A study of depth/texture bit-rate allocation in multi-view video plus depth compression

Multi-view video plus depth (MVD) data offer a reliable representation of three-dimensional (3D) scenes for 3D video applications. This is a huge amount of data whose compression is an important challenge for researchers at the current time. Consisting of texture and depth video sequences, the question of the relationship between these two types of data regarding bit-rate allocation often raises. This paper questions the required ratio between texture and depth when encoding MVD data. In particular, the paper investigates the elements impacting on the best bit-rate ratio between depth and color: total bit-rate budget, input data features, encoding strategy, and assessed view.     

Indoor Localization via Discriminatively Regularized Least Square Classification

In this paper, we address the received signal strength (RSS)-based indoor localization problem in a wireless local area network (WLAN) environment and formulate it as a multi-class classification problem using survey locations as classes. We present a discriminatively regularized least square classifier (DRLSC)-based localization algorithm that is aimed at making use of the class label information to better distinguish the RSS samples taken from different locations after proper transformation. Besides DRLSC, two other regularized least square classifiers (RLSCs) are also presented for comparison. We show that these RLSCs can be expressed in a unified problem formulation with a closed-form solution and convenient assessment of the convexity of the problem. We then extend the linear RLSCs to their nonlinear counterparts via the kernel trick. Moreover, we address the missing value problem, utilize clustering to reduce the training and online complexity, and introduce kernel alignment for fast kernel parameter tuning. Experimental results show that, compared with other methods, the kernel DRLSC-based algorithm achieves superior performance for indoor localization when only a small fraction of the data samples are used.     

Performance of Multiple High Altitude Platforms using Directive HAP and User Antennas

This paper examines the behaviour of system capacity in High Altitude Platform (HAP) communications systems as a function of antenna directivity and HAP positioning. Antenna models for the user and the HAP are discussed, and it is shown that a flat sidelobe antenna pattern is suitable for modelling multiple HAP constellations when HAPs are located outside the coverage area. Using a single HAP scenario it is shown how narrowing the HAP antenna beamwidth may give better downlink Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (CNR) over the most of the coverage area. The roles of the HAP antenna beamwidth, HAP antenna pointing and HAP spacing radius are investigated. An equation is derived to determine the location of the peak CNR combined with these three parameters. A more complex multiple HAP scenario where all HAP’s operate on the same channel and interfere with each other is also assessed in terms of the Carrier to Interference plus Noise Ratio (CINR) and spectral efficiency. It is shown that locating HAPs at a specific spacing radius that is outside the coverage area can improve performance. Using these techniques the combined bandwidth efficiency is shown to increase almost pro-rata when the number of HAPs is increased up to 16.Guanhua Chen is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electronics, the University of York, and received his BSc from Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, China in 1997. He had been a software engineer in Inventec Electronics (Nanjing) Co. Ltd, implementing DSP algorithm and network protocols in embedded systems for several years. He now participates in CAPANINA, a major European Framework 6 project developing broadband communications from high altitude platforms.David Grace received his ME degree in Electronic Systems Engineering D.Phil degree from the University of York, UK in 1993 and 1999 respectively. His D.Phil thesis dealt with ‘Distributed Dynamic Channel Assignment for the Wireless Environment’. Since 1994 he has been a member of the Communications Research Group at York, where he is now a senior Research Fellow. He has worked on a variety of research contracts including several from the former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Current research interests include radio resource management for broadband communications, particularly from high-altitude platform and terrestrial ad hoc networks. He is now Principal Scientific Officer for CAPANINA a major European Framework 6 project that is developing broadband communications from high-altitude platforms. He has been an invited speaker at several conferences and industrial locations in the fields of HAP systems. He is also a nominated Researcher in the European NEWCOM Network of Excellence, and a Director of SkyLARC Technologies Ltd., a York based company, specialising in broadband communications from aerial platforms. He is a member of IEE and IEEE.Tim C. Tozer received his degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge UK in 1969. He is currently Leader of the Communications Research Group at the University of York, York, UK, and Senior Lecturer in Electronics. Previously, he worked on satellite systems at the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). Research interests include wireless access techniques, multiuser communications, and high altitude platform (HAP) communications and services. Tim has managed numerous grants and research contracts from industry, government, and international organisations, and is a named author on over 180 technical publications. He is active in the IEE Professional Network on Satellite Systems and Applications, and is a regular invited presenter at international conferences, workshops and tutorials in the fields of VSAT and HAP communications. He is also Managing Director of SkyLARC Technologies Ltd, a company specialising in broadband services from aerial platforms.     

Growth of Large Crystalline Grains of Vanadyl‐Phthalocyanine without Epitaxy on Graphene

The performance of organic semiconductor thin films in electronic devices is related to their crystal structure and morphology, with charge transport mobility dependent on the degree of crystallinity and on the crystallographic orientation. Here organic molecular beam deposition of vanadyl phthalocyanine is studied on graphene and it is shown that crystalline grains up to several micrometers across can be formed at substrate temperatures of 155 °C, compared to room temperature grain sizes of ≈30 nm. Transmission electron microscopy confirms the presence of long range order at elevated substrate temperatures and reveals that the molecules are stacked in an edge‐on orientation, but are not epitaxially aligned to the graphene. The crystalline grain sizes are significantly larger on graphene than on disordered substrates such as graphene oxide and silicon oxide. The effect on charge transport is probed by conducting atomic force microscopy, with the high temperature films on graphene showing increased mobility and uniformity and decreased trap density. These results illustrate an important advantage for the integration of graphene electrodes with organic semiconductor devices: the homogeneous surface of graphene results in high diffusion and low nucleation rates for thin film growth, encouraging the formation of highly crystalline films even with nonepitaxial growth.     

Tapered Cross‐Section Photoelectron Spectroscopy of State‐of‐the‐Art Mixed Ion Perovskite Solar Cells: Band Bending Profile in the Dark,Photopotential Profile Under Open Circuit Illumination,and Band Diagram

The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand the method of spacial resolved photoemission spectroscopy on small angle tapered cross‐sections (TCS) of complete devices is introduced to analyze simultaneously the chemical and electronic structure. On the other hand, a specific working principle of the analyzed cell type is revealed. Solar cells of 18% efficiency are prepared from a single precursor (FAPbI₃)_0.85(MAPbBr₃)_0.15 with excess of 15% PbI₂. It is shown that TCS‐phototoelectron spectroscopy allows to determine the chemical composition as well as the potential distribution across the full device in the dark and in operation. The energy converting contact is the hole extraction back contact. Interestingly the photopotential in the analyzed cell type is predominantly created within the hole extraction layer and not in the n‐doped perovskite absorber. With the addition of measured core level to valence band maximum positions of the respective layers, TCS line scans lead to the band diagram for the full device. In addition, depth variations of the chemical composition are found: the bromide concentration increases while the iodide concentration is reduced near and within the mesoporous TiO₂ layer.     

Modeling gallium arsenide heterojunction bipolar transistor ledge variations for insight into device reliability

It is widely known that under normal bias conditions, GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) device degradation proceeds by a gradual buildup of defects in the base and base–emitter junction depletion regions. The buildup of these defects is associated with a solid-state phenomenon known as recombination enhanced defect reaction, which is the formation and migration of defects associated with nonradiative electron–hole recombination events. These defects are often associated with midgap traps, which serve as additional recombination centers for electron–hole pairs. The resulting increased recombination current is an additional base leakage current, which reduces current gain. By extension, a high electron–hole recombination density in a region with an initially high defect density––such as an unpassivated or poorly passivated base surface––will lead to quick device degradation.This paper reports the modeling of the effects of various different extrinsic base passivation ledge parameters––material composition, thickness, width, and spacing from ledge to base contact––to determine the microscopic effects these parameters have on electron–hole recombination density. Through this we can qualitatively predict the effects these parameters will have on HBT reliability.     

Channelization for software defined base-stations

Channelization is the task of channel selection in a communications receiver. Usually it comprises down-conversion of the signal to base-band and channel filtering. To be able to influence the characteristics of channelization by means of software it is advantageous to realize as much as possible of the channelization functionality with digital signal processing. In base-stations several channels have to be received in parallel. An obvious approach to meet this task is to have a separate channelizer for each channel. This so-called per-channel approach does not look very elegant. An alternative is to employ filter banks. This promises to save much effort since the necessary filter is implemented only once for all channels. Both approaches are introduced and discussed in detail. Finally, they are compared with respect to their multiplication rate. The result of this comparison is somewhat surprising.     

The Cellular Relay Carpet: Distributed Cooperation with Ubiquitous Relaying

We consider the up- as well as downlink of a cellular network in which base stations (BSs) are supported by a large amount of relays spread over the entire area like a carpet. The BSs only see the static relays as the nodes they communicate with, which enables large antenna arrays at the BSs with sophisticated multi-user MIMO transmission. Together with a simple form of BS cooperation, the communication via the small relay cells allows to improve the data rates by distributed interference management and to reduce the complexity at the terminals. We investigate different types of relays as well as different relaying strategies for this relay carpet and compare them with respect to complexity, required channel state information (CSI), and performance in the interference-limited environment of dense cellular networks. The robustness of the different schemes with respect to channel estimation errors is studied and we conclude that especially relays of very low complexity are not sensitive to CSI imperfections. Relays can thus be applied in large numbers and enable massive MIMO at the BSs. The relay carpet proves thereby to be an efficient approach to enhance future generations of cellular networks significantly.     

3-D model-based frame interpolation for distributed video coding of static scenes.

This paper addresses the problem of side information extraction for distributed coding of videos captured by a camera moving in a 3-D static environment. Examples of targeted applications are augmented reality, remote-controlled robots operating in hazardous environments, or remote exploration by drones. It explores the benefits of the structure-from-motion paradigm for distributed coding of this type of video content. Two interpolation methods constrained by the scene geometry, based either on block matching along epipolar lines or on 3-D mesh fitting, are first developed. These techniques are based on a robust algorithm for sub-pel matching of feature points, which leads to semi-dense correspondences between key frames. However, their rate-distortion (RD) performances are limited by misalignments between the side information and the actual Wyner-Ziv (WZ) frames due to the assumption of linear motion between key frames. To cope with this problem, two feature point tracking techniques are introduced, which recover the camera parameters of the WZ frames. A first technique, in which the frames remain encoded separately, performs tracking at the decoder and leads to significant RD performance gains. A second technique further improves the RD performances by allowing a limited tracking at the encoder. As an additional benefit, statistics on tracks allow the encoder to adapt the key frame frequency to the video motion content.     

Multiple particle tracking in 3-D+t microscopy: method and application to the tracking of endocytosed quantum dots.

We propose a method to detect and track multiple moving biological spot-like particles showing different kinds of dynamics in image sequences acquired through multidimensional fluorescence microscopy. It enables the extraction and analysis of information such as number, position, speed, movement, and diffusion phases of, e.g., endosomal particles. The method consists of several stages. After a detection stage performed by a three-dimensional (3-D) undecimated wavelet transform, we compute, for each detected spot, several predictions of its future state in the next frame. This is accomplished thanks to an interacting multiple model (IMM) algorithm which includes several models corresponding to different biologically realistic movement types. Tracks are constructed, thereafter, by a data association algorithm based on the maximization of the likelihood of each IMM. The last stage consists of updating the IMM filters in order to compute final estimations for the present image and to improve predictions for the next image. The performances of the method are validated on synthetic image data and used to characterize the 3-D movement of endocytic vesicles containing quantum dots.