Antenna design strategy and demonstration for software-defined radio (SDR)

Antennas are a key enabling technology for software-defined radio (SDR). Although software is extremely flexible, SDR??s potential is limited by antenna size and performance. In this paper, we review typical antenna miniaturization techniques and fundamental theories that limit antenna size and performance including operational bandwidth, gain (or range), and radiation pattern. Possible antenna design strategies are discussed to meet the desired specifications in SDR based on observations from the limit theories. The application of strategies to enable multiband (resonant), continuous multiband (frequency independent), and instantaneous, ultra-wideband antennas are discussed qualitatively. Advantages, disadvantages, and design trade-off strategies for different types of antennas are compared from a system-level perspective. A design example for a compact ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is presented for a software-defined platform. The example involves a direct-conversion radio developed in Wireless@VT that uses a Motorola RFIC having a 100 MHz?C6 GHz operational frequency range with a 9 kHz?C20 MHz channel bandwidth. The example antenna covers frequencies from 450 MHz to 6 GHz instantaneously with approximately 5-dBi realized gain over a finite-size ground plane, including return loss and omni-directional coverage.     

Task allocation and scheduling in wireless distributed computing networks

Wireless distributed computing (WDC) is an enabling technology that allows radio nodes to cooperate in processing complex computational tasks of an application in a distributed manner. WDC research is being driven by the fact that mobile portable computing devices have limitations in executing complex mobile applications, mainly attributed to their limited resource and functionality. This article focuses on resource allocation in WDC networks, specifically on scheduling and task allocation. In WDC, it is important to schedule communications between the nodes in addition to the allocation of computational tasks to nodes. Communication scheduling and heterogeneity in the operating environment make the WDC resource allocation problem challenging to address. This article presents a task allocation and scheduling algorithm that optimizes both energy consumption and makespan in a heuristic manner. The proposed algorithm uses a comprehensive model of the energy consumption for the execution of tasks and communication between tasks assigned to different radio nodes. The algorithm is tested for three objectives, namely, minimization of makespan, minimization of energy consumption, and minimization of both makespan and energy consumption.     

凯文·芒迪纪念大桥

一座简洁优雅、具有现代艺术感的步行桥,呈现在具有田园诗歌般气息的蒙达纳州加拉廷国家森林的山区中。该桥横跨同名峡谷口的布雷杰河流,距位于饮马山的波兹曼（人口27,500）东北部4公里（2．5英里）。这座获得过奖项的桥梁建筑（包括2010年美国建筑师协会国家小型项目奖）是由当地的Intrinsk建筑公司（建筑记录）和Archweld设计制作公司（总承包和钢材加工商）合作设计建造的。     

The evolution of the IEDFs in a low-pressure HiPIMS discharge

Using an energy-resolved mass spectrometer the evolution of the ion energy distribution function (IEDF) in a high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) plasma has been measured at low operating pressures. The plasma was maintained using a low-power DC power supply as a pre-ionizer in conjunction with a conventional HiPIMS power supply, allowing reduced times between the initiation of the HiPIMS pulse and plasma ignition. As a result, a stable HiPIMS discharge can be operated at the working pressure down to 86 mPa with a typical pulse width, repetition rate and peak power density of 100 μs, 100 Hz and 450 W cm^? 2, respectively. Time-averaged IEDF measurements at 10 cm from a carbon target surface showed two distinct energy peaks one at low energy (~ 0 eV) and the other at high energy (~ 10 eV) for the detected species Ar⁺ and C⁺. The origin of these two peaks can be revealed using a time-resolved acquisition technique. It was found that the high energy peak (corresponding with an effective stopping voltage of 15 V) was created during the on-time phase of HiPIMS pulse while the low energy peak dominated the IEDF during the off-time. Increase of the operating pressure to 750 mPa results in the depletion of intensity and energy of the energetic peak. At the low pressure condition, with a mean-free-path comparable with the mass spectrometer orifice-target distance, energetic ions are transported ballistically to the instrument orifice. This suggests that forming well-structured films may be achieved in the condition of the collision-free operation.     

Model for transient behavior of pulse tube cryocooler

This article describes an investigation of the transient behavior of a small (2.0 W at 85 K) pulse tube cryocooler operating at 120 Hz with an average pressure of 3.5 MPa, capable of relatively fast cool-down from ambient to about 60 K. In a series of experiments, the cold end temperature was measured as a function of time in a complete cool-down and subsequent warm-up cycle, with no heat load and different quantities of excess mass at the cold end. A transient heat transfer model was developed, that considers the effects of the cooling power extracted at the cold end and that of the heat gain at the warm end on the cool-down time. The heat gain factor was calculated from warm-up data, and found to be approximately the same for all experiments. Using the same model with cool-down data enables a determination of both the gross and net cooling power as functions of time, but more importantly – as functions of the cold end temperature. An expression was derived for the cold end temperature as a function of time for any amount of excess mass, including zero. The cool-down time of the “lean” cryocooler (with no excess mass) was found to be less than 50 s.This cool-down/warm-up method for evaluating the cooling power of a cryocooler seems simpler than steady-state experiments with a heater simulating load at the cold end. Use of the heat transfer model with data from one or two good experiments conducted in the above manner, can yield both the gross and net cooling powers of a cryocooler as functions of the cold end temperature, and allow the determination of cool-down time with any amount of excess thermal mass. While the net cooling power during cool-down differs somewhat from that under steady-state operation, the former can serve as a good measure for the latter.     

Performance optimisation strategies for automatically generated FPGA accelerators for biomedical models

Biomedical modelling that is mathematically described by ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is often one of the most computationally intensive parts of simulations. With high inherent parallelism, hardware acceleration based on field programmable gate array has great potential to increase the computational performance of the ODE model integration while being very power efficient. ODE‐based Domain‐specific Synthesis Tool is a tool we proposed previously to automatically generate the complete hardware/software co‐design framework for computing biomedical models based on CellML. Although it provides remarkable performance improvement and high energy efficiency compared with CPUs and GPUs, there is still a great potential for optimisation. In this paper, we investigate a set of optimisation strategies including compiler optimisation, resource fitting and balancing, and multiple pipelines. They all have in common that they can be performed automatically and hence can be integrated in our domain‐specific high level synthesis tool. We evaluate the optimised hardware accelerator modules generated by ODE‐based Domain‐specific Synthesis Tool on real hardware based on their resource usage, processing speed and power consumption. The results are compared with single threaded and multi‐core CPUs with/without Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE) optimisation and a graphics card. The results show that the proposed optimisation strategies provide significant performance improvement and result in even more energy‐efficient hardware accelerator modules. Furthermore, the resources of the target field programmable gate array device can be more efficiently utilised in order to fit larger biomedical models than before. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Comparison of the Migration of ‘Spiked’ and ‘Intrinsic’ Substances from Paper and Board into Raisins and into Tenax as a Food Simulant

Four samples of paper and board (P/B) of a type used for packaging dry foods were subjected to migration experiments using raisins and the polymeric powder Tenax as a food simulant. The P/B samples contained only low levels of diisopropylnaphthalene (DiPN) and diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), and so, experiments were also conducted after spiking the P/B with added model substances. These were o‐xylene, acetophenone, dodecane, benzophenone, DiPN and DiBP. Migration experiments into raisins and Tenax were conducted for 10 days at 40°C. Migration levels depended strongly on the nature of the substance. Migration from spiked P/B samples was more extensive (as a percentage of that available) than migration of intrinsic migratable substances, and so, studying spiked samples tends to be conservative. It is considered likely that this is because of binding of substances, especially aromatics with pi‐electrons such as DiPN and DiBP, to active sites on the surface of P/B fibres, resulting in non‐linear absorption isotherms. However, further work would be needed to prove this conclusively. Considering the results overall and also that raisins packed in P/B can have a shelf life of up to 1 year at ambient temperatures, the test results using Tenax as a food simulant are considered to be appropriate without application of a correction factor. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.