In‐field assessment of display resolution and noise: Performance evaluation of a commercial measurement system

Abstract— Two key metrics of image quality for high‐fidelity displays, including medical displays, are resolution and noise. Until now, these properties have been primarily measured in laboratory settings. For the first time, a system consisting of a CCD camera and analysis software has been made commercially available for measuring the resolution and noise of medical displays in a clinical setting. This study aimed at evaluating this new product in terms of accuracy and precision. In particular, the project involved the measurement of the modulation transfer function (MTF) and the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) of two medical imaging displays, one cathode‐ray tube (CRT) display and one liquid‐crystal display (LCD) using this camera/software system. To assess the system's precision, measurements were made multiple times at the same setting. To check for accuracy, the results were compared with published values of the MTF and noise for the same displays. The performance of the system was also ascertained as a function of the focus setting of the camera. The results indicated that for the LCD, when the camera is focused within ±0.6 mm of the optimum focus setting, the MTF values lie within approximately 14% of the best focus MTF at the Nyquist frequency and 11% of the optimum overall sharpness (∫ MTF² df). Similar results were obtained in the horizontal and vertical directions. For the CRT, this focus produced vertical and horizontal MTF values at the Nyquist frequency within 15.2% and 61.2% of the optimum focus MTF, respectively. The figures in terms of overall sharpness were 3.0% and 0.7%. The results for the noise measurements showed a repeatability of 3% for the LCD and 13% for the CRT and a relative (but not absolute) magnitude of the noise between the two displays reflective of prior measurements. Overall, the measurement system yielded reasonably precise resolution and noise results for both display devices. The accuracy was traceable to published results only for the MTF and for relative level of display noise with differences in the absolute magnitude of noise between current and prior measurements attributed to variations in the non‐standard techniques applied for display noise measurements.     

Optimization of operating parameters of video display units in text reading task: Luminance contrast,viewing distance,and character size

Abstract— The purpose of this study is to determine the reading performance of operators on a desktop computer. The effects of luminance contrast, viewing distance, and character size on the speed of reading were investigated. The luminance contrast between the background and character was varied while color contrast was held near‐constant. Stimuli with different levels of character size, viewing distance, and luminance contrast were considered while assessing the readability performance. The luminance contrast between the background and character (0.01, 0.15, and 1.00), character sizes (0.2, 1.5, and 4°), and viewing distance (40, 50, and 60 cm) were used, and the performance of the operators were recorded in terms of words per minutes (WPM). Standard workplace design recommendations to position the center of the visual display terminal (VDT) 15° and 40° below horizontal eye level were used for the visually intensive readability task. An orthogonal array, the signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratio, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to investigate the above‐mentioned operating parameters to determine the optimum readability performance. The results indicated that performance was better at a 15° viewing angle as compared to a 40° viewing angle.     

Simulation of noise figure of nonlinear amplifiers using the orthogonalization of the nonlinear model

A simulation procedure of noise figure (NF) of nonlinear amplifiers is developed. NF is defined in terms of the effective signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) at the output of a nonlinear amplifier. The effective output SNR when the input consists of a communication signal plus Gaussian noise is evaluated through the identification of the effective output noise and nonlinear distortion power using the orthogonalization of the nonlinear model. The approach is useful for the assessment of noise performance of low‐noise amplifiers in wireless systems. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 2009.     

Signal‐to‐noise ratios for measuring saliency of features extracted by eigenvector methods from ophthalmic arterial Doppler signals

Abstract: Features are used to represent patterns with minimal loss of important information. The feature vector, which is composed of the set of all features used to describe a pattern, is a reduced‐dimensional representation of that pattern. Medical diagnostic accuracies can be improved when the pattern is simplified through representation by important features. By identifying a set of salient features, the noise in a classification model can be reduced, resulting in more accurate classification. In this study, a signal‐to‐noise ratio saliency measure was employed to determine the saliency of input features of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) used in classification of ophthalmic arterial Doppler signals. Eigenvector methods were used to extract features representing the ophthalmic arterial Doppler signals. The RNNs used in the ophthalmic arterial Doppler signal classification were trained for the signal‐to‐noise ratio screening method. The application results of the signal‐to‐noise ratio screening method to the ophthalmic arterial Doppler signals demonstrated that classification accuracies of RNNs with salient input features are higher than those of RNNs with salient and non‐salient input features.     

On the combined response of clipper‐amplifier cascade for PAPR reduction of OFDM signals

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signals have high peak‐to‐average power ratio (PAPR) which results in excessive nonlinear distortion when amplified by power amplifiers (PA) and hence, reduction in system signal‐to‐noise (SNR) and spectral efficiency. Clipping has been one of the most popular and low‐cost technique for reducing the PAPR of OFDM signals. The overall spectral efficiency of an OFDM system that involves clipping depends on the combined response of the cascade of clipper‐amplifier and not only on the response of the clipper. In this article, the performance of clipped and nonlinearly amplified OFDM signals is studied. The combined response of a clipper‐amplifier cascade is obtained using an orthogonalized behavioral model which enables in‐band and out‐of‐band nonlinear distortions to be accurately predicted without using the Gaussian assumption of signal statistics. Furthermore, different clipping characteristics are studied where it is shown that the overall nonlinear distortion, and hence the overall SNR, is highly dependent on the type of clipping characteristics and the clipping ratio. Simulation results are verified by Simulink measurement model which uses measured amplifier characteristics in a “General Amplifier” block. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:656–664, 2014.     

Active measurements of antenna diversity performances using a specific test‐bed,in several environments

The diversity performances of the wireless devices operating in a multipath propagation environment are usually presented in terms of correlation coefficient, diversity gain and effective diversity gain. These parameters can be measured in reverberation chamber. This paper presents some active measurements of antenna diversity performances on a small wireless terminal in several realistic environments. The measurements were performed in the WiMax band, i.e. at 3.5 GHz, in a reverberation chamber where the channel is statistically uniform, in a real indoor propagation channel, and in an outdoor‐to‐indoor environment. The diversity performances are evaluated by using a specific test‐bed constituted by an arbitrary signal generator and two radio‐frequency digitizers. The effectiveness of diversity is presented in terms of effective diversity gain, signal to noise ratio, bit error rate and frame error rate. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2010.     

放大器的低噪声设计

在放大电路中,信噪比是衡量放大器特性的重要参数,噪声抑制的方法和思路贯穿放大电路设计始终.在音频使用场合,放大器的噪声参数影响输出音质,在射频放大电路中,放大器的噪声参数直接影响无线通讯距离,特别是当输入信号幅度小到一定程度时,有用信号几乎被噪声信号覆盖.噪声特性是表征放大器性能优劣的重要参数,研究放大器噪声特性是设计放大器电路和器件的前提基础.     

基于三维曲波变换的弱信号恢复方法研究

传统的弱信号恢复方法在强噪声背景下具有较大的局限性,有用的信息往往淹没在强噪声背景下不易被识别。针对这个难点,提出一种基于三维曲波变换的弱信号恢复的方法。该方法将三维曲波变换和自适应滤波器相融合,从而提高数据中弱信号的能量,使得弱信号更易于被恢复。为了验证该方法的有效性,对楔形模型与实际三维数据进行处理。实验结果表明,恢复后的数据信噪比提高了2 dB到3 dB,频带也被拓宽了150 Hz,弱信号得到较好的恢复。     

基于城区距离的自适应加权均值滤波算法

针对传统滤波窗口不能自适应扩展以及标准均值滤波易造成图像边缘模糊的缺陷,提出一种基于城区距离的自适应加权均值滤波算法。首先,利用开关滤波思想检测出噪声点;其次,对于每一噪声点,依据城区距离扩展窗口,窗口的大小根据窗口内信号点的个数自适应地调节;最后,将窗口内足够数量信号点的灰度的加权平均值作为噪声点的灰度值,实现对噪声点的有效恢复。实验结果表明,该算法能够有效地滤除椒盐噪声,尤其对噪声密度较大的图像,去噪效果更加显著。     

A 6:1 image‐compression method using directional prediction for LCD overdrive

Abstract— An overdrive technology was developed and is widely used to diminish motion blur in LCDs. To store a previous frame in the overdrive operation in a limited‐sized memory, simple image‐compression techniques are required. By considering the strong correlation of nearby pixels in natural images, a new 6:1 color‐image‐compression method based on directional prediction is proposed. Different from the directional prediction of intra‐coding in H.264/AVC, the predictable direction is determined beforehand to minimize the computation complexity. A simple content‐adaptive quantization and bit‐streaming method, which preserves image details and is free from blocking artifacts, is also proposed. The experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms the vector quantization block truncation coding method with an average 3‐dB peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR) as well as the subjective quality in terms of blocking artifacts.     

Application of data mining methods to efficient microwave active device modeling

In this work, the signal and noise behaviors of a microwave transistor within its operation domain (voltage drain to source–V_DS, current of drain to source—I_DS, frequency—f) are modeled by data mining techniques (DMT) without using any information on the microwave circuit theory. The device is modeled by a black box whose small signal (S) and noise parameters are evaluated through data mining techniques, based on the fitting of both of these parameters for multiple bias and configuration. It has been shown that DMT have a high potential of faithful and efficient device modeling. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.     

Optimization of PID controller with higher-order noise filter

The proposed PID controller optimization is based on the frequency response of a process G_p(s) and maximization of the proportional gain, under constraints on the desired sensitivity to measurement noise, desired maximum sensitivity and desired maximum complementary sensitivity. The set-point and load disturbance step responses with negligible overshoot are obtained for stable processes, processes with oscillatory dynamics, integrating and unstable processes. Simulations, with a band-limited white noise added to the controlled variable, and experimental results, on a laboratory thermal plant with noisy measurements, are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed PID optimization method.     

双算子形态学滤波器

传统的形态学滤波算子交替性差、耗时长且抑制噪声能力弱. 基于中心互补结构元素与交替对偶算子, 提出了双算子形态学滤波器. 该滤波器继承了经典形态学滤波器的递增性、对偶性和幂等性, 但不满足扩展性和非扩展性. 双算子形态学滤波器具有离散的邻域运算特性, 采用交替小结构元素能去除较结构元素大的噪声块, 且在抑制噪声的同时有效保留了图像细节. 实验结果表明, 与基本的形态学滤波器及目前已改进的形态学滤波器相比, 双算子形态学滤波器具有更强的噪声抑制性能, 且在同等滤波效果下, 其计算量更小, 最终滤波后的图像具有较高的峰值信噪比和较小的均方根误差.     

Effect of fiber core dopant concentration on the performance of surface plasmon resonance-based fiber optic sensor

In the present work we study the influence of varying concentrations of different fiber core dopants on the sensor performance in terms of sensitivity, signal to noise ratio (SNR) and operating range of surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based fiber optic sensors. We consider the use of different concentrations of GeO₂, B₂O₃ and mixture of both in the core of plastic cladded silica (PCS) optical fiber. The study is further extended to consider the performance of quenched fiber. We show how sensitivity and signal to noise ratio of surface-plasmon-based fiber optic sensors can be optimized by wisely choosing their fiber core doping.     

正弦波调制对谐振式陀螺中谐振信号的影响

谐振式光纤陀螺（R—FOG）是利用光学Sagnac效应实现对转动角速度检测的一种高精度惯性传感器件。理论分析了正弦波调制特性,搭建了光学微谐振腔的调制解调实验系统,实验对比了正弦波、锯齿波、三角波3种调制波形对谐振信号信噪比的影响,得出了正弦波调制效果最好,提高了谐振信号的信噪比。针对不同调制幅度和频率条件下的正弦波调制对谐振信号的影响进行了测试,得出了调制幅度和调制频率对谐振信号的影响,为光学微谐振腔在谐振式陀螺系统应用中相位调制选择最佳的参数提供了参考。     

A combined technique for amplifier oriented small‐signal noise model extraction

Based on the earlier experimental investigation of the existing GaAs pHEMT small‐signal modeling approaches and their applicability to different manufacturing processes, a combined automatic small‐signal noise model extraction technique, suitable for design of low‐noise and buffer amplifiers is proposed. The technique is based on the usage of measured S‐parameters of passive test structures and S‐parameters of the transistor in cold modes. Expressions are given for extraction of the intrinsic parameters of an equivalent circuit using linear regression. It is shown that the application of the proposed method allows extracting a small‐signal GaAs pHEMT model both in the probe‐tip reference planes and at on‐wafer calibration planes. The moving average algorithm was applied for preprocessing the results of measurements of the 50 Ohm noise figure during extraction of the noise model. The results of S‐parameters and noise figure simulation agree well with the measurements. The new technique was implemented as a plugin in a commercial EDA tool and enables to derive a ready‐to use small‐signal noise model from measured S‐parameters and 50 Ohm noise figure of a 0.15 μm GaAs pHEMT.     

基于小波变换和随机共振的微弱信号检测方法

根据随机共振的噪声选择性和频率敏感特性,提出了基于小波变换和随机共振的微弱信号检测方法.对含噪输入信号经多尺度小波变换分解为不同尺度频率的信号成分后,通过引入尺度收缩因子来调节各尺度信号成分的大小,再将不同尺度的分解信号作为双稳系统的输入,研究了不同尺度频率信号经收缩因子作用后对系统输出信噪比的影响.数值仿真结果表明,选取合适的尺度收缩因子,能有效提高系统输出的信噪比.     

A 3.4 dB NF k‐band LNA with a tapped capacitor matching network in 65 nm CMOS technology

This article proposes a tapped capacitor network for low‐noise amplifier (LNA) input matching which can provide much broader bandwidth than traditional ones. According to the design, the implemented LNA can realize noise match and power match simultaneously, which will broaden LNA's bandwidth without introducing larger noise than traditional ones. In addition, input pad parasitic capacitance can be absorbed by the network. Then a k‐band LNA with the matching network designed in 65 nm CMOS technology is shown to demonstrate the performance of the matching network. The tested results show that frequency band of S₁₁ less than ?10 dB is about 17 GHz and minimum NF is about 3.4 dB. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:146–153, 2015.