A High-Order Temperature-Compensated Subthreshold Voltage Reference Using Channel Length Modulation Compensation Technique

The paper presents a novel high-order temperature-compensated subthreshold voltage reference that utilizes temperature characteristics of the gate-to-source voltage of subthreshold MOS transistor. The proposed high-order temperature-compensated voltage reference has been designed using two CMOS voltage references and a current subtraction circuit to achieve a low temperature coefficient over a wide temperature range. The proposed circuit offers an output reference voltage of 250.8 mV, line sensitivity of 0.0674%/V and temperature coefficient of 37.4 ppm/°C for the temperature range varying from???20 \(\mathrm{^\circ{\rm C} }\) to 140 °C at nominal conditions. The power supply rejection ratio is obtained as???46.02 dB at a frequency of 100 Hz and???41.91 dB at a frequency of 1 MHz. The proposed circuit shows an output noise of 1.86 \(\mathrm{\mu V}/\surd \mathrm{Hz}\) at 100 Hz and 259.72 \(\mathrm{nV}/\surd \mathrm{Hz}\) at 1 MHz. The proposed circuit has been designed in BSIM3V3 180 nm CMOS technology using Cadence tool. The corner analysis of the proposed circuit has also been performed to show its performance in extreme conditions. The proposed circuit occupies a small chip area of 51 \(\upmu\)m?×?75.3 \(\upmu\)m.

     

Hybrid RF/VLC Communications Using Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

In this paper, we suggest the use of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) for hybrid Radio Frequency (RF) Visible Light Communications (VLC). The signal is transmitted from a transmitter T to a relay C using RIS. RIS is implemented as a transmitter or a reflector between T and C. The relay node C decodes the received signal and transmits it to the receiver R using a VLC link. The proposed VLC/RF communications using RIS offers 20–45 dB gain with respect to conventional RF/VLC when the number of reflectors N is varied from \(N=16\) to \(N=256\).

     

New CRT sequence sets for a collision channel without feedback

Protocol sequences are binary and periodic sequences used for deterministic multiple access in a collision channel without feedback. In this paper, we focus on user-irrepressible (UI) protocol sequences that can guarantee a positive individual throughput per sequence period with probability one for a slot-synchronous channel, regardless of the delay offsets among the users. As the sequence period has a fundamental impact on the worst-case channel access delay, a common objective of designing UI sequences is to make the sequence period as short as possible. Consider a communication channel that is shared by M active users, and assume that each protocol sequence has a constant Hamming weight w. To attain a better delay performance than previously known UI sequences, this paper presents a CRTm construction of UI sequences with \(w=M+1\), which is a variation of the previously known CRT construction. For all non-prime \(M\ge 8\), our construction produces the shortest known sequence period and the shortest known worst-case delay of UI sequences. Numerical results show that the new construction enjoys a better average delay performance than the optimal random access scheme and other constructions with the same sequence period, in a variety of traffic conditions. In addition, we derive an asymptotic lower bound on the minimum sequence period for \(w=M+1\) if the sequence structure satisfies some technical conditions, called equi-difference, and prove the tightness of this lower bound by using the CRTm construction.

     

Optimal Location of Energy Efficient DF Relay Node in $$\varvec{\kappa}$$ κ – $$\varvec{\mu }$$ μ Fading Channel

We investigate the optimal location of an adaptive decode and forward relay operating over a \(\kappa\)–\(\mu\) fading channel. The \(\kappa\)–\(\mu\) statistics provides a generalized line-of-sight propagation model which includes fading models like Rayleigh, Nakagami, Rician as special cases. We restrict our analysis to collinear relay placement, i.e. the relay node \((R_n)\) is on the same straight line between the source node \((S_n)\) and the destination node \((D_n)\). In the non-cooperative mode, \(D_n\) accepts only the two-hop transmission via \(R_n\) and discards any direct signal that may be available from \(S_n\). On the other hand, in the cooperative mode, \(D_n\) accepts both the replicas and combine them following either selection combining (SC) or maximum ratio combining (MRC). It is interesting to see that such cooperation does not always lead to energy saving, especially for small \(S_n-D_n\) separation. Also, worth mentioning the fact that MRC may not be optimal from the energy efficiency perspective, and SC can outperform MRC under certain channel conditions. In our paper, we also studied how parameters like spectral efficiency (R), path loss exponent (n), and fading parameters (\(\kappa ,\mu\)) affect the optimal relay placement location.

     

Two-channel perfect reconstruction (PR) quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank design using logarithmic window function and spline function

In this work, two-channel perfect reconstruction quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank has been proposed based on the prototype filter using windowing method. A novel window function based on logarithmic function along with the spline function is utilized for the design of prototype filter. The proposed window has a variable parameter ‘\(\alpha \)’, which varies the peak side lobe level and rate of fall-off side lobe level which in turn affects the peak reconstruction error (PRE) and amplitude distortion (\(e_{am}\)) of the QMF bank . The transition width of the prototype is controlled by the spline function using the parameter ‘\(\mu \)’. The perfect reconstruction condition is satisfied by setting the cutoff frequency (\(\omega _{c}\)) of the prototype low-pass filter at ‘\(\pi /2\)’. The performance of the proposed design method has been evaluated in terms of mean square error in the pass band, mean square error in the stop band, first side lobe attenuation (\(A_{1}\)), peak reconstruction error (PRE) and amplitude error (\(e_{am}\)) for different values of ‘\(\alpha \)’ and ‘\(\mu \)’. The results are provided and compared with the existing methods.     

Quantization parameter cascading for video coding: leveraging a new temporal distortion propagation model

In video coder, inter-frame prediction causes distortion propagation among temporally adjacent frames. This distortion dependency is a crucial factor for rate control optimization. Quantization parameter cascading (QPC) is an efficient technique to achieve dependent rate distortion optimization (RDO). This paper proposes a general framework for temporal dependency analysis by leveraging a distortion propagation model, which is derived by employing window-based preanalysis on original frames. Then, a quantization parameter offset \(\delta \) model is proposed for achieving fine-granularity quantization control, according to the amount of distortion propagation measured by the relative propagation cost \(\rho \). This paper applies competitive decision in exploring \(\delta \)–\(\rho \) model as accurate as possible and then proposes an improved \(\delta \)–\(\rho \) model tailored for dependent RDO. The simulation results verify that the temporal QPC algorithm with the proposed model achieves up to 1.1–1.4 dB PSNR improvement, with smaller temporal distortion fluctuation contributed by efficient bit allocation.     

A novel optimized neutrosophic <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-means using genetic algorithm for skin lesion detection in dermoscopy images

This paper implemented a new skin lesion detection method based on the genetic algorithm (GA) for optimizing the neutrosophic set (NS) operation to reduce the indeterminacy on the dermoscopy images. Then, k-means clustering is applied to segment the skin lesion regions. Therefore, the proposed method is called optimized neutrosophic k-means (ONKM). On the training images set, an initial value of \(\alpha \) in the \(\alpha \)-mean operation of the NS is used with the GA to determine the optimized \(\alpha \) value. The Jaccard index is used as the fitness function during the optimization process. The GA found the optimal \(\alpha \) in the \(\alpha \)-mean operation as \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}} =0.0014\) in the NS, which achieved the best performance using five fold cross-validation. Afterward, the dermoscopy images are transformed into the neutrosophic domain via three memberships, namely true, indeterminate, and false, using \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}}\). The proposed ONKM method is carried out to segment the dermoscopy images. Different random subsets of 50 images from the ISIC 2016 challenge dataset are used from the training dataset during the fivefold cross-validation to train the proposed system and determine \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}}\). Several evaluation metrics, namely the Dice coefficient, specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy, are measured for performance evaluation of the test images using the proposed ONKM method with \(\alpha _{\mathrm{optimal}} =0.0014\) compared to the k-means, and the \(\gamma \)–k-means methods. The results depicted the dominance of the ONKM method with \(99.29\pm 1.61\%\) average accuracy compared with k-means and \(\gamma \)–k-means methods.     

Six Order Cascaded Power Line Notch Filter for ECG Detection Systems with Noise Shaping

This paper presents the design of an operational transconductance amplifier-C (OTA-C) notch filter for a portable Electrocardiogram (ECG) detection system. A six order cascaded filter is utilized to reduce the effect of the power line interference at (50/60 Hz). The proposed filter is based on a programmable balanced OTA circuit. Based on this, PSPICE post layout simulation results for the extracted filter using 0.25  \(\upmu \) m technology and operating under \(\pm \) 0.8 V voltage supply are also given. The six order notch filter provides a notch depth of 65 dB (43 dB for 4th order), input referred noise spectral density with noise shaping of 9  \(\upmu \) Vrms/ \(\surd \) Hz at the pass band frequencies and 9 mVrms/ \(\surd \) Hz at the notch (zero) frequency which provide noise shaping for the ECG signal. These results demonstrate the ability of the filter to be used for ECG signal filtering which is located within 150 Hz.     

Minmax-concave total variation denoising

Total variation (TV) denoising is a commonly used method for recovering 1-D signal or 2-D image from additive white Gaussian noise observation. In this paper, we define the Moreau enhanced function of \(L_1\) norm as \({\varPhi }_\alpha (x)\) and introduce the minmax-concave TV (MCTV) in the form of \({\varPhi }_\alpha (Dx)\), where D is the finite difference operator. We present that MCTV approaches \(\Vert Dx\Vert _0\) if the non-convexity parameter \(\alpha \) is chosen properly and apply it to denoising problem. MCTV can strongly induce the signal sparsity in gradient domain, and moreover, its form allows us to develop corresponding fast optimization algorithms. We also prove that although this regularization term is non-convex, the cost function can maintain convexity by specifying \(\alpha \) in a proper range. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of MCTV for both 1-D signal and 2-D image denoising.     

High-Accuracy Time-Mode Duty-Cycle-Modulation-Based Temperature Sensor for Energy-Efficient System Applications

This paper presents a new time-mode duty-cycle-modulation-based high-accuracy temperature sensor. Different from the well-known \({\varSigma }{\varDelta }\) ADC-based readout structure, this temperature sensor utilizes a temperature-dependent oscillator to convert the temperature information into temperature-related time-mode parameter values. The useful output information of the oscillator is the duty cycle, not the absolute frequency. In this way, this time-mode duty-cycle-modulation-based temperature sensor has superior performance over the conventional inverter-chain-based time domain types. With a linear formula, the duty-cycle output streams can be converted into temperature values. The design is verified in 65nm standard digital CMOS process. The verification results show that the worst temperature inaccuracy is kept within 1\(\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\) with a one-point calibration from \(-\)55 to 125 \(^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\). At room temperature, the average current consumption is only 0.8 \(\upmu \)A (1.1\(\,\upmu \)A in one phase and 0.5 \(\upmu \)A in the other) with 1.2 V supply voltage, and the total energy consumption for a complete measurement is only 0.384 \({\hbox {nJ}}\).     

Secret-Sharing Schemes for Very Dense Graphs

A secret-sharing scheme realizes a graph if every two vertices connected by an edge can reconstruct the secret while every independent set in the graph does not get any information on the secret. Similar to secret-sharing schemes for general access structures, there are gaps between the known lower bounds and upper bounds on the share size for graphs. Motivated by the question of what makes a graph “hard” for secret-sharing schemes (that is, they require large shares), we study very dense graphs, that is, graphs whose complement contains few edges. We show that if a graph with \(n\) vertices contains \(\left( {\begin{array}{c}n\\ 2\end{array}}\right) -n^{1+\beta }\) edges for some constant \(0 \le \beta <1\), then there is a scheme realizing the graph with total share size of \(\tilde{O}(n^{5/4+3\beta /4})\). This should be compared to \(O(n^2/\log (n))\), the best upper bound known for the total share size in general graphs. Thus, if a graph is “hard,” then the graph and its complement should have many edges. We generalize these results to nearly complete \(k\)-homogeneous access structures for a constant \(k\). To complement our results, we prove lower bounds on the total share size for secret-sharing schemes realizing very dense graphs, e.g., for linear secret-sharing schemes, we prove a lower bound of \(\Omega (n^{1+\beta /2})\) for a graph with \(\left( {\begin{array}{c}n\\ 2\end{array}}\right) -n^{1+\beta }\) edges.     

A 3.1–10.6 GHz UWB LNA Based on Self Cascode Technique for Improved Bandwidth and High Gain

In this work, we present a self cascode based ultra-wide band (UWB) low noise amplifier (LNA) with improved bandwidth and gain for 3.1–10.6 GHz wireless applications. The self cascode (SC) or split-length compensation technique is employed to improve the bandwidth and gain of the proposed LNA. The improvement in the bandwidth of SC based structure is around 1.22 GHz as compared to simple one. The significant enhancement in the characteristics of the introduced circuit is found without extra passive components. The SC based CS–CG structure in the proposed LNA uses the same DC current for operating first stage transistors. In the designed UWB LNA, a common source (CS) stage is used in the second stage to enhance the overall gain in the high frequency regime. With a standard 90 nm CMOS technology, the presented UWB LNA results in a gain \(\hbox {S}_{21}\) of \(20.10 \pm 1.65\,\hbox {dB}\) across the 3.1–10.6 GHz frequency range, and dissipating 11.52 mW power from a 1 V supply voltage. However, input reflection, \(\hbox {S}_{11}\), lies below \(-\,10\) dB from 4.9–9.1 GHz frequency. Moreover, the output reflection (\(\hbox {S}_{22}\)) and reverse isolation (\(\hbox {S}_{12}\)), is below \(-\,10\) and \(-\,48\) dB, respectively for the ultra-wide band region. Apart from this, the minimum noise figure (\(\hbox {NF}_{min}\)) value of the proposed UWB LNA exists in the range of 2.1–3 dB for 3.1–10.6 GHz frequency range with a a small variation of \(\pm \,0.45\,\hbox {dB}\) in its \(\hbox {NF}_{min}\) characteristics. Linearity of the designed LNA is analysed in terms of third order input intercept point (IIP3) whose value is \(-\,4.22\) dBm, when a two tone signal is applied at 6 GHz with a spacing of 10 MHz. The other important benefits of the proposed circuit are its group-delay variation and gain variation of \(\pm \,115\,\hbox {ps}\) and \(\pm \,1.65\,\hbox {dB}\), respectively.     

Novel Tight Closed-Form Bounds for the Symbol Error Rate of EGC and MRC Diversity Receivers Employing Linear Modulations Over \alpha -\mu Fading

In this paper, we propose novel lower and upper bounds on the average symbol error rate (SER) of the dual-branch maximal-ratio combining and equal-gain combining diversity receivers assuming independent branches. \(M\) -ary pulse amplitude modulation and \(M\) -ary phase shift keying schemes are employed and operation over the \(\alpha -\mu \) fading channel is assumed. The proposed bounds are given in closed form and are very simple to calculate as they are composed of a double finite summation of basic functions that are readily available in the commercial software packages. Furthermore, the proposed bounds are valid for any combination of the parameters \(\alpha \) and \(\mu \) as well as \(M\) . Numerical results presented show that the proposed bounds are very tight when compared to the exact SER obtained via performing the exact integrations numerically making them an attractive much simpler alternative for SER evaluation studies.     

Inter-layer correlation considered R-D models and Lagrange multiplier for SVC MGS coding

Traditional rate-distortion (R-D) model-based Lagrange multiplier \(\lambda \) that is employed by H.264/SVC does not consider the inter-layer correlation. This paper presents new R-D models and \(\lambda \) which exploits inter-layer correlation for coding modes that perform residual prediction in H.264/SVC medium-grain quality scalability (MGS) coding. We have observed that in MGS coding, the prediction error of modes performing residual prediction is approximately equal to the reconstruction error of the corresponding macroblock in the reference layer. Based on that observation, we investigate the distribution \(f_r \) of transformed residual prediction error signals and prove that \(f_r \) is related to the quantization step of the corresponding macroblock in the reference layer. In such a case, both the conventional \(\lambda \) and the R-D models in the literature that are derived independently of inter layers are not much fit for residual prediction modes any more. Thus, we build more appropriate R-D models depending on the derived distribution and develop a new \(\lambda \) from the R-D models. Experimental results show that when residual prediction is enabled, the proposed scheme by using the new Lagrange multiplier achieves an average PSNR gain of 0.47 dB and up to more than 1 dB over the scheme using the conventional Lagrange multiplier.     

Error performance of optically preamplified hybrid BPSK-PPM systems with transmitter and receiver imperfections

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the transmitter finite extinction ratio and the receiver carrier recovery phase offset on the error performance of two optically preamplified hybrid M-ary pulse position modulation (PPM) systems with coherent detection. The first system, referred to as PB-mPPM, combines polarization division multiplexing (PDM) with binary phase-shift keying and M-ary PPM, and the other system, referred to as PQ-mPPM, combines PDM with quadrature phase-shift keying and M-ary PPM. We provide new expressions for the probability of bit error for PB-mPPM and PQ-mPPM under finite extinction ratios and phase offset. The extinction ratio study indicates that the coherent systems PB-mPPM and PQ-mPPM outperform the direct-detection ones. It also shows that at \(P_b=10^{-9}\) PB-mPPM has a slight advantage over PQ-mPPM. For example, for a symbol size \(M=16\) and extinction ratio \(r=30\) dB, PB-mPPM requires 0.6 dB less SNR per bit than PQ-mPPM to achieve \(P_b=10^{-9}\). This investigation demonstrates that PB-mPPM is less complex and less sensitive to the variations of the offset angle \(\theta \) than PQ-mPPM. For instance, for \(M=16\), \(r=30\) dB, and \(\theta =10^{\circ }\) PB-mPPM requires 1.6 dB less than PQ-mPPM to achieve \(P_b=10^{-9}\). However, PB-mPPM enhanced robustness to phase offset comes at the expense of a reduced bandwidth efficiency when compared to PQ-mPPM. For example, for \(M=2\) its bandwidth efficiency is 60 % that of PQ-mPPM and \(\approx 86\,\%\) for \(M=1024\). For these reasons, PB-mPPM can be considered a reasonable design trade-off for M-ary PPM systems.     

High sensitive photonic crystal ring resonator structure applicable for optical integrated circuits

Quality factor and refractive sensitivity are significant parameters in designing optical devices such as filters, demultiplexers, switches and sensors. In this paper, we proposed a novel structure for photonic crystal ring resonator with octagon-shaped core. The transmission efficiency of the proposed ring resonator at \(\lambda =1551\,\hbox {nm}\) is about 99.6 % with bandwidth and quality factor values equal to 0.3 nm and 5170. The proposed structure is very sensitive upon the variation of refractive index of total structure and core part of the resonator, such that the refractive index sensitivity to the refractive index of total structure and the resonant ring core is \(\Delta \lambda /\Delta \lambda =3.1\,\hbox {nm}\,/\,0.01\) and \(\Delta \lambda /\Delta \hbox {n}=2.9\,\hbox {nm}\,/\,0.01\), respectively.