A DBR laser tunable by resistive heating

A distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser tuned by resistive heating is presented. It has a tuning range greater than 10 nm with only a 33% reduction in output power and a 10% increase in linewidth. Its behavior is easily modeled, agreeing well with simple theory     

A 0.9-V microcontroller for portable applications

A 0.9-1.6-V, 1-MHz, 8-b microcontroller based on the 68HC08 architecture is presented. In addition to standard digital microcontroller functions, the chip features RAM, ROM, phase-locked loop (PLL) clock synthesis, and liquid crystal displays (LCD) drive capabilities operating from the voltage supply range of a single AA or AAA battery. The design used a library of CMOS microcontroller building blocks, converted into a low-voltage technology using unilateral transistors. The design approach was to optimize the conversion strategy for each functional block and to provide new designs when the conversion was insufficient. The chip exceeded specifications with blocks showing full functionality down to 0.7 V     

Designing better adaptive sampling algorithms for ECG Holtersystems

Let Ψ be any adaptive sampling algorithm that can run in real time on a tapeless multichannel electrocardiogram (ECG) Holter system. Simple methods which can significantly improve Ψ's fidelity are described and their results are compared in this paper. It is shown that by adding some simple tests to Ψ, the signals reconstructed by Ψ can be improved as much as 5.45 dB. It is also shown that under the same data rate, a good data compressor with slowly sampled input ECG is preferable to a bad data compressor with highly sampled input ECG     

Wide‐Area Strain Sensors based upon Graphene‐Polymer Composite Coatings Probed by Raman Spectroscopy

Functional graphene optical sensors are now viable due to the recent developments in hand‐held Raman spectroscopy and the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of graphene films. Herein, the strain in graphene/poly (methyl methacrylate) sensor coatings is followed using Raman band shifts. The performance of an “ideal” mechanically‐exfoliated single crystal graphene flake is compared to a scalable CVD graphene film. The dry‐transferred mechanically exfoliated sample has no residual stresses, whereas the CVD sample is in compression following the solvent evaporation during its transfer. The behavior of the sensors under cyclic deformation shows an initial breakdown of the graphene‐polymer interface with the interface then stabilizing after several cycles. The Raman 2D band shift rates per unit strain of the exfoliated graphene are ≈35% higher than CVD graphene making the former more strain sensitive. However, for practical wide‐area applications, CVD graphene coatings are still viable candidates as a Raman system can be used to read the strain in any 5 μm diameter spot in the coating to an absolute accuracy of ≈0.01% strain and resolution of ≈27 microstrains (μs), which compares favorably to commercial photoelastic systems.     

A downlink beamforming assisted by locally positioned communication devices

Recently, multiple cell types with overlapping coverage have been deployed simultaneously to increase cellular network capacity. Cross‐tier interference is one of the key technical challenges in the use of this method. A simple and practical beamforming scheme assisted by locally positioned communication devices for the downlink of a multi‐cell wireless hierarchical cell structure system is proposed in this paper to maximize the capacity of the embedded small cell and simultaneously ensure minimal impact on the performance of existing macrocells. The locally positioned communication devices can be implemented with low complexity and at low cost and can continuously provide helpful and accurate information to base stations for the proper configuration of geographical cell coverage, allowing neighboring cells to cooperate effectively with each other. Simulation results verify that the proposed scheme can provide a significant gain over conventional systems not using the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High Areal Capacitance of N‐Doped Graphene Synthesized by Arc Discharge

The lack of cost effective, industrial‐scale production methods hinders the widespread applications of graphene materials. In spite of its applicability in the mass production of graphene flakes, arc discharge has not received considerable attention because of its inability to control the synthesis and heteroatom doping. In this study, a facile approach is proposed for improving doping efficiency in N‐doped graphene synthesis through arc discharge by utilizing anodic carbon fillers. Compared to the N‐doped graphene (1–1.5% N) synthesized via the arc process according to previous literature, the resulting graphene flakes show a remarkably increased doping level (≈3.5% N) with noticeable graphitic N enrichment, which is rarely achieved by the conventional process, while simultaneously retaining high turbostratic crystallinity. The electrolyte ion storage of synthesized materials is examined in which synthesized N‐doped graphene material exhibits a remarkable area normalized capacitance of 63 µF cm^?2. The surprisingly high areal capacitance, which is superior to that of most carbon materials, is attributed to the synergistic effect of extrinsic pseudocapacitance, high crystallinity, and abundance of exposed graphene edges. These results highlight the great potentials of N‐doped graphene flakes produced by arc discharge in graphene‐based supercapacitors, along with well‐studied active exfoliated graphene and reduced graphene oxide.     

Open‐Ended Waveguide Antenna Using a Single Split‐Ring Resonator

This letter proposes an open‐ended waveguide antenna with a single split‐ring resonator. In contrast to the waveguide antennas incorporating multiple rings reported in a previous study, which exhibited narrow bandwidth, the proposed antenna uses only one ring to achieve broader bandwidth while keeping the aperture small. A single ring has a relatively low quality factor compared to multiple rings. The simulated and measured fractional bandwidth was 4.13% and 4.03%, respectively, which is much broader than the fractional bandwidth of about 1% demonstrated in a previous study. This simple technique can be used in many applications that require small apertures including near‐field probes and array elements.     

Simulations and experiments for optimal deployment of an RFID‐based location‐aware system

The proliferation of communication and mobile computing devices and local‐area wireless networks has cultivated a growing interest in location‐aware systems and services. An essential problem in location‐aware computing is the determination of physical locations. RFID technologies are gaining much attention, as they are attractive solutions to indoor localization in many healthcare applications. In this paper, we propose a new indoor localization methodology that aims to deploying RFID technologies in achieving accurate location‐aware undertakings with real‐time computation. The proposed algorithm introduces means to improve the accuracy of the received RF signals. Optimal settings for the parameters in terms of reader and reference tag properties were investigated through simulations and experiments. The experimental results indicate that our indoor localization methodology is promising in applications that require fast installation, low cost and high accuracy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhanced space-time block coded systems by concatenating turbo product codes

The BER performance of a turbo product code (TPC) based space-time block coding (STBC) wireless system has been investigated. With the proposed system, both the good error correcting capability of TPC and the concurrent large diversity gain characteristic of STBC can be achieved. The BER upper bound has been derived taking BPSK modulation as an example. The simulation results show that the proposed system with the concatenated codes outperforms the one with only TPC or STBC and other reported schemes that concatenate STBC with convolutional Turbo codes or trellis codes.     

Higher education for the information age

The new generation of engineering professionals needs to know not only the scientific and engineering principles, but also have extensive knowledge about arts, literature, and social sciences. They need far-reaching vision for the future in order to understand grand challenges on the technical-level, the system-level, and the social aspects of topics that are of importance to the modern society. One solution is to emphasize fundamental courses such as mathematics and physics with new interpretation to correlate with real-world applications. It is important to include system-oriented topics in the curriculum so that students know how to apply the basic principles, The key focus should be placed on analysis and design skills, and effective communication is essential to address any large-scale problems