ADS‐B aided robust relay selection for cooperative communications in aircraft approach

The ground‐to‐air communications in the aircraft approach stage suffer from multipath fading. We propose to combat this problem using cooperative communication technique. The relay selection problem is formulated to minimize the spectrum cost while preserving the signal‐to‐noise‐ratio (SNR) outage requirement of the approaching aircraft. By leveraging the position and velocity information in the automatic dependent surveillance‐broadcast messages, the average channel gains can be derived with uncertainty sets based on the Ricean channel model. Because the outage probability of the received SNR is intractable, we transform the outage constraint into a simple but efficient reliability requirement. The formulated problem is a mixed integer nonlinear optimization problem, with robustness in the worst‐case average SNR. A robust greedy relay selection algorithm is proposed as a solution, whereby a Kalman filter based trace prediction algorithm is adopted to determine the order of relays. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design of a preamble signal for synchronization in ultra‐wideband noncoherent energy detection receivers

We present an effective preamble design scheme that can improve synchronization performance in ultra‐wideband noncoherent energy detection receivers. Focusing on the effect of the nonuniform energy allocation of a preamble in energy detection‐based synchronization, we propose a preamble energy allocation scheme. This scheme determines the energy distribution of a preamble by using a constrained optimization method. Through the proposed scheme, we promise that we can provide a generalized solution to design preambles for energy detection‐based synchronization, in that it is possible to design the power distribution of preamble pattern in various shapes according to the system's specification. In addition, we also suggest two preamble design scheme that finally decides the practical shape of a preamble from the determined energy distribution of a preamble. By providing preamble design examples, we show that preambles based on nonuniform energy distribution provide improved synchronization performance without any additional increase in receiver complexity in ultra‐wideband channel environments. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A cyclic redundancy check‐based non‐coherent receiver for automatic identification system signals

A non‐coherent receiver for automatic identification system (AIS) signals is proposed in this paper. The proposed receiver is based on the Viterbi algorithm with cyclic redundancy check (CRC) trellis. It takes bit stuffing into consideration and is designed to simultaneously demodulate decode and correct the received messages. The complexity of the proposed receiver has been reduced with state‐complexity reduction. Simulations prove that the proposed receiver outperforms those AIS receivers without CRC trellis error correction in terms of BER and packet error rate. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved anonymous multi‐receiver identity‐based encryption scheme

Anonymous receiver encryption is an important cryptographic primitive. It allows a sender to use the public identities of multiple receivers to encrypt messages so that only the authorized receivers or a privileged set of users can decrypt the messages, and the identities of the receivers are not revealed. Recently, Zhang et al. proposed a novel anonymous multi‐receiver encryption scheme and claimed that their scheme could realize the receiver's identity privacy. Unfortunately, in this paper, we pointed out that the scheme by Zhang et al. did not achieve the anonymity of the receiver identity after analyzing the security of the scheme. At the same time, we give the corresponding attack. After analyzing the reason to produce such attacks, a novel anonymous multi‐receiver encryption scheme is given to achieve the anonymity of the receiver's identities. And we formally prove that the proposed scheme is semantically secure for confidentiality and receiver identities’ anonymity. The security of the scheme is based on decisional bilinear Diffie‐Hellman problem. Compared with the scheme by Zhang et al., Fan et al., Wang et al., and Chien et al., our scheme is shown to be better performance and robust security. To the best of our knowledge, our scheme is most efficient in terms of computational cost and communication overhead. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modulation classification for asynchronous high‐order QAM signals

Automatic modulation classification (MC) is beneficial to digital radio receivers. Conventional MC schemes usually assume that perfect synchronization has been accomplished and then rely on certain statistical characteristics to distinguish different modulation formats. In practice, however, this perfect synchronization assumption is not reasonable since modulation classifiers operate in a non‐cooperative manner and therefore, the receiver has little prior knowledge about a transmitted signal and no training is available. In this paper, we first address asynchronous MC for high‐order QAMs through blind time synchronization. A characteristic function (CF) based approach is proposed to improve the performance of the conventional cumulant method. We then move on to consider asynchronous MC in the presence of frequency offset. We propose a hybrid MC scheme based on blind time synchronization, differential processing, and cumulants to solve this difficult problem. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A switch‐controlled multimode narrowband receiver RF front‐end

This work illustrates a flexible and convenient method to build a multimode narrowband receiver RF front‐end by means of controlled switches, switched capacitors, and switched inductors. The front‐end comprises a dual‐gain‐mode narrowband low‐noise amplifier (LNA) and a dual‐linearity‐mode mixer. A four‐mode receiver RF front‐end constructed with the dual‐gain‐mode LNA and the dual‐linearity‐mode mixer operating in frequency band range from 1800 to 2050 MHz was demonstrated with an IBM 90‐nm CMOS process. The front‐end achieves a 1/1.6 dB noise figure, 30/20 dB power gain, and 16/?10 dBm third‐order input intercept point while draws a 5.9/3.6 mA current from a 1.8‐V supply voltage at the low noise mode and high linearity mode, respectively. The proposed technique can be employed to build an intelligent mobile system.     

A discrete‐components millimeter‐wave satellite beacon receiver for Q‐band propagation experiment

Ever increasing bandwidth requirements in satellite communications continuously push the frequency limits. Q‐ band (33 – 50 GHz) is the next frequency band to be populated; however, at these frequencies, the Earth's troposphere (weather) profoundly alters the radio propagation conditions. Therefore, in order to properly plan radio links, accurate statistical models of radio channels are necessary. These statistical models are built upon empirical data, ie, measurements, which are furthermore used to design appropriate Propagation Impairment Mitigation Techniques. The Q‐ band lacks such data, hence the statistical models are inadequate. To address this problem, we propose a cost‐effective, easy to replicate Q‐ band beacon receiver to leverage the Alphasat propagation campaign. We present a step‐by‐step implementation process of the receiver's fundamental part, a Low‐Noise Block, which translates input 39.402 GHz signal into 162 MHz output signal with a conversion gain of 52 dB. The receiver furthermore utilizes software define radio for signal processing and other data manipulation. Here, we describe the receiver implementations in great details, supplementing the crucial parts with laboratory validation results. Finally, we show 2 example datasets, showing usual data obtained during heavy showers and on a quiet day, respectively.     

Closed‐form analysis of multibranch switched diversity with noncoherent and differentially coherent detection

Exact closed‐form analytical expressions are derived for the average bit error probability of multibranch switched diversity systems over independent and identically Nakagami‐m distributed fading channels. Practical schemes that use noncoherent or differentially coherent symbol detection are considered. The general bit error probability expression derived in this paper includes as particular cases the following signaling formats: orthogonal binary signaling, correlated binary signaling, differential phase‐shift keying, and differential quadrature phase‐shift keying. Finally, we apply our analytical results to study the impact of the switching threshold selection on the system performance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel low‐complexity transmission power adaptation in MC‐CDMA systems with a‐MRC receiver over Nakagami‐m fading channels

In this paper, we propose a novel low‐complexity transmission power adaptation with good bit error rate (BER) performance for multicarrier code‐division multiple‐access (MC‐CDMA) systems over Nakagami‐m fading channels. We first propose a new receiver called ath‐order‐maximal‐ratio‐combining (a‐MRC) receiver with which the receiver power gain for the nth subcarrier is the ath (a?1) power of the corresponding channel gain. Incorporating the a‐MRC receiver, we then propose a new transmission power adaptation scheme where the transmission power is allocated over all the N subcarriers according to the subchannel gains and the transmitter adapts its power to maintain a constant signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise (SINR) at the receiver. The proposed scheme has a significant performance gain over the nonadaptive transmission scheme over both independent and correlated fading channels. Moreover, the proposed scheme keeps good BER performance while it is much simpler than the previous power control/adaptation schemes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of cellular CDMA high‐speed data services

This paper investigates the forward‐link peak and average data rates, throughput, and coverage of a cellular CDMA system for delivering high‐speed wireless data services. The analysis takes into account major aspects commonly found in the forward data channel and applies the generalized Shannon capacity formula for multi‐element antenna (MEA) systems. The study focuses on the physical layer and is flexible for various propagation environments, antenna configurations, multicode allocations, user distributions, and cell site configurations. Numerical results for various multicode allocations are presented for a system model with two‐tier interfering cells operating under a frequency selective slow fading channel with propagation environments specified in the Recommendation ITU‐R M.1225. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed radio access technology selection for adaptive networks in high‐speed,B3G infrastructures

Wireless systems migrate towards the era of ‘Beyond the 3rd Generation’ (B3G). A fundamental facilitator of this vision is the evolution of high speed, adaptive networks, needed for better handling the offered demand and improving resource utilization. Adaptive networks dynamically select their configuration, in order to optimally adapt to the changing environment requirements and conditions. This paper presents optimization functionality that can be used to support network adaptability (cognition‐reconfigurability) in a B3G context. The paper starts from the business case that justifies the need for placing research onto adaptive networks and then continues with the management functionality for (re)configuration decisions, which is targeted to the dynamic selection of the appropriate radio access technologies (RATs). RAT selection is modelled through an optimization problem called (RAT, Demand and QoS‐Assignment problem—RDQ‐A), the solution of which assigns in a distributed manner the available RATs to adaptive Base Station transceivers and the demand (users) to these transceivers and to QoS levels, respectively. The RDQ‐A optimization problem is decoupled in several sub‐problems and is implemented in phases corresponding to the aforementioned assignments, while efficient custom greedy algorithms are mobilized in each phase for obtaining the optimum assignment. Finally, indicative results from the application of the proposed functionality to a simulated network are presented. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of coded DS‐CDMA system using reduced rank MMSE receiver in Rayleigh fading channels

This paper examines the performance of a reduced rank minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver‐based direct sequence code division multiple access (DS‐CDMA) system. For such system, when a large processing gain is employed, substantial time is consumed in computing the filter tap weights. Many schemes for reducing the complexity of the MMSE have been proposed in recent years. In this paper, computational complexity reduction of the MMSE receiver is achieved by using the K‐mean classification algorithm. The performance of the uncoded and coded systems are investigated for the full rank MMSE receiver and reduced rank MMSE receiver and results are compared in terms of bit error rate at different loading levels in both AWGN and fading channels. A system with the matched filter (MF) receiver is also presented for the purpose of comparison and an analytical pair‐wise error bound for the coded system is derived. In the adaptive implementation of the receivers, results show that good performance is achieved for the reduced rank receiver when compared to the full rank receiver in both coded and uncoded systems, while in the optimum implementation of the tap weights, the reduced dimension receiver performance experiences degradation when compared to the full rank scheme. Over the band‐limited channels considered, results for the reduced rank receiver also reiterate the fact that higher code rates tend to yield lower BER than that of low rate codes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhanced lateral current transport via the front N+ diffused layer of n‐type high‐efficiency back‐junction back‐contact silicon solar cells

N‐type back‐contact back‐junction solar cells were processed with the use of industrially relevant structuring technologies such as screen‐printing and laser processing. Application of the low‐cost structuring technologies in the processing of the high‐efficiency back‐contact back‐junction silicon solar cells results in a drastic increase of the pitch on the rear cell side. The pitch in the range of millimetres leads to a significant increase of the lateral base resistance. The application of a phosphorus doped front surface field (FSF) significantly reduces the lateral base resistance losses. This additional function of the phosphorus doped FSF in reducing the lateral resistance losses was investigated experimentally and by two‐dimensional device simulations. Enhanced lateral majority carrier's current transport in the front n⁺ diffused layer is a function of the pitch and the base resistivity. Experimental data show that the application of a FSF reduces the total series resistance of the measured cells with 3.5 mm pitch by 0.1 Ω cm² for the 1 Ω cm base resistivity and 1.3 Ω cm² for the 8 Ω cm base resistivity. Two‐dimensional simulations of the electron current transport show that the electron current density in the front n⁺ diffused layer is around two orders of magnitude higher than in the base of the solar cell. The best efficiency of 21.3% was obtained for the solar cell with a 1 Ω cm specific base resistivity and a front surface field with sheet resistance of 148 Ω/sq. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Surface passivation of high‐efficiency silicon solar cells by atomic‐layer‐deposited Al2O3

Atomic‐layer‐deposited aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃) is applied as rear‐surface‐passivating dielectric layer to passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC)‐type crystalline silicon (c‐Si) solar cells. The excellent passivation of low‐resistivity p‐type silicon by the negative‐charge‐dielectric Al₂O₃ is confirmed on the device level by an independently confirmed energy conversion efficiency of 20·6%. The best results are obtained for a stack consisting of a 30 nm Al₂O₃ film covered by a 200 nm plasma‐enhanced‐chemical‐vapour‐deposited silicon oxide (SiO_x) layer, resulting in a rear surface recombination velocity (SRV) of 70 cm/s. Comparable results are obtained for a 130 nm single‐layer of Al₂O₃, resulting in a rear SRV of 90 cm/s. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy payback time of the high‐concentration PV system FLATCON®

The ecological benefit and sustainability of a new energy technology and its potential to reduce CO₂ emissions depend strongly on the amount of energy embodied in the materials and production processes. The energy payback time is a measure for the amount of time that a renewable energy system has to operate until the energy involved in its complete life‐cycle is regenerated. In this paper, the energy payback time of the high‐concentration photovoltaic system FLATCON® using III–V semiconductor multi‐junction solar cells has been evaluated. Considering the energy demand for the system manufacturing, including transportation, balance of system and system losses, the energy payback time turns out to be as low as 8–10 months for a FLATCON® concentrator built in Germany and operated in Spain. The energy payback time rises slightly to 12 to 16 months for a system installed in Germany. The main energy demand in the production of such a high‐concentration photovoltaic system was found to be the zinced steel for the tracking unit. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis and simulation of interrupt overhead impact on OS throughput in high‐speed networks

The paper presents analytical and simulation models to study the impact of interrupt overhead on operating system throughput of network elements such as PC‐based routers, servers, and hosts when subjected to high‐speed network traffic. Under such high network traffic, the system throughput will be negatively affected due to interrupt overhead caused by the incoming traffic. We first present an analytical model for the ideal system when interrupt overhead is ignored. We then present two models which describe the impact of high interrupt rate on system throughput. One model is for employing PIO in which network adapters are not equipped with DMA engines, and the other model is for employing DMA in which network adapters are equipped with DMA engines. The paper also describes detailed discrete‐event simulation models for the ideal system and for systems with DMA and PIO. Simulations results as well as reported experimental measurements show that our analytical models are valid and give a good approximation. Our analysis and simulation work can be valuable in providing insight to understand and predict system behaviour, as well as improving and maintaining good host performance. The paper identifies analytically critical design operation points such as that of overload condition. The paper also proposes solutions and recommendations for improving performance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of wavelet based Multi‐Chip Rate DS‐CDMA signals over multi‐path Nakagami‐m fading channels

Multi‐Chip Rate/Direct Sequence‐Code Division Multiple Access (MCR/DS‐CDMA) technique using scaled chip waveforms has been designed as an alternative to multi‐data rate DS‐CDMA techniques having constant chip rates. In this work, the probability of error (P_e) expression for MCR/DS‐CDMA signals is derived over multi‐path Nakagami‐m fading channels to investigate the effects of chip waveforms on it. This paper also proposes the use of orthogonal wavelets as chip waveforms of MCR/DS‐CDMA signals over the considered channel. For numerical calculations, Daubechies‐22 (D₂₂) wavelet is used because its side lobes are 40 dB below its main lobe in frequency domain. D₂₂ is compared with a Square Root Raised Cosine (SRRC) chip waveform. In the numerical calculations, only first four scales of the chip waveforms relating to four different chip/data rates are considered. The results for the P_e performance and the capacity (the number of user per Hertz for a same P_e level) show that D₂₂ significantly outperforms the SRRC chip waveform at all data rates, due to low cross correlations among different scales of orthogonal wavelets. Besides, by increasing the number of scales, the advantage of the use of orthogonal wavelets will increase furthermore. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Signal integrity analysis of system interconnection module of high‐density server supporting serial RapidIO

In this paper, we analyzed the signal integrity of a system interconnection module for a proposed high‐density server. The proposed server integrates several components into a chassis. Therefore, the proposed server can access multiple computing resources. To support the system interconnection, among the highly integrated computing resources, the interconnection module, which is based on Serial RapidIO, has been newly adopted and supports a bandwidth of 800 Gbps while routing 160 differential signal traces. The module was designed for two different stack‐up types on a printed circuit board. Each module was designed into 12‐ (version 1) and 14‐layer (version 2) versions with thicknesses of 1.5T and 1.8T, respectively. Version 1 has a structure with two consecutive high‐speed signal‐layers in the middle of two power planes, whereas Version 2 has a single high‐speed signal placed only in the space between two power planes. To analyze the signal integrity of the module, we probed the S‐parameters, eye‐diagrams, and crosstalk voltages. The results show that the high‐speed signal integrity of Version 2 has a better quality than Version 1, even if the signal trace length is increased.     

A comparison of theoretical efficiencies of multi‐junction concentrator solar cells

Champion concentrator cell efficiencies have surpassed 40% and now many are asking whether the efficiencies will surpass 50%. Theoretical efficiencies of >60% are described for many approaches, but there is often confusion about “the” theoretical efficiency for a specific structure. The detailed balance approach to calculating theoretical efficiency gives an upper bound that can be independent of material parameters and device design. Other models predict efficiencies that are closer to those that have been achieved. Changing reference spectra and the choice of concentration further complicate comparison of theoretical efficiencies. This paper provides a side‐by‐side comparison of theoretical efficiencies of multi‐junction solar cells calculated with the detailed balance approach and a common one‐dimensional‐transport model for different spectral and irradiance conditions. Also, historical experimental champion efficiencies are compared with the theoretical efficiencies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new class of multi‐bandgap high‐efficiency photovoltaics enabled by broadband diffractive optics

A semiconductor absorber with a single bandgap is unable to convert broadband sunlight into electricity efficiently. Photons with energy lower than the bandgap are not absorbed, whereas those with energy far higher than the bandgap lose energy via thermalization. In this Article, we demonstrate an approach to mitigate these losses via a thin, efficient broadband diffractive micro‐structured optic that not only spectrally separates incident light but also concentrates it onto multiple laterally separated single‐junction semiconductor absorbers. A fully integrated optoelectronic device model was applied in conjunction with a nonlinear optimization algorithm to design the optic. An experimental demonstration is presented for a dual‐bandgap design using GaInP and GaAs solar cells, where a 20% increase in the total electric power is measured compared with the same cells without the diffractive optic. Finally, we demonstrate that this framework of broadband diffractive optics allows us to independently design for the number of spectral bands and geometric concentration, thereby enabling a new class of multi‐bandgap photovoltaic devices with ultra‐high energy conversion efficiencies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.