Essential Considerations in Implementing the Smart Antenna System for Downlink Beamforming

This paper addresses some essential problems that have to be taken into consideration in implementing the smart antenna base station (SABS) for downlink beamforming. In order to provide proper downlink beamforming as well as uplink beamforming, a pragmatic procedure of automatic calibration is proposed. Through the experimental test, we confirm that the proposed calibration technique has eliminated the problem of the phase differences of the signal path associated with each antenna. Also, in this paper, we first analyze the multipath condition under which the auxiliary pilot becomes indispensable for detecting the data transmitted on the data channel and what happens if the auxiliary pilot is not available. Then, the performance of the downlink beamforming utilizing the auxiliary pilot is analyzed through the computer simulations. Finally, we present a comparison of downlink communications to uplink ones in terms of throughputs available at each of uplink and downlink communications. Weon-Cheol Lee received the B.S, M.S, and Ph.D. degree in Electronic Communication Engineering from Hanyang University, Korea, in 1992, 1994, 2005, respectively. From 1994 to 2000, he was with LG Electronic Inc., where he had worked for developing the digital VCR, digital cable modem, digital TV. Since 2001, he has been a professor with department of information and communications, Yong-in Songdam College, Korea. His research interests include smart antennas, mobile communications beyond the third generation, digital broadcasting technology, and communication signal processing. Dr. Lee also received the Best Research Paper Award and Excellent Research Engineer Award from LG Electronics, respectively. Seungwon Choireceived the BS degree from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, and the M.S. degree from Seoul National University, Korea, 1980 and 1982, respectively, both in electronics engineering, the MS degree (computer engineering) in 1985, and the PhD degree (electrical engineering), in 1988, both from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. From 1988 to 1989 he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, as an Assistant Professor. In 1989 he joined the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea. From 1990 to 1992 he was with the Communications Research Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan, as a Science and Technology Agency fellow, developing the adaptive antenna array systems and adaptive equalizing filters. He joined Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, in 1992 as an assistant professor. He is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Hanyang University. Since 2003, Dr. Choi has been serving as a Vice Chairman and the representative of the ITU region 3 for SDR (Software Defined Radio) Forum and as a Director of the HY-SDR Research Center, MIC, Korea. His research interests include digital communications and adaptive signal processing with a recent focus on the implementation of the smart antenna systems for both mobile communication systems and wireless data systems. Jae-Moung Kim received the BS degree from Hanyang University, Korea in 1974, the MSEE degree from University of Southern California, USA in 1981, and the PhD degree from Yonsei University, Korea in 1987. He was a Vice President of Radio {&} Broadcasting Technology Laboratory and Director of Satellite Communication System Department at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) from September 1982 to March 2003. Since April of 2003, he has been a Professor in the Graduate School of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Inha University. He is a board member of directors of Korean Institute of Communication Science (KICS), a Vice President of Korea Society of Broadcast Engineers (KOSBE) and a senior member of IEEE. His research background is telecommunication systems modeling and performance analysis of broadband wireless access systems, mobile communications, satellite communications and broadcasting transmission technologies.     

Channel Estimation by Using Short Training Sequences in CDMA Systems

Multiuser detection techniques are known to be effective to counter the presence of multiuser interference in code division multiple access channels. Multiuser detectors can provide excellent performance only when the channel impulse responses of all the users are precisely known. Hence, channel estimation becomes a challenging issue in mobile communication systems. In this paper, we address the problem of efficient maximum likelihood mobile radio channel estimation at high channel efficiency that requires a short training sequence along with the known spreading sequence. The proposed system can be employed in both the uplink and downlink of a heavily loaded multiuser CDMA system. The extension of the approach with unknown users' delays are also proposed. We present results that show the success of this method in recovering the transmitted bits with a relatively small number of preamble bits. Ahmet Rizaner was born in Larnaca, Cyprus, on January 31, 1974. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus, in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He completed his PhD. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University and joined Eastern Mediterranean University as a lecturer in 2004. He is lecturing in the School of Computing and Technology. His main research interests include CDMA communications, adaptive channel estimation, and multiuser detection techniques. Hasan Amca was born in 1961 in Nicosia-Cyprus. He graduated from the Higher Technological Institute in Magosa-Cyprus (which is renamed later as Eastern Mediterranean University). He joined EMU in 1985 after receiving a M.Sc. (Digital Signal Processing) degree from the University of Essex in England (1985). He took his Ph.D. (Mobile Communications) from the University of Bradford where he was on a Commonwealth scholarship. He has been teaching in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Eastern Mediterranean University since 1993 where he also served as the vice chairman from Spring 1998 to Spring 2000. He has been appointed as the Director of the School of Computing and Technology of the EMU since Spring 2000. His research interests include Multi User Detection of CDMA signals, Adaptive Equalisation, Multi Carrier Systems, Mobile Radio Systems and Networks, Internet and Information Technology Applications in Education. Kadri Hacıoğlu was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1980, 1984, and 1990, respectively. After his two-year military service, in 1992, he joined the faculty of Eastern Mediterranean University, Magosa, North Cyprus, as an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 1997. While there, he taught several classes on electronics, digital communications, speech processing and neural networks. During this time, he conducted research on applying fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms to signal processing and communications problems. From 1998 to 2000, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder. Here, he taught classes on neural networks and continued his research. Since 2000, he has been a Research Associate at the Center for Spoken Language Research, University of Colorado. He has authored or coauthored numerous papers and supervised a dozen M.Sc./Ph.D. theses. His current research interests are concept-based language modeling, speech understanding, natural language generation, and search methods in speech recognition/understanding. He also does research on multiuser detection and equalization in CDMA systems. Ali Hakan Ulusoy was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, on June 3, 1974. He graduated from the double major program of the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and department of Physics in Eastern Mediterranean University as the first rank student of Faculty of Engineering in 1996. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University in 1998. He completed his PhD. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University and joined Eastern Mediterranean University as a lecturer in 2004. He is lecturing in the School of Computing and Technology. His current research interests include receiver design, multi-user detection techniques, blind and trained channel estimation in Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).     

Analysis, testing and optimisation of electrostatic comb-drive levitational actuators

This work presents an analysis of the levitation effect in electrostatic comb fingers and of its possible use for vertical or torsional actuation of micromachined structures. Two different levitational mechanical resonators were designed and fabricated in a thick-polysilicon technology. A study of the dependence of the force intensity on the geometric parameters of the actuators were performed using FEM simulations, and information about critical geometrical parameters in the design of operative levitational actuators were obtained. The devices were characterized and the obtained results were compared with FEM simulations. Antonio Molfese received the M.S. degree cum laude in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy on March 2003. In the summer 2003 he was at IMEC, Belgium for an internship. On November 2003 he received the diploma degree cum laude in Industrial and Information Engineering from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Studi Universitari e Perfezionamento of Pisa, Italy. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering at University of Pisa and he is working at IEIIT-Sezione di Pisa of Italian National Research Council (CNR) as research assistant. His main research interests include design, modeling and characterization of micro-electro-mechanical systems and microfluidics. Giovanni Pennelli was born on October 23, 1967 in Lucca, Italy. He graduated in 1992, cum laude, in Electronic Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1997 for a thesis entitled "New Materials for a Silicon-Based Optoelectronics". He moved to the University of Glasgow in April 1997 to work as a Research Assistant in the MBE group concerned with optoelectronic device fabrication and process development. He developed some MBE grown structures for HEMT applications. In September 2000, Dr Pennelli has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy, pursuing research in electron beam lithography and nanometer scale process development. Francesco Pieri received the laurea and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, both from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1996 and 2000 respectively. He joined the Department of Information Engineering of the same University as an assistant professor in 2001. His current research interests include applications of porous silicon to sensors and microtechnologies, and development of microelectromechanical systems. Andrea Nannini received his laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1982; He received his Ph.D. degree in 1987 at the end of the first Italian Ph.D. course held by the University of Padova, Italy. From 1988 to 1992 he was a Researcher at the “Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e Perfezionamento S. Anna” – Pisa- Italy. Since 1992 he joined the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa as an Associate Professor. Since November 2000 he is a full professor of “Sensor and Microsystem Design”. He is currently chairman of the postgraduate school of Electronic Engineering and vice-chairman of the PhD school of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa. His main research interests concern solid state sensors, microelectronic devices and technologies, MEMS.     

Pre-equalization Techniques for Downlink and Uplink TDD MC-CDMA Systems

Time division duplex (TDD) multi carrier-code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems have recently been proposed as potential candidates for next generation (4G) technology. In order to mitigate multiple access interference, in this paper we investigate pre-equalization schemes for both downlink and uplink transmissions, the former also in a multiple transmit antenna scenario. In particular, new pre-equalizer techniques are introduced and complexity issues addressed. Numerical results are given to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed schemes with respect to other existing pre-equalizer solutions. Paola Bisaglia was born in Padova, Italy, on August 8, 1971. She received the Laurea (cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Padova, Padova, Italy in 1996 and 2000 respectively. In 2000 she joined Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories, Bristol, England, working on Home Phoneline Networking and wireless LANs. From 2002 she is a research fellow at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova, Italy. Her research interests include wireless local area networks; modulation, coding techniques and detection strategies for next generation (4G) broadband cellular systems, based on the combination of multi-carrier and spread-spectrum modulations. Luca Sanguinetti is a Ph.D. Student of the University of Pisa. He was born in Empoli, Italy, on February 19, 1977, and he received the Doctor Engineer degree (cum laude) in information engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2002. Since 2002 he was with the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa, where he is working toward the Ph.D. degree in information engineering under the supervision of Prof. Umberto Mengali and Prof. Michele Morelli. In 2004, he was a visiting Ph.D. student at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. Currently he is involved in a research project dealing with the design and the development of base stations and user terminals for wideband wireless communications systems able to cope with those reconfigurability and interoperability characteristics required by the next generation mobile communication systems. His research interests are in wireless communication theory, with emphasis on synchronization and detection algorithms and channel estimation in multiple-access communication systems. Michele Morelli received the Laurea (cum laude) in electrical engineering and the “Premio di Laurea SIP” from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1991 and 1992 respectively. From 1992 to 1995 he was with the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa, where he received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering. In September 1996 he joined the Centro Studi Metodi e Dispositivi per Radiotrasmissioni (CSMDR) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa where he held the position of Research Assistant. Since 2001 he has been with the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa where he is currently an Associate Professor of Telecommunications. His research interests are in wireless communication theory, with emphasis on synchronization algorithms and channel estimation in multiple-access communication systems. Nevio Benvenuto received the Laurea degree from the University of Padova, Padova, Italy, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1976 and 1983, respectively, both in electrical engineering. From 1983 to 1985 he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, working on signal analysis problems. He spent the next three years alternating between the University of Padova, where he worked on communication systems research, and Bell Laboratories, as a Visiting Professor. From 1987 to 1990, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Ancona. He was a member of the faculty at the University of L'Aquila from 1994 to 1995. Currently, he is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Padova. His research interests include voice and data communications, digital radio, and signal processing. Silvano Pupolin received the Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 1970. Since then he joined the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, where currently is Full Professor of Electrical Communications. He was Chairman of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering from 1990 to 1994, Chairman of the PhD Course in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from 1991 to 1997 and Director of the PhD School in Information Engineering from 2004. Also, he was member of the programming and development committee from 1997 to 2002 and member of Scientific Committee from 1996 to 2001 of the University of Padova; member of the budget Committee of the Faculty of Engineering from 2003. He has been actively engaged in research on: Digital communication systems over copper wires and fiber optics; Spread spectrum communication systems; Design of large reliable communications networks; Effects of phase noise and HPA nonlinearities in OFDM systems; 3G mobile radio communications systems (UTRA-FDD and TDD) and beyond 3G (OFDM modulation and MC CDMA); Packet radio, Ad-hoc networks with the use of Bluetooth and WLAN. He was Chairman of the 9-th and 10-th Tyrrhenian International Workshop on Digital Communications devoted to “Broadband Wireless Communications” and to “Multimedia Communications”, respectively, and he was General Chair of the 7th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC'04). He spent the summer 1985 at AT&T Bell Laboratories on leave from Padova, doing research on digital radio systems. He was Principal investigator for research projects entitled “Variable bit rate mobile radio communication systems for multimedia applications”, “OFDM Systems with Applications to WLAN Networks”, and “MC-CDMA: an air interface for the 4th generation of wireless systems”.     

New Paradigms in Wireless Communication Systems

This paper discusses what a new paradigm can be in wireless communication systems of the twenty-first century. First, it suggests two directions for the new paradigm; one is “micro- and nano-device communication system” which is the projected scenario considering that the entities in source and destination have been shrinking throughout the history of wireless communication systems. The second direction is “networked robot system”, which emerges as a natural extension of mobile ad hoc networking where the networking is closely related to motion control of robots. Secondly, it shows two interesting research topics, “the new communication protocol design” and “signal processing”, respectively, that arise in the wake of the fusion between the two directions in the novel communication paradigm. Finally, it considers a new science of wireless communications in the twenty-first century. Shinsuke Hara received the B.Eng., M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in communications engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1985, 1987 and 1990, respectively. From April 1990 to March 1997, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, Osaka University, and from October 1997 to September 2005, he was an associate professor in the Department of Electronic, Information and Energy Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University. Since October 2005, he has been a professor in the Department of Physical Electronics and Informatics, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka City University. In addition, from April 1995 to March 1996, he was a visiting scientist at Telecommunications and Traffic Control Systems Group, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. His research interests include wireless communications systems and digital signal processing. Hiroyuki Yomo received B.S. degree in communication engineering from Department of Communication Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1997, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in communication engineering from Department of Electronic, Information, and Energy Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka Japan, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. From April 2002 to March 2004, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Department of Communication Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark. From April 2004 to September 2004, he was at Internet System Laboratory, NEC Corporation, Japan. Since October 2004, he has been an Assistant Research Professor in Center for TeleInfrastructure (CTIF), Aalborg University, Denmark. His main research interests are access technologies, radio resource management, and link-layer techniques in the area of short-range communication, cellular network, cognitive radio, and sensor network. Petar Popovski received the Dipl.-Ing. in electrical engineering and M.Sc. in communication engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, in 1997 and 2000, respectively. He received a Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2004. From 1998 to 2001 he was a teaching and research assistant at the Institute of Telecommunications, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Skopje. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Technology at the Aalborg University. His research interests are related to the PHY-MAC aspects of wireless protocols, wireless sensor networks, random access protocols, and network coding. Kazunori Hayashi received the B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in communication engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1997, 1999 and 2002, respectively. He spent 3 months in 2000 at Aalborg University, Denmark, as a Visiting Scholar. Since 2002, he has been with the Department of Systems Science, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University. He is currently an Assistant Professor there. His research interests include digital signal processing for communications systems.     

Training Sequence Aided Signature Waveform Estimation

In code division multiple access channels multiuser detection techniques are known to be effective strategies to counter the presence of multiuser interference towards improving spectral efficiency. Generally, multiuser detectors can provide excellent performance only when the signature waveforms of all users are precisely known. Hence, the estimation of signature waveforms is a challenging issue in mobile communication systems. In this paper, we compare the performance of two short training sequence aided signature waveform estimators. One is maximum likelihood type signature waveform estimator that requires the knowledge of spreading sequences and short training sequences. The other estimator is recently proposed based on subspace method and requires the knowledge of training sequences only. Through the simulations, we show the signature waveform estimation performance of both systems and the effect of the estimation error on the performance of a multiuser detector. The complexity comparisons of both systems are also given. We use the term “signature waveform” to refer to the convolution of the channel and the spreading code throughout the paper. Hasan AMCA was born in 1961 in Nicosia-Cyprus. He graduated from the Higher Technological Institute in Magosa – Cyprus (which is renamed later as Eastern Mediterranean University). He joined EMU in 1985 after receiving a M.Sc. (Digital Signal Processing) degree from the University of Essex in England (1985). He took his Ph.D. (Mobile Communications) from the University of Bradford where he was on a Commonwealth scholarship. He has been teaching in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Eastern Mediterranean University since 1993 where he also served as the Vice Chairman from Spring 1998 to Spring 2000. He has been appointed as the Director of the School of Computing and Technology of the EMU since Spring 2000. His research interests include Multi User Detection of CDMA signals, Adaptive Equalisation, Multi Carrier Systems, Mobile Radio Systems and Networks, Internet and Information Technology Applications in Education. Ahmet Rizaner was born in Larnaca, Cyprus, on January 31, 1974. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus, in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He completed his PhD. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University and joined Eastern Mediterranean University as a lecturer in 2004. He is lecturing in the School of Computing and Technology. His main research interests include CDMA communications, adaptive channel estimation, and multiuser detection technique. Kadri Hacioğlu was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1980, 1984, and 1990, respectively. After his two-year military service, in 1992, he joined the faculty of Eastern Mediterranean University, Magosa, North Cyprus, as an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 1997. While there, he taught several classes on electronics, digital communications, speech processing and neural networks. During this time, he conducted research on applying fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms to signal processing and communications problems. From 1998 to 2000, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder. Here, he taught classes on neural networks and continued his research. Since 2000, he has been a Research Associate at the Center for Spoken Language Research, University of Colorado. He has authored or coauthored numerous papers and supervised a dozen M.Sc./Ph.D. theses. His current research interests are concept-based language modeling, speech understanding, natural language generation, and search methods in speech recognition/understanding. He also does research on multiuser detection and equalization in CDMA systems. Ali Hakan Ulusoy was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, on June 3, 1974. He graduated from the double major program of the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and department of Physics in Eastern Mediterranean University as the first rank student of Faculty of Engineering in 1996. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University in 1998. He completed his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Eastern Mediterranean University and joined Eastern Mediterranean University as a lecturer in 2004. He is lecturing in the School of Computing and Technology. His current research interests include receiver design, multi-user detection techniques, blind and trained channel estimation in Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).     

BER Performance of Wireless BPSK Communication System in Tunnels With and Without Traffic

The bit error rate (BER) performance for high-speed personal communication service in tunnels with and without traffic is investigated. The impulse responses of tunnels for any transmitter–receiver location are computed by shooting and bouncing ray/image techniques. By using the impulse responses of these multipath channels, the BER performance of BPSK (binary phase shift keying) system with phase and timing recovery circuits are calculated. Numerical results have shown that the multipath effect by the vehicles in the tunnel is an important factor for BER performance. In addition, the effect of space diversity techniques and decision feedback equalizer on mitigating the multipath fading is also investigated.Chien-Hung Chen was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China, on 8 March 1971. He received the MSEE degree from Tamkang University in 1999. He is studying for Ph.D. degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tamkang University. His current research interests include indoor wireless communications and numerical techniques in electromagnetics.Chien-Ching Chiu was born in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China, on 23 January 1963. He received the BSCE degree from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 1985 and MSEE and PhD degrees from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1987 and 1991, respectively. From 1987 to1989, he served in the ROC Army Force as a communication officer. In 1992 he joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tamkang University, where he is now an Professor. He was a visiting scholar at the MIT and University of Illinois, Urbana from 1998 to 1999. His current research interests include microwave imaging, numerical techniques in electromagnetics and indoor wireless communications.Shi-Cheng Hung received the MSEE degree from Tamkang University in 1998. He is now a RF engineer. His current research interests include indoor wireless communications and numerical techniques in electromagnetics.Chien-Hung Lin received the MSEE degree from Tamkang University in 2001. He is now a RF engineer. His current research interests include indoor wireless communications and numerical techniques in electromagnetics.     

Capacity and Error Probability for Maximal Ratio Combining Reception over Correlated Nakagami Fading Channels

In this paper, the capacity and error probability of maximal ratio combining (MRC) reception are considered for different modulation schemes over correlated Nakagami fading channels. Based on an equivalent scalar additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, we derive the characteristic function (CF) and the probability density function (PDF) of the signal to noise ratio for MRC reception over Nakagami fading channels. Using these CF and PDF results, closed form error probability and capacity expressions are obtained for PSK, PAM and QAM modulation. Wei Li received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Victoria in 2004. He is now a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria. He is a Member of the IEEE. His research interests include ultra-wideband system, spread spectrum communications, diversity for wireless communications, and cellular communication systems. Hao Zhang was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1975. He received his Bachelor Degree in Telecom Engineering and Industrial Management from Shanghai Jiaotong University, China in 1994, his MBA from New York Institute of Technology, USA in 2001, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Victoria, Canada in 2004. His research interests include ultra-wideband radio systems, MIMO wireless systems, and spectrum communications. From 1994 to 1997, he was the Assistant President of ICO(China) Global Communication Company. He was the Founder and CEO of Beijing Parco Co., Ltd. from 1998 to 2000. In 2000, he joined Microsoft Canada as a Software Engineer, and was Chief Engineer at Dream Access Information Technology, Canada from 2001 to 2002. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria. T. Aaron Gulliver received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada in 1989. From 1989 to 1991 he was employed as a Defence Scientist at Defence Research Establishment Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada. He has held academic positions at Carleton University, Ottawa, and the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He joined the University of Victoria in 1999 and is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, Canada. In 2002, he became a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada. His research interests include information theory and communication theory, algebraic coding theory, cryptography, construction of optimal codes, turbo codes, spread spectrum communications, space-time coding and ultra wideband communications.     

Improved LUT Technique for HPA Nonlinear Pre-Distortion in OFDM Systems

In this paper, we focus on the Look-up Table (LUT) technique for the compensation of HPA nonlinear distortion. An improved LUT method is proposed with better performance compared with conventional LUT technique in terms of convergence speeds, BER and total degradation (TD). It can get over 8 dB gain in out-of-band spectrum re-growth suppression and about 0.3 dB BER performance gain than conventional LUT technique with the same iteration times. Also, we propose an actual application of HPA with pre-distorter in OFDM transmitter. Ai Bo was born in Shannxi Province in China on February 7, 1974. He received a BSc. Degree from Engineering Institute of Armed Police Force in 1997, a Master and Dr. degree from Xidian University in 2002 and 2004 in China respectively, and now working as a post dr. in Dept. of E&E, state of key lab. on microwave and digital communications in Tsinghua University in China. He has once participated in the key research project on HDTV in TEEG (Team of Engineering Expert Group) of China. He is an editorial committee member of journal of “Computer Simulations”, “Information and Electronic Engineering”, an IEEE member and a senior member of Electronics Institute of China (CIE). He has published over 60 scientific papers in his research area till now. His current interests are the research and applications of OFDM techniques with emphasis on synchronization and HPA linearization techniques. Yang Zhi-Xing graduated from Tsinghua University, P.R. China in 1970. He is now a Professor and Deputy Director of State Key Lab. on Microwave and Digital Communication at the Department of Electronic Engineering and the Director of the DTV R&D Center in Tsinghua University. As a DTV technical expert for the Chinese government, Professor Yang has also been a member of the DTV standardization Committee of China and a leader of the DTV Standardization Harmonizing Group in Ministry of Information Industry of China. His major research interests include broadband information transmission technologies and DTV broadcasting systems. Pan Chang-Yong received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Electronic Engineering in Tsinghua University, P.R. China, in 1996 and 1999, respectively. He is now an associate professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and a member of the DTV R&D Center in Tsinghua University. His research interests are in the areas of broadband wireless transmission systems and satellite communications. Zhang Tao-Tao was born in Shandong Province in China in 1982, he received BSc. degree from Tsinghua University in 2004 and now pursing his Master degree in Dept. of E&E, state of key lab. on microwave and digital communications in Tsinghua University in China. His research interests is the power amplifier linearization techniques. Wang Yong was born in Shannxi Province in China in 1976. He received a BSc., a Master and a Dr. Degree from Xidian University in China in 1997, 2002 and 2005, respectively, and now is an associate professor in Xidian University. He has once participated in the key research project on HDTV in TEEG (Team of Engineering Expert Group) in China and is an IEEE Member. His interests are broadband multimedia communications. Ge Jian-Hua was born in September, 1961 in JiangSu Province in China. He received the B.Sc., Master and Ph.D. degree from Xidian University in 1982, 1985 and 1989, respectively. He is now the professor in both Xidian University in Xi’an and Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai. He is the senior member of Chinese Electronics Institute. He has won lots of scientific and technical prizes in China and published many papers. His interests are transmission communications and web security.     

Programmable SC Biquad Using One Single Capacitor Bank

This paper presents a new technique for programming SC circuits using a single time-multiplexed capacitor bank, achieving a significant reduction in capacitance area. Simulation and experimental results obtained with a programmable biquad low pass filter show the validity of the proposed method.Antonio Torralba was born in Seville, Spain. He received the electrical engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1983 and 1985, respectively. Since 1983, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Assistant professor, Associate Professor (1987), and Professor (1996). He has published 30 papers in journals and more than 80 papers in conferences. His research interests are in the design and modeling of low-voltage analog circuits, analog and mixed-signal design, analog to digital conversion, and electronic circuits and systems with application to control and communication.Alfredo Pérez Vega-Leal was born in Seville, Spain. He received the Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1998 and 2003, respectively. Since 1995, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, as research student and became an Associate Professor in 1999. His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion.Ramón González Carvajal was born in Seville, Spain. He received the Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1995 and 1999, respectively. Since 1996, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Associate Professor (1996), and Professor (2002). He has published more than 100 papers in International Journals and Conferences. His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion, and analog and mixed signal processing.     

1.1 V Low-Power ΣΔ Modulator for 14-bit, 16 KHz A/D Conversion Using a New Low-Voltage Class-AB Op-amp

This paper presents the implementation of a second order modulator for a 1.1 V supply voltage. A new class-AB CMOS operational amplifier has been designed in order to achieve high-resolution under very-low-voltage operation. The modulator has been implemented using a 0.35 m CMOS technology with 0.65 V transistor threshold voltage. Experimental results show 14 bits of resolution over 16 kHz nyquist rate with an oversampling ratio of 160.Fernando Muñoz Chavero was born in El Saucejo, Sevilla, Spain. He received the Telecommunications Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 1997, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Associate Professor (1999). His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion, and analog and mixed signal processing.Alfredo Pérez Vega-Leal was born in Seville, Spain. He received the Telecommunications Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1998 and 2003, respectively. Since 1995, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, as research student and became an Associate Professor in 1999. His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion.Ramón González Carvajal was born in Seville, Spain. He received the Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1995 and 1999, respectively. Since 1996, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Associate Professor (1996), and Professor (2002). He has published more than 100 papers in International Journals and Conferences. His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion, and analog and mixed signal processing.Antonio Torralba was born in Seville, Spain. He received the electrical engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1983 and 1985, respectively. Since 1983, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Assistant professor, Associate Professor (1987), and Professor (1996). He has published 30 papers in journals and more than 80 papers in conferences. His research interests are in the design and modeling of low-voltage analog circuits, analog and mixed-signal design, analog to digital conversion, and electronic circuits and systems with application to control and communication.Jonathan Noel Tombs was born in Oxford, UK. He received the Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from Oxford University, UK, in 1987 and 1991, respectively. Since 1993, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, where he has been an Associate Professor (1997), and Professor (2002). He has published more than 50 papers in International Journals and Conferences. His research interests are related to Digital Design and system verification with VHDL, low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion and analog and mixed signal processing.Jaime Ramírez-Angulo is currently Klipsch Distinguished Professor, IEEE fellow and Director of the Mixed-Signal VLSI lab at the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, New Mexico), USA. He received a degree in Communications and Electronic Engineering (Professional degree), a M.S.E.E. from the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City and a Dr.-Ing. degree form the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany in 1974, 1976 and 1982 respectively. He was professor at the National Institute for Astrophysics Optics and Electronics (INAOE) and at Texas A&M University. His research is related to various aspects of design and test of analog and mixed-signal Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits.     

Dynamically anchored conferencing handoff for dual-mode cellular/WLAN handsets

In this paper we consider vertical handoff for enterprise-based dual-mode (DM) cellular/WLAN handsets. When the handset roams out of WLAN coverage, the DM's cellular interface is used to maintain the call by anchoring it through an enterprise PSTN gateway/PBX. Soft handoff can be achieved in this case if the gateway supports basic conference bridging, since a new leg of the call can be established to the conference bridge while the existing media stream path is active. Unfortunately this requires that all intra-enterprise calls be routed through the gateway when the call is established. In this paper we consider a SIP based architecture to perform conferenced dual-mode handoff and propose a much more scalable mechanism for short-delay environments, whereby active calls are handed off into the conference bridge prior to the initiation of the vertical handoff. Results are presented which are taken from a dual-mode handset testbed, from analytic models, and from simulations which characterize the scalability of the proposed mechanism. Mohammed Smadi received the B.Eng and Mgmt and M.A.Sc degrees in Computer Engineering from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Mohammed received an NSERC doctoral award in 2005 and is currently a Ph.D. student at the Wireless Networking Group at McMaster University. Terence D. Todd received the B.A.Sc, M.A.Sc and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. While at Waterloo he spent 3 years as a Research Associate with the Computer Communications Networks Group (CCNG). He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Professor Todd spent 1991 on research leave in the Distributed Systems Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. He also spent 1998 on research leave at The Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory in Cambridge, England. While at ORL he worked on the piconet project which was an early embedded wireless network testbed. Dr. Todd’s research interests include metropolitan/local area networks, wireless communications and the performance analysis of computer communication networks and systems. He is a past Editor of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and currently holds the NSERC/RIM/CITO Chair on Pico-Cellular Wireless Internet Access Networks. Dr. Todd is a Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and a member of the IEEE. Vytas Kezys was born in Hamilton, Canada in 1957. He received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University, Canada, in 1979. From 1979 to 1998, Mr. Kezys was involved in radar and communications research as Principal Research Engineer at the Communications Research Laboratory, McMaster University. While at McMaster, his research activities included array signal processing for low-angle tracking radar, radar signal processing, and smart antennas for wireless communications. Mr. Kezys was founder and President of TalariCom Inc., a start-up company that developed cost effective smart antenna technologies for broadband wireless access applications. Currently, Mr. Kezys is Director of Advanced Products at Research in Motion in Waterloo, Canada. Vahid S. Azhari received his B.S. and M.S. from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, IUST and University of Tehran, Iran, in 2000 and 2003 respectively. His M.S. research focused on designing scheduling algorithms for switch fabrics. He also worked for two years for the Iranian Telecommunication Research Centre on developing software for SDH switches. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Wireless Networking Laboratory, McMaster University, Canada. His main area of research includes handoff management in integrated wireless networks, WLAN deployment techniques, and wireless mesh networks. Dongmei Zhao received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in June 2002. Since July 2002 she has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where she is an assistant professor. Dr. Zhao’s research interests include modeling and performance analysis, quality-of-service provisioning, access control and admission control in wireless cellular networks and integrated cellular and ad hoc networks. Dr. Zhao is a member of the IEEE.     

Electronic Implementation of Multirate Sigma-Delta Modulators Using CMOS Technologies

Multirating has been recently proposed to reduce the frequency rate of the first integrator(s) of a single-loop, or the first stage(s) of a cascade, Sigma-Delta modulator (SDM). This is a promising technique for the design of high speed, low-power modulators, as the first integrator (or stage) in the chain primarily determines the performances of the modulator, as well as its power consumption. This paper presents the first implementation of a 2nd-order multirate SDM, showing different circuit solutions. The experimental results obtained with a prototype in a standard 0.6 μm CMOS technology shows that different clock rates can be selected for each integrator of a SDM. Alfredo Pérez Vega-Leal was born in Seville, Spain. He received the Telecommunications Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1998 and 2003, respectively. Since 1995, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, as research student and became an Associate Professor in 1999. His research interests are related to low-voltage low-power analog circuit design, A/D and D/A conversion. Francisco Colodro was born in Peal de Becerro (Jaén), Spain, in 1968. He received the Ingeniero de Telecomunicación degree from the University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain, in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain, in 1997. In 1992 he joined the Department of Electronics Engineering, University of Sevilla, where he is currently and Associate Professor. His research interests are in the architectural study of Σ Δ modulators, the implementation of ADCs based on Σ Δ modulators, and application of electronic circuits and systems to communication. Marta Laguna was born in Seville, Spain. She received the Telecommunications Engineering degree from the University of Seville in 2002. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree. Her doctoral work focuses on the design of continuous-time sigma-delta modulators. Since 2001, she has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Seville, as research student and became an assistant teacher in 2004. Her research interests are high-speed analog-to-digital converters and sigma-delta modulators. Antonio Torralba (M'89–SM'02) was born in Sevilla, Spain, in 1960. He received the electrical engineering and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Sevilla in 1983, and 1985, respectively. Since 1983 he has been with the Department of Electronics Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Sevilla, where he has been Associate Professor in 1987, and Full Professor since 1996, leading a research group on mixed signal design. In 1999 he made a short stay at the Department of Electrical Engineering, NMSU, and he is presently in the Department of Electrical Engineering, TAMU for a Sabbatical stay. His interests include low-voltage analog circuits and systems, analog to digital conversion, Σ Δ modulators, and electronic circuits and systems with application to control and communication. In these fields he has published around 40 journal papers and more than 100 conference papers, and he holds 2 international patents.     

Characteristic Investigation of New Pathological Elements

A characteristic investigation of the new pathological elements (i.e voltage mirror and current mirror) has been presented. Many nullor-mirror equivalences are explored. The circuit cascadability is discussed with nullor and mirror concepts. Also, the conventional inverse network transformation has been extended for applying to the circuits with current mirror output. To demonstrate the use of presented properties, practical examples have been given. The derived circuits have been verified with HSPICE simulation and the simulation results confirm with our theoretical prediction.Hung-Yu Wang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China, on January 4, 1969. He received the Ph.D. degree in optical sciences from National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan in 2002.Since 1993 he has worked on promoting the prototyping IC implementation of academic researches, and propelling the collaboration of the academia and industries in Chip Implementation Center (CIC), National Science Council of the Republic of China. In 2003 he became a researcher and the deputy director in Division of Chip Implementation Service of CIC. He is currently working on South Region Office of National Chip Implementation Center, National Applied Research Laboratories as a researcher and the department manager. His research interests are in current-mode circuits design, analog IC design and analog IP design.Ching-Ting Lee was born in Taoyuan, Taiwan, R.O.C., on November 1, 1949. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering Department of the National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan, in 1972 and 1974, respectively. He received Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering Department from the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1982.He worked on Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, before he joined the Institute of Optical Sciences, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan, as a Professor in 1990. He works on National Cheng-Kung University as the dean of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the professor or the Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering in 2003. His current research interests include theory, design, and application of guided-wave structures and devices for integrated optics and waveguide lasers. His research activities have also involved in the research concerning semiconductor lasers, photodetectors and high-speed electronic devices, and their associated integration for electrooptical integrated circuits. He received the outstanding Research Professor Fellowship from the National Science Council (NSC), R.O.C. in 2000 and 2002. He also received the Optical Engineering Medal from Optical Engineering Society and Distinguish Electrical Engineering professor award from Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering Society in 2003.Chun-Yueh Huang was born in Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China, on March 24, 1967. He received the B.S. degree in industrial education from National Chang Hwa Normal University, Chang Hwa, Taiwan in 1991, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees both in electrical engineering from the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan in 1993 and 1997, respectively. Since 1999 he has been with the Kan Shan University of Technology, where he is currently Associate Professor and Chairman of Department of Electronic Engineering. His biography is included in the 7th Edition (2003–2004) of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.His current researches include current-mode circuits design, VLSI design, analog IC design and analog IP design.     

Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation with Enhanced Transition Metric over Rayleigh Fading Channels

This paper investigates the performance of a new Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation scheme over correlated flat fading channels with channel interleaving. The novelty of the scheme is based on the application of a new modified transition metric incorporated in the symbol-by-symbol MAP algorithm. We consider frequency non-selective, slow Rayleigh fading channels. Extensive simulation results together with EXIT chart analysis show that the proposed scheme achieves better performance compared to the conventional transition metric when channel state information is not available at the decoder. Kostas V. Koutsouvelis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, on July 16,1970. He received the degree Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1996 and the Master degree in Satellite Communications Engineering from University of Surrey in 1997. From 1998 to 2003 he was involved in the development of V5.2 interface as a senior software designer in Intracom plc. In 2004 joined the research and development division of Hellenic Telecommunication Organization (OTE) and his also PhD candidate at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki working with Turbo codes and Turbo Coded Modulation. Christos E. Dimakiswasborn in Serres, Greece, on July 27, 1955.He received the degree Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1980. Working in the satellite communications and in the error correcting coding area he received his PhD degree in digital telecommunications from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1994. In 1980 he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications Division of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a research fellow. Since 1997 he is a lecturer of digital communications at the same University. Presently, his research interests include digital modulations, coding theory, satellite and mobile communications and system simulation. Stamatis S. Kouris was born in Corfu, Greece. He received the degree of Doctor Engineer in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rome, Italy and the Diploma of Specialization in Telecommunications of the Instituto Superiore, University of Rome, in 1960 and 1963 respectively. In 1971 he was awarded the PhD Degree of the University of Edinburgh, UK. In the 1974 he was awarded a specialization Diploma in administration from the University of Pomona CA, USA. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, URSI, IRI and other organizations. Since 1964 he has been involved in research on radio-propagation, antennas and microwaves, working mainly at the Fondazione Bordoni, Italy, University of Edinburgh, UK and University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He has published several papers on radio-propagation, antennas, communication transmission and microwaves and millimeter-waves devices. In 1976 he joined with the Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering Science, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He served as professor of telecommunications from 1978 to 2002. Since 2002 he is an emeritus professor.     

Reduced-Complexity Iterative Multiuser Detection for DS-CDMA

A reduced-complexity iterative multiuser detection scheme is proposed. The scheme involves a simple way of choosing only K + 1 user bit vectors instead of the full-complexity 2^K for the likelihood computation, thus reducing the complexity to O(K). An alternative, reduced computation method of increasing this list of vectors after each iteration is also presented. Simulations over AWGN, imperfect power control and multipath conditions demonstrate that the performance of the proposed reduced-complexity method is close to that of the full-complexity.Ju Yan Pan received the B.S.E.E. degree from Mississippi State University, U.S.A., in 1998 and the M.Eng. degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2002. He is currently working as a system design engineer at the wireless communication technology department of Oki Techno Centre Pte. Ltd. in Singapore Science Park II. His current reserach interests include third-generation WCDMA systems, turbo decoding and multiuser detection.Cheong Boon Soh received the Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering (Hons I) and Ph.D. degrees from Monash University, Victoria, Australia, in 1983 and 1987, respectively. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has published more than one hundred international journal papers. His current research interests are robust control, system theory, nonlinear systems, coding theory, mobile communication systems and intelligent systems.Gunawan Erry received his B.Sc degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Leeds, U.K., in 1983. He then received his MBA and Ph.D. in total technology from Bradford University in 1984 and 1988 respectively. From 1984 to 1988, he worked for Communication Systems Research Ltd, U.K. as a satellite communication systems engineer. In 1988, he moved to Space Communications (SAT-TEL) Ltd, U.K. He joined the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 1989. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His current research interests are in digital communications, mobile and satellite communications, error coding and spread-spectrum. He has published over sixty international research papers and has been a consultant to a local company on the study of DECT system and Bluetooth.     

The Sectoral Sweeper Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks: Adaptive Antenna Array Based Sensor Node Management and Location Estimation

We introduce a novel sensor node management and location estimation method referred as sectoral sweeper (SS) scheme that uses an adaptive antenna array (AAA) at a central node in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). With the SS scheme, the central node can activate or deactivate the nodes in a desired region which is specified by beam direction and beam width of the transmit beam and also by minimum and maximum thresholds (R _min and R _max) for the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of signals received by the nodes. In order to perform a specified task that is associated with a Task_id, two different beams are transmitted, which are task region beam and routing region beam to switch the nodes into active or routing modes. Since our scheme does not require any additional software or hardware for node management and location estimation in sensor nodes, the deficiencies of tiny sensors are effectively eliminated. The proposed scheme is shown to reduce the number of sensing nodes and the amount of data traffic in the network, thus leading to considerable savings in energy consumption and prolonged sensor lifetime. Ayhan Erdogan graduated from Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, in 1992. He received the MSdegree from the Computer Engineering, Naval Sciences and Engineering Institute, Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, in 2003. He attended to a one year training on Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Officer in Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 1996. He worked as a Project Officer for Turkish Armed Forces Integrated Communication Systems Project developed by Turkish General Stuff, from 1996 until 2001. He is currently a PhD student at the Electronics Engineering and Computer Science Department, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. His current research interests include Wireless Sensor Networks and Security for Ad hoc Networks. Vedat Coskun was born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1962. He was graduated from Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1984. He received the M.Sc. degree from the Computer Science Department, Naval Post Graduate School, CA, USA, in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree from the Computer Engineering Department, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, in 1998. He managed the wargaming software development group in Turkish Naval Military Wargaming Center for 5 years. Hewas teaching assistant, faculty member and chairman with the Computer Engineering Department, Turkish Naval Academy. He was part-time visiting professor with Gebze Institute of Technology. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information Technology, ISIK University, Istanbul, Turkey. His current research interests include algorithm design, wireless sensor and actuator networks, and cryptography Adnan Kavak was born in Usak, Turkey, in 1970. He received the B.S. degree from the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1992. He received the MS and PhD. degrees from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, in 1996 and 2000, respectively. He was a satellite control engineer with Turksat Satellite Control Center, Ankara, Turkey, from December 1992 to May 1994. He worked as a Senior Research Engineer at Wireless Systems Laboratory, Samsung Telecommunications America in Richardson, TX, USA, from January 2000 to July 2001. He then joined Kocaeli University, Turkey, in August 2001 and worked as an Assistant Professor there until May 2005. Currently, he is the director ofWireless Communications and Information Systems (WINS) Research Center, and an Associate Professor with the Computer Engineering Department, Kocaeli University, Turkey. His current research interests include 3G and next generation wireless networks, software radios, smart antenna systems, resource allocation in 3G networks, and wireless sensor networks.     

Medium Access Control for Integrated Multimedia Wireless Access with the Use of a Video Packet Discard Scheme

A well designed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for wireless networks should provide an efficient mechanism to share the limited bandwidth resources, and satisfy the diverse and usually contradictory Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each traffic class. In this paper a new MAC protocol for next generation wireless communications is presented and investigated. The protocol uses a combined Packet Discard/Forward Error Correction scheme in order to efficiently integrate MPEG-4 videoconference packet traffic with voice, SMS data and web packet traffic over a noisy wireless channel of high capacity. Our scheme achieves high aggregate channel throughput in all cases of traffic load, while preserving the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each traffic type, and is shown to clearly outperform DPRMA, another efficient MAC protocol proposed in the literature for multimedia traffic integration over wireless networks. Dr. Polychronis Koutsakis was born in Hania, Greece, in 1974. He received his 5-year Diploma in Electrical Engineering in 1997 from the University of Patras, Greece and his MSc and Ph.D. degrees in Electronic and Computer Engineering in 1999 and 2002, respectively, from the Technical University of Crete, Greece. He was a Visiting Lecturer at the Electronic and Computer Engineering Department of the same University for three years (2003–2006). He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of McMaster University, Canada. His research interests focus on the design, modeling and performance evaluation of computer communication networks, and especially on the design and evaluation of multiple access schemes for multimedia integration over wireless networks, on call admission control and traffic policing schemes for both wireless and wired networks, on multiple access control protocols for mobile satellite networks, wireless sensor networks and powerline networks, and on traffic modeling. Dr. Koutsakis has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed papers in the above mentioned areas, has served as a Guest Editor for an issue of the ACM Mobile Computing and Communications Review, as a TPC member for conferences such as IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE LCN and IEEE PerCom, will serve as Session Chair for the IEEE GLOBECOM 2006 Symposium on Satellite & Space Communications and serves as a reviewer for most of the major journal publications focused on his research field. Moisis Vafiadis was born in Elefsina, Greece, in 1980. He has recently completed his studies towards the Diploma in Electronic Engineering at the Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Greece. His research interests focus on wireless personal communication networks, and especially on the MAC layer and on the development and testing of wireless multimedia applications.     

A Novel Switched Parasitic Array and Diversity Scheme Using Horizontally Polarized Linear Antennas

Switched Parasitic Arrays (SPAs) are proposed as an attractive alternative to fully adaptive arrays, due to their compact size and significantly lower cost of development. The main concept of SPAs is the deployment of switches on parasitic elements, which can be properly adjusted, in order to effectively control the radiation pattern of one active element. Conventional SPAs consist of circular arrays of vertically polarized dipoles and parasitic elements. In this paper, a novel SPA design is proposed, which is based on multiple switches employed on the body of horizontally polarized elements (one active and two parasitics). Design considerations are discussed and numerical results are illustrated. Furthermore, a simple diversity scheme is proposed, based on the novel SPA design. Superior performance of the proposed array, relative to simple non-diversity reception schemes, is indicated by simulation results. Stelios A. Mitilineos was born in Athens, Greece, in 1977. He received the Diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in October 2001. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the same university. His research interests include antennas and propagation, smart antennas and mobile communications, channel estimation and location detection algorithms, MIMO systems and microwave components. Anna E. Andreoudi was born in Thessalonica, Greece, in 1977. She received the Diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, in 2004. Her research interests include electromagnetic waves propagation and scattering, antenna design and adaptive arrays, wireless communications and wireless mobile networks. Christos N. Capsalis was born in Nafplion, Greece in 1956. He received the Diploma in electrical and mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1979 and the B.S. degree in economics from the University of Athens in 1983. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from NTUA in 1985. He is currently a Professor at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in NTUA. His current scientific activity concerns satellite and mobile communications, antenna theory and design, and electromagnetic compatibility.     

Scheduling Sleeping Nodes in High Density Cluster-based Sensor Networks

In order to conserve battery power in very dense sensor networks, some sensor nodes may be put into the sleep state while other sensor nodes remain active for the sensing and communication tasks. In this paper, we study the node sleep scheduling problem in the context of clustered sensor networks. We propose and analyze the Linear Distance-based Scheduling (LDS) technique for sleeping in each cluster. The LDS scheme selects a sensor node to sleep with higher probability when it is farther away from the cluster head. We analyze the energy consumption, the sensing coverage property, and the network lifetime of the proposed LDS scheme. The performance of the LDS scheme is compared with that of the conventional Randomized Scheduling (RS) scheme. It is shown that the LDS scheme yields more energy savings while maintaining a similar sensing coverage as the RS scheme for sensor clusters. Therefore, the LDS scheme results in a longer network lifetime than the RS scheme. Jing Deng received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China, in 1994 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 2002. Dr. Deng is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Orleans. From 2002 to 2004, he visited the CASE center and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY as a research assistant professor, supported by the Syracuse University Prototypical Research in Information Assurance (SUPRIA) program. He was a teaching assistant from 1998 to 1999 and a research assistant from 1999 to 2002 in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. His interests include mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, wireless network security, energy efficient wireless networks, and information assurance. Wendi B. Heinzelman is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester. She received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1995 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1997 and 2000 respectively. Her current research interests lie in the areas of wireless communications and networking, mobile computing, and multimedia communication. Dr. Heinzelman received the NSF Career award in 2005 for her work on cross-layer optimizations for wireless sensor networks, and she received the ONR Young Investigator award in 2005 for her research on balancing resource utilization in wireless sensor networks. Dr. Heinzelman was co-chair of the 1st Workshop on Broadband Advanced Sensor Networks (BaseNets '04), and she is a member of Sigma Xi, the IEEE, and the ACM. Yunghsiang S. Han was born in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 24, 1962. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 1984 and 1986, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the School of Computer and Information Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, in 1993. From 1986 to 1988 he was a lecturer at Ming-Hsin Engineering College, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He was a teaching assistant from 1989 to 1992 and from 1992 to 1993 a research associate in the School of Computer and Information Science, Syracuse University. From 1993 to 1997 he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Hua Fan College of Humanities and Technology, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan. From 1997 to 2004 he was with the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Chi Nan University, Nantou, Taiwan. He was promoted to Full Professor in 1998. From June to October 2001 he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI, and from September 2002 to January 2004 he was the SUPRIA visiting research scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and CASE center at Syracuse University, NY. He is now with the Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering at National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan. His research interests are in wireless networks, security, and error-control coding. Dr. Han is a winner of 1994 Syracuse University Doctoral Prize. Pramod K. Varshney was born in Allahabad, India on July 1, 1952. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and computer science (with highest honors), and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972, 1974, and 1976 respectively. Since 1976 he has been with Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY where he is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Research Director of the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Computer Applications and Software Engineering. His current research interests are in distributed sensor networks and data fusion, detection and estimation theory, wireless communications, intelligent systems, signal and image processing, and remote sensing he has published extensively. He is the author of Distributed Detection and Data Fusion, published by Springer-Verlag in 1997 and has co-edited two other books. Dr. Varshney is a member of Tau Beta Pi and is the recipient of the 1981 ASEE Dow Outstanding Young Faculty Award. He was elected to the grade of Fellow of the IEEE in 1997 for his contributions in the area of distributed detection and data fusion. In 2000, he received the Third Millennium Medal from the IEEE and Chancellor's Citation for exceptional academic achievement at Syracuse University. He serves as a distinguished lecturer for the AES society of the IEEE. He is on the editorial board Information Fusion. He was the President of International Society of Information Fusion during 2001.