Adaptive gain and delay mismatch cancellation for LINC transmitter

Linear amplification with Nonlinear Component (LINC) transmitter architecture is an efficient solution for high efficiency amplification of signals. Nonetheless, this solution suffers both from gain impairment and delay mismatch between the two signal paths. Indeed, a mismatch in propagation time between the paths degrades the quality of the transmit signal but also disrupts the convergence of the gain correction algorithm resulting in a degradation of its performance. In this paper, we present an adaptive algorithm based on a gradient descent formulation for the identification and correction of these delays. We also demonstrate its effectiveness when applied prior to the gain adjustment procedure. The identification approach is preferred here, to ensure monitoring facilities.     

Multilevel statistical inference from functional near-infrared spectroscopy data during stroop interference

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an emerging technique for monitoring the concentration changes of oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin (oxy-Hb and deoxy-Hb) in the brain. An important consideration in fNIRS-based neuroimaging modality is to conduct group-level analysis from a set of time series measured from a group of subjects. We investigate the feasibility of multilevel statistical inference for fNIRS. As a case study, we search for hemodynamic activations in the prefrontal cortex during Stroop interference. Hierarchical general linear model (GLM) is used for making this multilevel analysis. Activation patterns both at the subject and group level are investigated on a comparative basis using various classical and Bayesian inference methods. All methods showed consistent left lateral prefrontal cortex activation for oxy-Hb during interference condition, while the effects were much less pronounced for deoxy-Hb. Our analysis showed that mixed effects or Bayesian models are more convenient for faithful analysis of fNIRS data. We arrived at two important conclusions. First, fNIRS has the capability to identify activations at the group level, and second, the mixed effects or Bayesian model is the appropriate mechanism to pass from subject to group-level inference.     

Electrically Active States of Charge Capture and Transfer Causing Slow Recombination in Thallium-Bromide Crystals at Low Temperatures

TlBr single crystals grown by the Bridgman–Stockbarger method are studied. It is established that frozen-conductivity effects manifest themselves under interband excitation by light at temperatures below 200 K. Herewith, clearly pronounced superlinear dependences of the induced photoconductivity on the strength of the applied electric field manifest themselves. The results of studying thermally stimulated conductivity evidence that these phenomena can be associated with the filling of trap states with thermal activation energies of 0.08–0.12 eV. This state can be removed due to thermal quenching at temperatures of ?180 K because of the emptying of energy states with an activation energy of 0.63–0.65 eV filled after optical generation.     

Geometry modeling in cellular network planning

To design a cellular radio network (GSM, UMTS, WiFi …) it is indispensable today to use a radio planning software. In current commercialized tools, radio network planning is based on a numerical evaluation of a set of radio metrics, directly linked to quality of service notion, such as interference, throughput, coverage, capacity … The network configurations produced by such tools are generally faced with the human expert judgment who attaches great importance to the organizational aspects such as cells size and the topology. In other words, all those concepts related to the visual cells shape and geometry. In this article we emphasize the simplicity and the strength by which the geometrical concepts helps to bring out good network properties which are not taken into account by conventional radio criteria. On one hand, well-formed cells lead to reduce the number of handover calls, and to form transition zones between cells allowing proper completion of the handover procedure. On the other hand, cell geometry optimization produce performing network schemes in which the frequencies reuse (frequencies planning in GSM, WiFi) is simplified. We describe in this paper an original and practical modeling of the cellular geometry criteria granting the integration of this concept into the automatic planning process of mobile radio networks. The relevance of this criterion is assessed on three different levels. On a local level, we first establish the correlation between the geometric criteria and the improvement of point-by-point radio quality indicators. We secondly show geometry impact on radio frequency planning and the improving of the handover zones. Finally we analyze the impact of geometric criterion on improving indoor positioning systems.     

A MC-CDMA system analysis in a software radio context

This paper presents a Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (Mc-Cdma) system analysis in a software radio context. Based on a combination of multi-carrier modulation and code division multiple access,Mc-Cdma benefits from the main advantages from both schemes: high spectral efficiency, high flexibility, multiple access capabilities, etc. It is firstly shown why, nowadays,Mc-Cdma is undoubtedly a high potential candidate for the air interface of the 4G cellular networks. TheMc-Cdma concept and the block-diagrams of the transmitter and the receiver are presented first. Afterwards, the technical issues concerning the processing devices for the implementation ofMc-Cdma systems in a software radio context are analysed. The advantages and disadvantages of Digital Signal Processors (Dsps) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (Fgpas) components are discussed. The implementation ofMc-Cdma systems and the integration of signal processing algorithms as Fast Hadamard Transform (Fht) and Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (Ifft) are considered and analysed for the first time. Finally, implementation results with a mixed prototyping board are presented. Then, it is shown that a new combination of the flow graphs ofFht andIfft leads to interesting computation savings and that hardware structures asFgpas are more adapted thanDsps to those intensive computation functions. Finally, for the completeMc-Cdma modem implementation, the necessity of a Co-Design methodology is highlighted in order to obtain the best matching between algorithms and architecture.     

Investigation of Ionospheric Electron Density Change During Two Partial Solar Eclipses and Its Comparison with Predictions of NeQuick 2 and IRI-2016 Models

Wireless Personal Communications - In the present study, the results obtained by incoherent scatter radar (ISR) and empirical models (NeQuick2 and IRI-2016) of the variations in mid-latitude...     

Suppressing Ion Migration across Perovskite Grain Boundaries by Polymer Additives

Passivation of organometal halide perovskites with polar molecules has been recently demonstrated to improve the photovoltaic device efficiency and stability. However, the mechanism is still elusive. Here, it is found that both polymers with large and small dipole moment of 3.7 D and 0.6 D have negligible defect passivation effect on the MAPbI₃ perovskite films as evidenced by photothermal deflection spectroscopy. The photovoltaic devices with and without the polymer additives also have comparable power conversion efficiencies around 19%. However, devices with the additives have noticeable improvement in stability under continuous light irradiation. It is found that although the initial mobile ion concentrations are comparable in both devices with and without the additives, the additives can strongly suppress the ion migration during the device operation. This contributes to the significantly enhanced electrical-field stress tolerance of the perovskite solar cells (PVSCs). The PVSCs with polymer additives can operate up to −2 V reverse voltage bias which is much larger than the breakdown voltage of −0.5 V that has been commonly observed. This study provides insight into the role of additives in perovskites and the corresponding device degradation mechanism.     

Neural Network Based Receiver for Multiuser Detection in MC-CDMA Systems

In this paper, we present a multiuser detection technique based on artificial neural network (NN) for synchronous multicarrier code division multiple access systems over Rayleigh fading channels. To test the robustness of the proposed receiver, also the effect of power control problem is studied with a comparative manner. Bit error rate (BER) performance of the NN based receiver is compared with the single user bound and conventional receivers. Although the BER performance of the conventional receiver degrades as the number of the users and power level differences among the users increase, as a decision structure, neural network based receiver gives closer BER performance to the single user bound.     

CNTFET based voltage differencing current conveyor low power and universal filter

Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing - This paper presents carbon nanotube field effect transistor (CNTFET) implementation of voltage differencing current conveyor (VDCC). We propose...     

A high-level application using belief functions for exchanging and managing uncertain events on the road in vehicular ad hoc networks

This article introduces a high-level system using belief functions for exchanging and managing imperfect information about events on the road in vehicular ad hoc networks. The main purpose of this application is to provide the most reliable information for the driver from multiple messages received informing the driver about events on the roads. This system and some variants are tested using a MATLAB? simulator. An implementation with Android smartphones using a Bluetooth technology to exchange the messages is also introduced.