed. These algorithms assume a certain amount of buffer is allocated for each connection to provide loss free transmission of packets. This buffer allocation policy, however, requires much buffer space especially when many connections are sharing a link. In this paper we propose the use of partial buffer sharing (PBS) policy combined with usage parameter control (UPC) for efficient buffer management and flexible QoS control in ATM switches. We evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method by solving a Markov model. We also show that using the proposed method, we can control the cell loss ratio (CLR) independently of the delay. Numerical evaluations are presented, which indicates the PBS combined with UPC significantly reduces the buffer size required to satisfy given cell loss ratios.

A multi-QoS scalable-distributed-arbitration (MSDA) ATM switch is described that supports both high- and low-priority traffic under the head-of-line-priority discipline. It uses crosspoint and transit buffers, each consisting of a high- and low-priority buffer. The buffers arbitrate in a distributed manner the selection of which cellsto transmit. The MSDA switch supports multiple QoS classes while still providing the scalability of a previously described single-QoS scalable-distributed-arbitration (SSDA) switch. A problem occurs when the delay-time-based cell-selection mechanism used in the SSDA switch is applied to the low-priority traffic: it cannot achieve fairness in terms of throughput. This problem is overcome by introducing a distributed-ring-arbiter-based cell-selection mechanism at each crosspoint for the low-priority traffic. The low-priority transit buffer at each crosspoint has virtual queues, one for each upper input port. Cells for the low-priority traffic are selected by distributed-ring arbitration among the low-priority crosspoint buffer and these virtual queues. For the high-priority traffic, the same delay-time-based cell-selection mechanism is used as in the SSDA switch. Simulations show that the MSDA switch ensures fairness interms of delay time for the high-priority traffic and ensures fairness in terms of throughput for the low-priority traffic.

A Baseline MIN (Multistage Interconnection Network) architecture network plane has been proposed for widely application to provide fast packet switching. In this paper we present and describe in detail a Baseline network which provides alternative routing. We call this alternative routing based network architecture (ARBNA). Simulation results are given to demonstrate the proposed ARBNA has the ability to provide high throughput, low mean cell delay, high fault tolerance and flexible multicast forwarding under general traffic patterns. The analytical result shows that the rerouting overhead is acceptable. We further compare it to the traditional single-baseline or dual-baseline networks in terms of cost, throughput, cell loss probability and switching delay.

Future high-speed switches and routers will be expected to support a large number of ports at high line rates carrying traffic with diverse statistical properties. Accordingly, scheduling mechanisms will be required to handle Tbit/sec aggregated capacity while providing quality of service (QoS) guarantees. In this paper a novel high-capacity switching scheme for ATM/WDM networks is presented. The proposed architecture is contention-free, scalable, easy to implement and requires no internal "speedup. " Non-uniform destination distribution and bursty cell arrivals are examined when studying the switching performance. Simulation results show that at an aggregated throughput of 1 Tbit/sec, low latency is achieved, yielding a powerful solution for high-performance packet-switch networks.

This paper describes a distributed traffic control scheme for large multi-stage ATM switching systems. When a new virtual circuit is to be added from some source line-interface unit (LU) to a destination LU, the system must find an optimal path through the system to accommodate the new circuit. Conventional systems have a central control processor and control lines to manage the bandwidth of all the links in the systems. The central control processor handles all the virtual circuits, but have trouble doing this when the switching system becomes large because of the limited ability of the central processor to handle the number of virtual circuits. A large switching system with Tbit/s-class throughput requires a distributed traffic control scheme. In our proposed switching system, each port of the basic switches has its own traffic monitor. Operation, administration, and maintenance (OAM) cells that are defined inside the system carry the path-congestion information to the LUs, enabling each LU to route new virtual circuits independently. A central control processor and control lines are not required. The performance of the proposed system depends on the interval between OAM cells. This paper shows how an optimal interval can be determined in order to maximize the bandwidth for user cells. This traffic control scheme will suit future Tbit/s ATM switching systems.

The Communications Research Laboratory (CRL), the National Astronomical Observatory (NAO), the Institute of Space and Astronoutical Science (ISAS), and the Telecommunication Network Laboratory Group of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) have developed a very-long-baseline-connected-interferometry array, maximum baseline-length was 208 km, using a high-speed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network with an AAL1 that corresponds to the constant bit-rate protocol. The very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observed data is transmitted through a 2.488-Gbps [STM-16/OC-48] ATM network instead of being recorded onto magnetic tape. By combining antennas via a high-speed ATM network, a highly-sensitive virtual (radio) telescope system was realized. The system was composed of two real-time VLBI networks: the Key-Stone-Project (KSP) network of CRL (which is used for measuring crustal deformation in the Tokyo metropolitan area), and the OLIVE (optically linked VLBI experiment) network of NAO and ISAS which is used for astronomy (space-VLBI). These networks operated in cooperation with NTT. In order to realize a virtual telescope, the acquired VLBI data were corrected via the ATM networks and were synthesized using the VLBI technique. The cross-correlation processing and data observation were done simultaneously in this system and radio flares on the weak radio source (HR1099) were detected.

VLBI is an important application of ATM technology because it can transmit huge amounts of data. A single VLBI experiment typically generates data (which must be recorded and transported until they are cross-correlated) of tera-bit order at each separated observing site. Conventional VLBI not only requires manpower but also limits the maximum observation data rate. Therefore, a realtime VLBI using a private ATM network was developed recently, but it could not be utilized for regular VLBI experiment. Since utilization of public ATM is most realistic solution for realtime VLBI between ordinary observing sites, we have developed an interface equipment that connects VLBI observation and processing equipment to a public ATM network and demonstrated a successful experiment. This equipment supports VLBI's standard bit rates as 128 Mbps and 256 Mbps, though data rate for user's payload in 155.52 Mbps (STM-1/OC-3) ATM network is actually only 119.5 Mbps. It can easily step to higher networks as 622 Mbps.

This paper presents a design and implementation of a ATM multicast service based on programmable and active network concepts. It aims to address the design and implementation issues of creating new network services--multicast in this case--through a set of corba-based network interfaces, and with a java based user codes injection mechanism for supporting customization of network services. We demonstrate the feasibility of our prototype through the implementation of a wavelet video multicast application with active filters implanted at intermediate nodes for supporting heterogeneous receivers and the implementation of a congestion control scheme. The performance of the prototype over an ATM test-bed is measured and evaluated.

Broadband subscriber loop system and ATM switching system are the key equipment for construction of Broadband networks. In this paper, we describe the architecture of access network and the implementation of ATM switching system with multi-service interface for construction of broadband access network. We also represent the design of MAIN-AN (Multi-service Access Integrated Network--Access Node) system as integrated access network platform which enables to accommodate ATM/SDH-based and ATM/PON-based FTTx (Fiber-To-The-x) access architecture simultaneously. The system has a Cross-point ATM Switch Fabric with 10 Gbits/sec throughput and it has been implemented using 0.5 µm CMOS technology. For performance evaluation of it, we simulate it under burst traffic conditions. In addition, we show the implementation of prototype of ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), MAIN system and its core PBA (Printed circuit Board Assembly) and so on.

Increasing traffic on the Internet and intranets has raised demands for high-speed, large-scale and cost-effective computer networking techniques. ATM connectionless service provides high-speed, highly scalable, and flexible services because connectionless networks are constructed logically over high-speed ATM networks. This paper described the self-sizing operation for high-speed, large-scale connectionless service over an ATM network. Self-sizing is an autonomous adjustment mechanism for virtual path (VP) bandwidths based on traffic conditions observed in real time. We confirmed its feasibility on a test-bed network. The self-sizing operation caused the VP bandwidth to approach the necessary value while satisfying the target cell loss ratio (CLR). We developed an operations system (OpS) that achieves self-sizing in an ATM connectionless network. The OpS suggests necessary bandwidth for VP that may exceed the target CLR. The algorithm utilized in the OpS does not require observation or logical processes, which would be a heavy load on each node. Self-sizing operation will provide easy and cost-effective management because it adjusts VP bandwidth flexibly depending on the current traffic demand.

The ATM multicast Tree (AMT) is the Mbone of video/audio conferencing and other multicasting applications in ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. However, real problems such as temporarily moving switches, changing optic fiber connections and/or tangible/intangible failures of ATM networks will cause many service disruptions. Thus we must carefully consider the system's SQOS (Survivable QOS) when we construct the system. A point-to-point self-healing scheme utilizing a conventional pre-planned backup mechanism is proposed to protect the AMT from failure. This scheme uses point-to-point pre-planned backup Root-to-Leaf Routes (RLR) as the root-to-leaf structure of an AMT. Though AMT protection via preplanned backup RLR requires no search time, duplicate paths may cause redundant bandwidth consumption. This paper also proposes a closest-node method, which can locate the minimum-length route structure during the initial design and also rebuild the AMT in the event of a network failure. To enhance the survivability of the system, we introduce two near optimal re-routing algorithms, a most-decent search algorithm, and also a predictive-decent search algorithm in order to find the minimum lost flow requirement. These near optimal schemes use search technique to guide the local optimal lost flow to the most-decent lost flow direction. The predictive way is an especially economical technique to reduce the calculation complexity of lost flow function. For the evaluation of the feasibility and performance of the new schemes, we simulate AMT restoration and the simulation results show the closest-node scheme provides superior AMT restoration compared to a system with a preplanned point-to-point backup scheme. In addition, the predictive-decent search algorithm is faster than the most-decent search one.

This paper proposes a new failure-resistant ATM transport method for real-time applications (FRAT-RA). This method can prevent not only cell loss but also cell delay variation (CDV) even when a network failure occurs. First, a general overview of the existing fault-resistant method is briefly described and its problems for real-time applications are discussed. Next, the proposed FRAT-RA method is described in detail. Finally, evaluation results on the CDV of FRAT-RA and its QoS improvement are presented. The results show that failure-resistant and high-quality transmission of real-time signals can be achieved with FRAT-RA.

The ATM Virtual Path(VP)-based transport network is a candidate for the future multi-reliability and broadband integrated service infrastructure. This paper compares the performance attributes of the VP transport network with those of the conventional SDH network and future optical path-based transport network. This paper shows that the VP-based network is superior in terms of path-grooming efficiency and connection capability, and will still play an important role when WDM technologies are introduced to carrier networks. This paper also describes the recently fabricated VP Cross Connect(VP-XC) system configuration and the VP Automatic Protection Switching(APS) performance of the XC.

An increase in high quality of service (QoS) applications such as video conferencing and distribution, and the evolution of the Internet have popularized ATM-LAN use based on the private network node interface (PNNI). Also in public networks, which serve as backbone networks for LANs, ATM technology is being introduced for high-speed and broadband communication. These situations lead to a great demand for economically and seamlessly interconnecting remote ATM-LANs via ATM public networks, which are based on broadband ISDN user part (BISUP). This paper discusses a method of peer group configuration method for such internetworking architecture that can avoid an overload of the PNNI routing processing in each peer group. The paper also proposes a method for seamless interconnection of remote ATM-LANs. In this method, complete PNNI signaling and routing is executed between a local switch (LS) in a public network and each ATM-LAN. It also can reduce the PNNI routing processing load on each public network by emulating PNNI routing and signaling between LSs.

Medium access control (MAC) protocol is one of the key components for providing quality of service (QoS) in wireless ATM (W-ATM) networks. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical scheduling scheme coupled with fair queueing algorithms with adaptive weights. This scheme is intended to be applicable to a TDMA/TDD based MAC protocol. Specifically, the performance of the fair-queueing algorithm using fixed weights and adaptive weights is evaluated and compared. Simulation results show that the proposed hierarchical fair-queueing scheduling with adaptive weights (HAW) can yield a lower cell transfer delay and a higher channel utilization while maintaining fairness among multiple users.

The design of effective traffic and resource management policies is a key issue in the deployment of ATM-satellite systems. This paper proposes a technique of call admission control and dynamic resource management to support ATM traffic classes in satellite environments. The effectiveness of the strategy is assessed by referring to the EuroSkyWay multimedia satellite platform, based on Ka-band payload and on-board processing. The main advantage is the effective exploitation of the satellite bandwidth by means of the statistical multiplexing of traffic sources and the guarantee of QoS provisioning to both real-time and non real-time, constant and variable bit rate sources.

In this paper, the efficiency of transferring non-realtime data over Wireless ATM (WATM) networks is studied. Non-realtime services are sensitive to bit error as well as cell loss. The loss or error of a single cell due to congestion or a line error will result in the retransmission of the entire protocol data unit (PDU) by the end user in ATM networks. In WATM, cells are subject to the influences of noise. In this paper, we propose an adaptive cell checking controller (ACCC) for WATM networks to early find out error PDUs and to drop all remaining cells of these frames. The proposed ACCC only needs several bits overhead for each PDU of size of several Kilobytes. The removable percentage of an erroneous PDU by ACCC is analyzed. Simulation results show that compared with a conventional early packet drop mechanism, the proposed ACCC can achieve superior network utilization while keeping the minimum overhead in WATM networks.

This paper presents a new distributed scheduling architecture for wireless ATM networks. Usually, in WATM scheduling architectures, a fixed order is defined among the different connections through their ATM service category (CBR VBR ABR UBR). We argue that although this static priority is easier to implement, this type of precedence is not necessarily a good choice for the MAC layer. The MAC layer scheduling should define an order such that it uses efficiently the resources while providing quality of service (QoS) guarantees. In this spirit, our architecture delays (without violating their QoS) the real time connections in order to improve the performance of non real time connections.

We compare between four Connection Admission Control schemes that use either the Gaussian or the Effective Bandwidth model with and without real-time traffic measurements. We demonstrate that under heavy multiplexing, the Gaussian is more efficient than the Effective Bandwidth approach in either case.

This paper describes the roles and benefits of an ATM transport network composed of ATM transport systems, such as ATM cross-connect systems and/or ATM add-drop multiplexers. The ATM transport network is an economical way of providing the ATM public network and a virtual path service for enterprise users. This paper exemplifies the effectiveness of a VP grooming function in the ATM transport system by comparing it to the network costs with direct fiber connection, an alternative to VP grooming. Main and junction module architecture for the ATM cross-connect system is proposed to realize an economical network that supports small to large traffic. For implementing a large-scale cross-connect switch, a cell congestion control method that employs re-arrangement control and a concentration network is proposed. Implementation of multiple service classes and VP protection switching in the ATM cross-connect system are mentioned. We also describe an SDH signal transmission method based on ATM cells, that offers a cost effective and reliable transport network.

ABR service is currently standardized to handle applications of data traffic in ATM network. As a flow control method, the rate-based flow control has been adopted and applied to manage the ABR service. Several control methods have been proposed, and the EPRCA is selected as one of the control methods by the ATM Forum. EPRCA is an excellent algorithm, but when the EPRCA is applied to the ATM network, several problems occur. One of the problems is the beat-down problem, which gives unfair allocation of transmission rate to connections. We propose a new control method which solves the beat-down problem. We will show that, by our proposed method, (i) the ACR is given fairly to every connection compared to the conventional method, and also (ii) the throughput is fair for both long-hop and short-hop connections, (iii) the ACR is proportional to the throughput, and finally (iv) the total throughput is larger than that of the conventional method. The fairness of the throughput in (ii) is measured by the fairness index. In (iii), being proportional means that the allocated ACR is close to the throughput and it is measured by the proportion index. The performance is evaluated by computer simulation.

A novel algorithm for an adaptive array that is suitable for a multi-carrier transmission will be proposed in this paper. In an adaptive array, signals received by antenna elements are weighted and combined together. In the proposed algorithm, distortion of a spectrum of the combined signal is detected and weight coefficients for each antenna element are controlled so that the spectrum of the combined signal becomes flat. Concept of the proposed algorithm can be interpreted as the CMA which is applied to signals sampled in the frequency domain. Furthermore, a configuration of the adaptive array will be shown. Signals separated in a receiver of the multi-carrier transmission are utilized to detect the distortion of the signal spectrum. By adopting the proposed configuration, the spectrum of the multi-carrier signal can be easily detected. In order to investigate the performance of the proposed adaptive array, computer simulation has been carried out. Numerical results show that; 1) A desired wave is captured well even if an interference wave is narrow band signal and is stronger than the desired wave. 2) Suppression performance for a co-channel interference wave depends on both a symbol timing and SIR of arrival waves. If the symbol timing of the interference wave greatly differs from the timing of FFT window of the receiver, the desired wave can be captured even if the co-channel interference wave is stronger more than 10 dB compared with the desired wave. The conventional CMA adaptive array has a serious problem that the narrow band interference wave is captured when it is stronger than the desired wave. On the other hand, it is extremely rare that the proposed adaptive array captures the narrow band interference wave. Therefore, it can be said that the proposed adaptive array is a robust system compared with the conventional system.

In uplink data communication in wireless networks, a portable computer may retransmit a packet multiple times before the base station receives the correct one. Each retransmission consumes communication bandwidth and battery energy of the portable computer. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the number of retransmissions. In this paper, we propose the aggressive packet combining scheme for this purpose. The base station executes this scheme to combine multiple erroneous copies as follows: (1) perform bit-by-bit majority voting on the erroneous copies to produce a combined packet, (2) identify the least reliable bits in this combined packet, and (3) search the correct bit pattern for these bits. Then the base station may recover the correct packet, thereby reducing the mean number of retransmissions. The proposed scheme has several advantages: (1) it is more powerful than the majority packet combining scheme, (2) it can complement many existing ARQ protocols to improve their performance, (3) it does not add additional bits to the packet and hence it does not consume extra bandwidth in the wireless channel, and (4) it is only executed by the base station and hence the portable transceiver can be kept simple. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme is more bandwidth-efficient and energy-efficient than the majority packet combining scheme.

The wall admittance of an arbitrarily shaped microstrip antenna is generally formulated. As examples, elliptical microstrip antennas with and without a circular slot are calculated. The wall admittance is determined by the spectral domain analysis in order to consider the effect of the dielectric substrate. The electromagnetic fields within the cavity are expanded in terms of the eigenfunctions in the cylindrical coordinate system and their expansion coefficients are determined by applying the impedance boundary condition at the aperture in the sense of the least squares. The calculated input impedance and axial ratio agree fairly well with the experimental data. The proposed method is valid for the microstrip antennas with a patch whose geometry deviates from the particular coordinate system, such as single-feed circularly polarized microstrip antennas.

This paper describes a nonblind digital beamformer for SDMA (space division multiple access) systems used when channels are power-limited. An array antenna with many elements is usually required to obtain high antenna gain for the reception of a low-level desired signal and the degree of freedom for the spatial discrimination of many users using the same frequency. The proposed beamformer is designed for such array antennas by employing the combination of a multibeam former and a maximal-ratio-combining (MRC) technique. The MRC technique is extended to a nonblind combiner that uses a training sequence contained in the desired signal. Basic analysis and numerical simulations of its performance, under the power-limited condition and with fixed user terminals, show that the speed and robustness of desired-signal acquisition and undesired-signal suppression may outperform recursive-least-squares (RLS) beamformer with less computation, when it is applied to an array antenna with many elements.

The VSOP terminal is a new data-acquisition system for the Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This terminal was primarily designed for ground telescopes in the VLBI Space Observatory Programme (VSOP). New technologies; higher-order sampling and digital filtering techniques, were introduced in the development. A cassette cart was also introduced, which supports 24-hour unattended operations at the maximum data rate of 256 Mbps. The higher-order sampling and digital filtering techniques achieve flat and constant phase response over bandwidth of 32 MHz without using expensive wide base-band converters. The digital filtering technique also enables a variety of observing modes defined on the VSOP terminal, even with a fixed sampling frequency in an A/D converter. The new terminals are installed at Nobeyama, Kashima, Usuda, Mizusawa, and Kagoshima radio observatories in Japan, and are being used in VSOP and other domestic VLBI observations. In this paper the key features of the VSOP terminal focusing on these advanced technologies are presented, and the results of performance tests are shown.

Speech can be modeled as short bursts of vocal energy separated by silence gaps. During typical conversation, talkspurts comprise only 40% of each party's speech and remaining 60% is silence. Communication systems can achieve spectral gain by disconnecting the users from the spectral resource during silence periods. This letter develops a simple and efficient Voice Activity Detection (VAD) algorithm to work in a mobile environment exhibiting dynamically varying background noise. The VAD uses a classification method involving the full-band energy, ratio of low-band energy to full-band energy, zero-crossing rate, and peakiness measure.

This paper analyzes the effective radiation efficiency of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) consisting of two resistor-loaded bow-tie antennas covered with a ferrite-coated conducting cavity by using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The GPR is located above a lossless or lossy ground surface. The relation between the radiation powers into the ground and air, dissipated powers at the loaded resistors and ferrite absorber, and the reflected power due to impedance mismatching, is clarified numerically.

In phased array antennas, the number of radiator rows is one of the important factors to minimizing both cost and weight. Therefore, the antenna tilt angles having relation with the element spacing are among the important design parameters. In this paper, the optimum tilt angles for several types of dipole planar arrays are investigated theoretically. To obtain optimum tilt angles, the directivity equation including phase shift factors for planar arrays are calculated.