Free-Space Optical Communications for Next-generation Military Networks

There is a continuing need for increased capacity for military applications, especially in network-centric operational concepts that promote the use of information as fundamental for gaining superiority on the battlefield. As an example, the access to, and distribution of, sensor data is a major tenet of network-centric warfare and yet radio frequency (RF) links will struggle to provide the needed capacity. Free-space optical communications (FSOC) has the potential to meet these emerging military needs by offering dramatic increases in capacity. However, there are many technical challenges al multiple layers of the communications protocol stack. This article describes these challenges and discusses some mitigation approaches to provide a path to realizing this capability on the battlefield     

A Perspective Review of Security Challenges in Body Area Networks for Healthcare Applications

International Journal of Wireless Information Networks - Body area network (BAN) connects sensors and actuators to the human body in order to collect patient’s information and transmitting it...     

Bioactivity and emerging role of short and medium chain fatty acids

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and insulin resistance are directly linked to overweight and obesity. Thus, any dietary strategy capable of causing weight reduction will lower CVD and diabetes risk. Oils rich in medium‐chain saturated fatty acids (MCFA) are among several dietary components that may have potential in the treatment of obesity. MCFA are less energy dense and highly ketogenic compared to long‐chain saturated and unsaturated fatty acids (LCFA). MCFA also differ from LCFA in their digestive and metabolic pathways, since they are easily oxidized and utilized as energy, with little tendency to deposit as body fat. The dietary intake of short (SCFA) and medium‐chain saturated fatty acids from natural food sources is approximately 2.4 g/day and accounts for about 9% of the total saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake. Although early clinical studies with high levels of MCFA resulted in increased levels of plasma triacylglycerols (TAG) and low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C), and reduced levels of high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C) compared to diets enriched in unsaturated LCFA, these adverse effects have not been observed in more recent studies with smaller more realistic amounts of MCFA. The lower caloric value of SCFA and MCFA and their unique metabolic features form the basis for their clinical use in enteral and parenteral nutrition and for novel reduced calorie lipids for use in conventional food products.     

Effect of Time Diversity on the Forward Link of the DS-CDMA Cellular System

A direct-sequences code division multiple access system has been accepted as a digital cellular standard (IS–95) in North America [1]. This digital cellular standard employs a powerful rate 1/2, constraint length 9, convolutional code in its forward link. It is well-known that in a Rayleigh fading channel the performance of a channel code depends very heavily on the interleaving depth and the relative variations of the channel characteristics. In slow fading channels, since the input symbols to the channel decoder are highly correlated, the bit-error-rate at the output of the channel decoder may be unacceptably high. Interleavers of large dimensions can reduce the correlation of the input signal to the channel decoder at the expense of an intolerable delay. In this paper we examine the performance of the IS–95 system, at the mobile receiver, for different channel fade rates. Also, we present a simple time diversity technique which employs multiple receive antennas. The multiple receive antennas in this case generate a fast fading effect and thus improves the performance of the channel decoder significantly.     

Accumulative-DSIF strategy for enhancing process capabilities in incremental forming

This work proposes a novel Accumulative Double Sided Incremental Forming (ADSIF) strategy in which the forming begins at the location of the deepest feature and gradually shapes up the features by taking advantage of rigid-body motions. Compared to the conventional toolpath used in DSIF and SPIF, this strategy can dramatically improve geometric accuracy, increase formability, form components with desired thickness and create complex components. Furthermore, an examination of the forming forces shows that the dominant forces using this strategy are in the plane of the sheet resulting in a significant improvement in geometric accuracy.     

Sign algorithms for blind equalization and their convergence analysis

In blind equalization a communication channel is adaptively equalized without resorting to the usual training sequence. In this paper we have introduced two new algorithms for blind equalization, which hard limit the equalizer input or the error at the output of the equalizer. These new algorithms are simple to implement and reduce the number of multiplications by approximately one-half. We show by way of simulations that the performance of the algorithm resulting from hardlimiting the error is comparable with the performance of the corresponding algorithm in which the error is not hardlimited. We formulate the new sign-error algorithm as a stochastic minimization of an error functional and demonstrate that the case of zero intersymbol interference corresponds to local minima of this error functional. We also present convergence analysis to predict the output mean square error in both these sign algorithms. Since the algorithms are highly nonlinear we incorporate several simplifying approximations and provide heuristic justifications for the validity of these approximations when the algorithms are operated in a typical practical environment. Computer simulations demonstrate the accuracy of the predicted convergence behavior.This research was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under Contract N00014-89-J-1538.     

Mobility Management UAV-based Grouping routing protocol in flying ad hoc networks for biomedical applications

Wireless body area networks play a vital role in the medical field by saving human lives. It senses the human body condition and transmits it to the respective doctors. The faster the communication, the sensed data can be transmitted faster and the patients in emergency can be treated on time. Therefore, to increase the speed of communication, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are used in biomedical applications. In this flying ad hoc network, there is a possibility of link failure due to the high mobility of UAV. To overcome this issue, a new routing protocol, Mobility Management UAV-based Grouping (MMUG), for biomedical data transmission from one ground station to another via UAV is suggested in this research. The UAV creates the grouping system based on the coverage range of the group head. Group head selects the node that lies closer to the ground station. Group head continuously monitors the mobility of the unmanned aerial vehicles that lie in the coverage range and thus helps to maintain the link stability. The mobility issue will be overcome by using this proposed scheme, and it manages the mobility. The mobility management helps to increase the network performance by increasing the delivery rate and throughput and reducing the drop rate and overhead. Simulation results show that this routing protocol achieves 86% delivery rate and 1.95 Mbps throughput and reduces the drop rate by 14%, control overhead by 23%, and routing overhead by 20%. Moreover, this model achieves higher network performance compared to the existing techniques.