Robust control of robot manipulator by model-based disturbance attenuation

In this letter, a model-based disturbance attenuator (MBDA) for robot manipulators is proposed and the stability of the MBDA in robot positioning problems is proved via Liapunov's direct method. This method does not require an accurate model of a robot manipulator and takes care of disturbances or modeling errors so that the plant output remains relatively unaffected by them. The output error due to the gravity or constant disturbance can be effectively eliminated by this method.     

Analysis and characterization of traveling-wave electrode in electroabsorption modulator for radio-on-fiber application

Comparing with a lumped electroabsorption modulator (EAM), we show the merits of a long EAM with traveling-wave electrode with high radio-frequency (RF) gain that could be used in high-frequency analog application. By terminating the RF output port with the characteristic impedance of 30 /spl Omega/, the device exhibited a large enhancement of 6 dB above 10 GHz in the electrical-to-optical response and a wide fractional bandwidth as estimated from simulation. In addition, an input impedance matching circuit of stub embedded on the device chip was found to be very effective for improving RF characteristics in the narrow band of frequency.     

Temporal fairness guarantee in multi-rate wireless LANs for per-flow protection

Wireless LAN technologies such as IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b support high bandwidth and multi-rate data transmission to match the channel condition (i.e., signal to noise ratio). While some wireless packet fair queuing algorithms to achieve the per-flow throughput fairness have been proposed, they are not appropriate for guaranteeing QoS in multi-rate wireless LAN environments. We propose a wireless packet scheduling algorithm that uses the multi-state (multi-rate) wireless channel model and performs packet scheduling by taking into account the channel usage time of each flow. The proposed algorithm aims at per-flow protection by providing equal channel usage time for each flow. To achieve the per-flow protection, we propose a temporally fair scheduling algorithm called Contention-Aware Temporally fair Scheduling (CATS) which provides equal channel usage time for each flow. Channel usage time is defined as the sum of the packet transmission time and the contention overhead time due to the CSMA/CA mechanism. The CATS algorithm provides per-flow protection in wireless LAN environments where the channel qualities of mobile stations are dynamic over time, and where the packet sizes are application-dependent. We also extend CATS to Decentralized-CATS (D-CATS) to provide per-flow protection in the uplink transmission. Using an NS-2 simulation, we evaluate the fairness property of both CATS and D-CATS in various scenarios. Simulation results show that the throughput of mobile stations with stable link conditions is not degraded by the mobility (or link instability) of other stations or by packet size variations. D-CATS also shows less delay and less delay jitter than FIFO. In addition, since D-CATS can coordinate the number of contending mobile stations, the overall throughput is not degraded as the number of mobile stations increases. This work was supported in part by the Brain Korea 21 project of Ministry of Education and in part by the National Research Laboratory project of Ministry of Science and Technology, 2004, Korea.     

Improving Quality of Service and Assuring Fairness in WLAN Access Networks

As public deployment of wireless local area networks (WLANs) has increased and various applications with different service requirements have emerged, fairness and quality of service (QoS) are two imperative issues in allocating wireless channels. This study proposes a fair QoS agent (FQA) to simultaneously provide per-class QoS enhancement and per-station fair channel sharing in WLAN access networks. FQA implements two additional components above the 802.11 MAC: a dual service differentiator and a service level manager. The former is intended to improve QoS for different service classes by differentiating service with appropriate scheduling and queue management algorithms, while the latter is to assure fair channel sharing by estimating the fair share for each station and dynamically adjusting the service levels of packets. FQA assures (weighted) fairness among stations in terms of channel access time without decreasing channel utilization. Furthermore, it can provide quantitative service assurance in terms of queuing delay and packet loss rate. FQA neither resorts to any complex fair scheduling algorithm nor requires maintaining per-station queues. Since the FQA algorithm is an add-on scheme above the 802.11 MAC, it does not require any modification of the standard MAC protocol. Extensive ns-2 simulations confirm the effectiveness of the FQA algorithm with respect to the per class QoS enhancement and per-station fair channel sharing     

A 2.4-GHz Low-Power Low-IF Receiver and Direct-Conversion Transmitter in 0.18-μm CMOS for IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN Applications

In this paper, a low-power low-IF receiver and a direct-conversion transmitter (DCT) suitable for the IEEE standard 802.15.4 radio system at the 2.4-GHz band are presented in 0.18-mum deep n-well CMOS technology. By using vertical NPN (V-NPN) bipolar junction transistors in the baseband analog circuits of the low-IF receiver, the image rejection performance is improved and the power consumption is reduced. In addition, by applying the V-NPN current mirrored technique in a DCT, the carrier leakage is reduced and the linearity performance is improved. The receiver has 10 dB of noise figure, -15 dBm of third-order input intercept point, and 35 dBc of image rejection. The transmitter has more than -2 dBm of transmit output power, -35 dBc of local oscillator leakage, and -46 dBc of the transmit third harmonic component. The receiver and transmitter dissipate 6 and 9 mA from a 1.8-V supply, respectively     

A Copper/Polyimide Fabrication Process for Fabricating High-Inductance Microinductor

This paper reports on a technological process that combines copper as conductor, permalloy as magnetic core material, and polyimide as insulation material to complete a microinductor on glass with high inductance. The shape of the magnetic core scheme was rectangular, of which the width of the long side and short side were 1.4 and 0.6 mm, respectively. The dimensions of the inductor are 3.86 mm times 3.94 mm times 90 mum with coil width of 20 mum and space of 35 mum. The results show that the maximum inductance is 4 muH at 1 MHz, and the maximum quality factor (Q-factor) is 1.5 at 2 MHz.     

A WDM-PON Employing Fabry–PÉrot Laser Diodes Without a Seed Light Injection

We propose and demonstrate a wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network by employing double-contact Fabry-Perot laser diodes (F-P LDs) without a seed light injection. To avoid the high mode partition noise at low frequency, we use a binary phase-shift keying as a modulation format at a low relative intensity noise window. An error-free transmission is achieved by compensating a lasing envelope shift due to temperature variation with the double-contact F-P LD.     

Enhancement of a WLAN-Based Internet Service

A wireless LAN (WLAN)-based Internet service, called NESPOT, of Korea Telecom (KT), the biggest telecommunication and Internet service company in Korea, has been operational since early 2002. As the numbers of subscribers and deployed access points (APs) increase, KT has been endeavoring to improve its service quality as well as the network management. In this paper, we introduce a joint effort between Seoul National University (SNU) and KT to achieve it. We have been addressing two major issues as part of the joint project thus far: (1) a unified WLAN management/maintenance tool; and (2) real-time traffic support enhancement. We present our on-going efforts as well as some preliminary results. Some issues, which need further attention for the future NESPOT service enhancement, are also introduced.The work reported in this paper was financed and supported by KT. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of KT. Youngkyu Choi is an M.S. candidate in the department of electrical engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea. He received his B.S. with honors in electrical engineering from SNU in 2002. He has a lot of project experiences related with system software development. His current research interests are the design of MAC layer from distributed system to centralized cellular system, resource management in next-generation (4G) cellular system, and mathematical analysis of system performance. He had served in the Korean Army for 3 years from 1998. Sekyu Park is a research staff at the Multimedia & Wireless Networking Lab. (MWNL), Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea. Before joining MWNL in September 2003, he was with MMC Technology, Seoul, Korea as a Research Staff for five years. His current research interests are in the area of wireless/mobile networks and embedded OS. Sunghyun Choi is an assistant professor at the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea. Before joining SNU in September 2002, he was with Philips Research USA, Briarcliff Manor, New York, USA as a Senior Member Research Staff and a project leader for three years. He received his B.S. (summa cum laude) and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and received Ph.D. at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in September, 1999. His current research interests are in the area of wireless/mobile networks with emphasis on the QoS guarantee and adaptation, resource management, wireless LAN and PAN, next-generation mobile networks, data link layer protocols, and connection and mobility management. He authored/coauthored over 45 technical papers and book chapters in the areas of wireless/mobile networks and communications. He is the technical program co-chair for ACM International Workshop on Wireless Mobile Applications and Services on WLAN Hotspots (WMASH’2004). He is currently serving on program committees of a number of leading wireless and networking conferences including IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE GLOBECOM, and IEEE VTC. He is also a guest co-editor for a special issue on “Emerging WLAN Applications and Technologies” of Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Journal. He is an active participant and contributor of the IEEE 802.11 WLAN standardization committee. Dr. Choi was a recipient of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies Scholarship and the Korean Government Overseas Scholarship during 1997–1999 and 1994–1997, respectively. Go Woon Lee is a researcher at Service Development Laboratory, Korea Telecom (KT), Seoul, Korea. She received her B.S. degrees in computer science and material engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 1995. She was with Microsoft Korea R&D Group as a research staff in 1995. She received M.S. degree in information & communication from Kwang-Ju Institute of Science and Technology (K-JIST) in 1998. Her current research interests are in the area of wireless/mobile networks with emphasis on data link layer protocols, remote diagnosis, and wireless service management. Jaehwan Lee is a researcher at Korea Telecom (KT), Seoul, Korea. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Seoul National University (SNU) in 1998 and 2000, respectively. His master’s research was about estimation theory related to Global Positioning System (GPS) and image processing in robot soccer. His current research interest is to analyze and enhance the performance of wireless/mobile networks (IEEE 802.11, sensor networks and mobile ad-hoc networks) regarding QoS, energy-efficiency and high-throughput considering hand-off and inter-networking with heterogeneous networks. Before joining wireless LAN group in KT, he developed the Web-GIS (Geographical Information System) client-server system from 2000 to 2001. Hanwook Jung, Ph.D joined KT in 1985 and got his Ph.D degree with the company finalcial scholarship of KT from 1991 to 1996 at SUNY at Buffalo. His thesis is about “Wireless signal transmission over Fiber by subcarrier multiplexing” which is current heavily utilized for PCS and cellular repeater line. From 1985 to 1991, he had developed a Videotex service which is now known as Hitel. From 1996 to 1999, he developed 26GHz broadband wireless local loop system and contributed to get the license from the government. Since 1999, he has led a business model and service with wireless LAN. The KT Wi-Fi public service, “NESPOT” has 300,000 subscribers and 10,000 public hotspots. In 2003 he was promoted as an assistant vice president leading NESPOT research team to enhance KT’s broadband with 5,000,000 subscribers. His vision regarding next generation communications service is believed to be true by combining the broadband access and wireless technology including WiFi wireless LAN, UWB, and bluetooth in those areas such as wireless home-networking, device-to-device communications, and ubiqutous networking.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m InAlAs/InGaAs metamorphic HEMT technology

A W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider with wide bandwidth and low power dissipation is presented using harmonic injection-locking technique. A cascode FET is employed for a self-oscillating second-harmonic mixer which is injection-locked by third-harmonic input to obtain the division order of three. The fabricated frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m GaAs metamorphic HEMT technology shows superior performance such as large bandwidth of 6.1 GHz around 83.1 GHz (7.3%) under small DC power consumption of 12 mW.     

Floating-patch MEMS antennas on HRS substrate for millimetre-wave applications

Novel floating-patch micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) antennas are proposed for millimetre-wave applications. The floating-patch MEMS antennas are fabricated on a high resistivity silicon (HRS) substrate using surface micromachining technology. Simulation and experimental results for reflection coefficients and radiation patterns are presented.