Effects of Augmented Reality Display Settings on Human Wayfinding Performance

Augmented reality (AR) entails overlaying the real world with information from computer-generated displays. Current AR technologies support limited mobility, although this is expected to change in the future. This paper presents experimental results of effects of various AR display strategies on human performance in a simulation-based analog of a ldquosearch and rescuerdquo navigation task. The augmentation scheme was a spatially and temporally registered map that was overlaid onto a corresponding real-world maze. The experiment required the participants to traverse the maze, periodically answer orientation questions, obtain a target object, and exit the maze as quickly as possible. One hundred twenty participants were evaluated in six different conditions. There were two control conditions (paper map or compass prior to entering the maze), and four experimental conditions (combinations of egocentric and exocentric maps, and continuously on or on-demand map display). Performance measures consisted of duration of time to traverse the maze and percentage of maze covered. AR resulted in better performance than the control conditions in terms of accuracy by facilitating the participants' coverage of the maze. Results show that the better performance with respect to time was in the map control condition. This result may be due to the small size of the maze, which could be memorized. However, AR is expected to exhibit better performance compared to a paper map, when more complex environments are employed. These results demonstrate promising benefits in mobile AR usage in specific navigation tasks. Design guidelines were extracted to guide future AR systems continued progress in enhancing performance.     

A reliable energy-efficient pressure-based routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor network

Recently, Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) has witnessed significant attention from both academia and industries in research and development, due to the growing number of applications for wide range of purposes including commercial, scientific, environmental and military. Some of the major applications include pollution monitoring, tactical surveillance, tsunami warnings and offshore exploration. Efficient communication among sensors in UWSNs is a challenging task due to the harsh environments and peculiar characteristics of UWSNs. Therefore, design of routing protocol for efficient communication among sensors and sink is one of the fundamental research themes in UWSNs. In this context, this paper proposes a location-free Reliable and Energy efficient Pressure-Based Routing (RE-PBR) protocol for UWSNs. RE-PBR considers three parameters including link quality, depth and residual energy for balancing energy consumption and reliable data delivery. Specifically, link quality is estimated using triangle metric method. A light weight information acquisition algorithm is developed for efficient knowledge discovery of the network. Multi-metric data forwarding algorithm is designed based on route cost calculation which utilizes residual energy and link quality. Simulations are carried out in NS-2 with Aqua-Sim package to evaluate the performance of RE-PBR. The performance of the proposed protocol is compared with the stat-of-the-art techniques: DBR and EEDBR. The comprehensive performance evaluation attests the benefit of RE-PBR as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques in terms of network lifetime, energy consumption, end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio.     

Control of the spectrum of the near-field Bloch waves in a waveguide periodically loaded with thin InSb layers

The realizability of a new propagation mode of electromagnetic waves and the possibility of controlling the spectrum of these waves in a rectangular waveguide periodically loaded with thin InSb layers are studied theoretically. It is shown that the fundamental passband of this periodic structure, which is similar to a photonic crystal, is substantially lower than both the cutoff frequency of the waveguide itself and the frequency corresponding to the plasma resonance in the material of the semiconductor loads. It is found that the lower passband is characterized by a negative dispersion corresponding to propagation of backward waves.     

MDP-Based Network Selection Scheme by Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing for Vertical-Handover in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The hybrid algorithm for real-time vertical handover using different objective functions has been presented to find the optimal network to connect with a good quality of service in accordance with the user’s preferences. Markov processes are widely used in performance modelling of wireless and mobile communication systems. We address the problem of optimal wireless network selection during vertical handover, based on the received information, by embedding the decision problem in a Markov decision process (MDP) with genetic algorithm (GA), we use GA to find a set of optimal decisions that ensures the best trade-off between QoS based on their priority level. Then, we emerge improved genetic algorithm (IGA) with simulated annealing (SA) as leading methods for search and optimization problems in heterogeneous wireless networks. We formulate the vertical handoff decision problem as a MDP, with the objectives of maximizing the expected total reward and minimizing average number of handoffs. A reward function is constructed to assess the QoS during each connection, and the AHP method are applied in an iterative way, by which we can work out a stationary deterministic handoff decision policy. As it is, the characteristics of the current mobile devices recommend using fast and efficient algorithms to provide solutions near to real-time. These constraints have moved us to develop intelligent algorithm that avoid the slow and massive computations. This paper compares the formulation and results of five recent optimization algorithms: artificial bee colony, GA, differential evolution, particle swarm optimization and hybrid of (GA–SA). Simulation results indicated that choosing the SA rules would minimize the cost function, and also that, the IGA–SA algorithm could decrease the number of unnecessary handovers, and thereby prevent the ‘Ping-Pong’ effect.     

Node to Node Performance Evaluation through RYU SDN Controller

In this paper a novel jamming technique is presented. The idea of the proposed jamming technique is based on adding inphase and quadrature impairments to the jamming signal. The jammer is simply a quadrature phase shift keying signal. The bit error rate probability (BER) of the proposed jamming signal is derived analytically and validated with the aid of the software defined radio SystemVue design software. The standard multi input multi output (MIMO) wireless local area network (WLAN) IEEE802.11n communication system is chosen as the victim system. Its BER performance is simulated in the presence of the proposed jamming signal in multipath fading channel. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed jamming signal on the MIMO WLAN IEEE802.11n communication system is practically measured in the laboratory where a practical experiment is held and the efficiency of the proposed jamming signal is compared with the traditional single tone jamming signal. It will be shown practically that the proposed jamming technique outperforms the traditional single tone jamming signal by nearly 15 dBm on the impact of efficiently jam the MIMO WLAN IEEE802.11n communication system.

     

Low-power CMOS distributed amplifier using new cascade gain cell for high and low gain modes

A CMOS distributed amplifier (DA) with low-power and flat and high power gain (S₂₁) is presented. In order to decrease noise figure (NF) an RL terminating network used for the gate transmission line instead of single resistance. Besides, a flat and high S₂₁ is achieved by using the proposed cascade gain cell consist of a cascode-stage with bandwidth extension capacitor. In the high-gain mode, under operation condition of V _dd  = 1.2 V and the overall current consumption of 7.8 mA, simulation result shown that the DA consumed 9.4 mW and achieved a flat and high S₂₁ of 20.5 ± 0.5 dB with an average NF of 6.5 dB over the 11 GHz band of interest, one of the best reported flat gain performances for a CMOS UWB DA. In the low-gain mode, the DA achieved average S₂₁ of 15.5 ± 0.25 dB and an average NF of 6.6 dB with low power consumption (P_DC) of 3.6 mW, the lowest P_DC ever reported for a CMOS DA or LNA with an average gain better than 10 dB.     

A design and implementation of fully programmable switched-currentIIR filters

An approach to switched-current filter design based on digital multiply-accumulator and delay blocks is presented. The characteristics of the filter are made fully programmable by simply changing the ratios of the coefficient transistors. To reduce the effect of switch charge injection and channel-length modulation, a high-performance, single-ended differential, switched-current memory cell is developed and used as a basic building block. To reduce the chip area and to maintain the required accuracy of the coefficients, an array consisting of three different sizes of transistors is designed instead of using a unit transistor array as coefficient transistors. An experimental prototype infinite impulse response filter array consisting of six second-order switched-current sections is designed and fabricated with a standard 1.2-μ CMOS process technology. A hard-wiring technique is used to program the filters. The test results show that the characteristics of the filters satisfy the design requirements     

Broad-band SiGe MMICs for phased-array radar applications

This paper reports the performances of several broad-band monolithic SiGe monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) suitable for phased-array radar applications. The amplitude and phase control MMIC designs are based on an optimized SiGe p-i-n diode offered by the IBM 5HP SiGe foundry process. Utilizing this diode, several control circuitries including a broad-band (1-20-GHz) monolithic single-pole double-throw switch, a five-port transfer switch, a 6-bit phase shifter, and a 5-bit attenuator, all operating over 7-11 GHz, are designed. Also, the design and performance of an SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor variable-gain cascode amplifier that combines the functionality of an amplifier and an attenuator into one MMIC is described.     

A low-overhead and reliable switch architecture for Network-on-Chips

This paper proposes and evaluates Low-overhead, Reliable Switch (LRS) architecture to enhance the reliability of Network-on-Chips (NoCs). The proposed switch architecture exploits information and hardware redundancies to eliminate retransmission of faulty flits. The LRS architecture creates a redundant copy of each newly received flit and stores the redundant flit in a duplicated flit buffer that is associated with the incoming channel of the flit. Flit buffers in the LRS are equipped with information redundancy to detect probable bit flip errors. When an error is detected in a flit buffer, its duplicated buffer is used to recover the correct value of the flit. In this way, the propagation of the erroneous flits in NoC is prevented without any need to credit signals and, retransmission buffers. Using an HDL-based NoC simulator, the LRS is compared to two other widely used reliability enhancement methods: the Switch-to-Switch (S2S) and the End-to-End (E2E) methods. The simulation results show that the LRS consumes less power and provides higher performance compared to those of the E2E and S2S methods. More importantly, unlike the E2E and the S2S methods, the LRS has constant overheads, which makes it applicable in all working conditions. To validate the comparison, an analytical performance and reliability model is developed for the LRS, S2S and E2E methods. The results of the model match those obtained from the simulations while the proposed model is significantly faster.     

Second harmonic generation from LB superlattices containing two active components

Second harmonic generation has been observed from Langmuir-Blodgett multilayer arrays containing two active components. Both materials were based on long chain donor-acceptor dye compounds, but were designed with the donor-acceptor groups in opposite senses with respect to the hydrocarbon chain. Preliminary results indicate a significant enhancement of the second-order polarisability for this type of supermolecular array.