Modular Understanding: A Taxonomy and Toolkit for Designing Modularity in Audio Software and Hardware

Modular synthesis is a continually evolving practice. Currently, an eectivetaxonomy for analyzing modular synthesizer design does not exist, which isa signicant barrier for pedagogy and documentation. In this dissertation,I will dene new taxonomies for modular control, patching strategies, andpanel design. I will also analyze how these taxonomies can be used to in-uence the design of musical applications outside of hardware, such as mycompany Unltered Audio's software products. Finally, I will present EuroReakt, my collection of over 140 module designs for the Reaktor Blocks formatand walk through the design process of each

Phase-stable millimeter-wave generation using switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser

Dual-wavelength fiber lasers have become an attractive candidate for the last few years in the area of optical imaging, optical communication, optical sensing, microwave, and terahertz signal generation. It offers small size, inexpensive, and simple fabrication along with high scalability to the existing state-of-the-art microwave-photonics networks. In this paper, we demonstrate experimentally a switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser for the generation of the radio frequency signals in the millimeter band (up to -110 GHz). The fiber laser is based on a nonlinear polarization rotation ring-cavity consisting of erbium-doped fiber and a high birefringence fiber of 1 m and 10 m length, respectively. By proper adjustment of the laser cavity birefringence via controlling the polarization controllers in the laser cavity, the laser output spectrum can be tuned to attain a dual-wavelength spacing in the range of 0.1 nm–0.89 nm to generate flexible and stable millimeter waves with an adjustable span of 12.3 GHz to 110 GHz. The obtained results reveal the potential of the proposed laser to be used to realize different microwave-photonic systems/networks, for instance, 5G networks, internet of things, surveillance and monitoring, remote sensing, self-driving vehicles, photonics-based radar systems, meteorology and so on

Developing a flexible and expressive realtime polyphonic wave terrain synthesis instrument based on a visual and multidimensional methodology

The Jitter extended library for Max/MSP is distributed with a gamut of tools for the generation, processing, storage, and visual display of multidimensional data structures. With additional support for a wide range of media types, and the interaction between these mediums, the environment presents a perfect working ground for Wave Terrain Synthesis. This research details the practical development of a realtime Wave Terrain Synthesis instrument within the Max/MSP programming environment utilizing the Jitter extended library. Various graphical processing routines are explored in relation to their potential use for Wave Terrain Synthesis

Vector optical rogue waves in mode-locked fibre lasers

The project consists of an experimental characterisation of optical vector rogue wave (RW) events by using three different testbed fibre laser setups. The first testbed is a long cavity fibre laser (615 m). Here, we have demonstrated for the first time, a new type of vector resonance multimode instability that inherits some features of modulation and multimode instability. This instability leads to emerging different pulse laser regimes from longitudinal modes synchronization to different types of optical RW events. Using the same testbed fibre laser, we have also shown experimentally for the first time fibre twist-based chiral symmetry breaking. This leads to versatile laser dynamics tuneable from a periodic pulse similar mode-locked regime to chaotic oscillations which are revealed as a mechanism for the emergence of RW events. The observed optical RW events have been classified as fast optical RWs or slow optical RWs depending on the autocorrelation function of the experimental data. The classified optical RWs have been studied by collecting experimental data of a 19x19 grid of polarization positions through tuning both intra-cavity and pump polarization controllers. The second testbed is a passively mode-locked fibre laser. Using this system, the control, appearance and disappearance of the soliton rain flow were demonstrated for the first time using a low range of pump power. Harmonics soliton rain, soliton fission and soliton-soliton interactions leading to the emergence of optical RWs have also been demonstrated in this experiment at a different pump power and intra-cavity birefringence. High harmonic (902 MHz) mode-locked fibre laser based on acoustic-optic effect has been realized in the same laser experiment. In the third laser testbed experiment with, a stretched mode-locked fibre laser, vector bright-dark optical RWs were observed experimentally for the first time. These bright-dark RWs have formed in the laser cavity due to modulation instability at close pump power threshold or due to the polarization instability (incoherent coupling) at higher pump power

Neural dynamics of social behavior : An evolutionary and mechanistic perspective on communication, cooperation, and competition among situated agents

Social behavior can be found on almost every level of life, ranging from microorganisms to human societies. However, explaining the evolutionary emergence of cooperation, communication, or competition still challenges modern biology. The most common approaches to this problem are based on game-theoretic models. The problem is that these models often assume fixed and limited rules and actions that individual agents can choose from, which excludes the dynamical nature of the mechanisms that underlie the behavior of living systems. So far, there exists a lack of convincing modeling approaches to investigate the emergence of social behavior from a mechanistic and evolutionary perspective. Instead of studying animals, the methodology employed in this thesis combines several aspects from alternative approaches to study behavior in a rather novel way. Robotic models are considered as individual agents which are controlled by recurrent neural networks representing non-linear dynamical system. The topology and parameters of these networks are evolved following an open-ended evolution approach, that is, individuals are not evaluated on high-level goals or optimized for specific functions. Instead, agents compete for limited resources to enhance their chance of survival. Further, there is no restriction with respect to how individuals interact with their environment or with each other. As its main objective, this thesis aims at a complementary approach for studying not only the evolution, but also the mechanisms of basic forms of communication. For this purpose it can be shown that a robot does not necessarily have to be as complex as a human, not even as complex as a bacterium. The strength of this approach is that it deals with rather simple, yet complete and situated systems, facing similar real world problems as animals do, such as sensory noise or dynamically changing environments. The experimental part of this thesis is substantiated in a five-part examination. First, self-organized aggregation patterns are discussed. Second, the advantages of evolving decentralized control with respect to behavioral robustness and flexibility is demonstrated. Third, it is shown that only minimalistic local acoustic communication is required to coordinate the behavior of large groups. This is followed by investigations of the evolutionary emergence of communication. Finally, it is shown how already evolved communicative behavior changes during further evolution when a population is confronted with competition about limited environmental resources. All presented experiments entail thorough analysis of the dynamical mechanisms that underlie evolved communication systems, which has not been done so far in the context of cooperative behavior. This framework leads to a better understanding of the relation between intrinsic neurodynamics and observable agent-environment interactions. The results discussed here provide a new perspective on the evolution of cooperation because they deal with aspects largely neglected in traditional approaches, aspects such as embodiment, situatedness, and the dynamical nature of the mechanisms that underlie behavior. For the first time, it can be demonstrated how noise influences specific signaling strategies and that versatile dynamics of very small-scale neural networks embedded in sensory-motor feedback loops give rise to sophisticated forms of communication such as signal coordination, cooperative intraspecific communication, and, most intriguingly, aggressive interspecific signaling. Further, the results demonstrate the development of counteractive niche construction based on a modification of communication strategies which generates an evolutionary feedback resulting in an active reduction of selection pressure, which has not been shown so far. Thus, the novel findings presented here strongly support the complementary nature of robotic experiments to study the evolution and mechanisms of communication and cooperation.</p

Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems

From Preface: This is the fourteenth time when the conference “Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications” gathers a numerous group of outstanding scientists and engineers, who deal with widely understood problems of theoretical and applied dynamics. Organization of the conference would not have been possible without a great effort of the staff of the Department of Automation, Biomechanics and Mechatronics. The patronage over the conference has been taken by the Committee of Mechanics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland. It is a great pleasure that our invitation has been accepted by recording in the history of our conference number of people, including good colleagues and friends as well as a large group of researchers and scientists, who decided to participate in the conference for the first time. With proud and satisfaction we welcomed over 180 persons from 31 countries all over the world. They decided to share the results of their research and many years experiences in a discipline of dynamical systems by submitting many very interesting papers. This year, the DSTA Conference Proceedings were split into three volumes entitled “Dynamical Systems” with respective subtitles: Vibration, Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems; Mathematical and Numerical Aspects of Dynamical System Analysis and Engineering Dynamics and Life Sciences. Additionally, there will be also published two volumes of Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics entitled “Dynamical Systems in Theoretical Perspective” and “Dynamical Systems in Applications”

Symmetry in Chaotic Systems and Circuits

Symmetry can play an important role in the field of nonlinear systems and especially in the design of nonlinear circuits that produce chaos. Therefore, this Special Issue, titled “Symmetry in Chaotic Systems and Circuits”, presents the latest scientific advances in nonlinear chaotic systems and circuits that introduce various kinds of symmetries. Applications of chaotic systems and circuits with symmetries, or with a deliberate lack of symmetry, are also presented in this Special Issue. The volume contains 14 published papers from authors around the world. This reflects the high impact of this Special Issue

Hybrid DDS-PLL based reconfigurable oscillators with high spectral purity for cognitive radio

Analytical, design and simulation studies on the performance optimization of reconfigurable architecture of a Hybrid DDS – PLL are presented in this thesis. The original contributions of this thesis are aimed towards the DDS, the dithering (spur suppression) scheme and the PLL. A new design of Taylor series-based DDS that reduces the dynamic power and number of multipliers is a significant contribution of this thesis. This thesis compares dynamic power and SFDR achieved in the design of varieties of DDS such as Quartic, Cubic, Linear and LHSC. This thesis proposes two novel schemes namely “Hartley Image Suppression” and “Adaptive Sinusoidal Interference Cancellation” overcoming the low noise floor of traditional dithering schemes. The simulation studies on a Taylor series-based DDS reveal an improvement in SFDR from 74 dB to 114 dB by using Least Mean Squares -Sinusoidal Interference Canceller (LM-SIC) with the noise floor maintained at -200 dB. Analytical formulations have been developed for a second order PLL to relate the phase noise to settling time and Phase Margin (PM) as well as to relate jitter variance and PM. New expressions relating phase noise to PM and lock time to PM are derived. This thesis derives the analytical relationship between the roots of the characteristic equation of a third order PLL and its performance metrics like PM, Gardner’s stability factor, jitter variance, spur gain and ratio of noise power to carrier power. This thesis presents an analysis to relate spur gain and capacitance ratio of a third order PLL. This thesis presents an analytical relationship between the lock time and the roots of its characteristic equation of a third order PLL. Through Vieta’s circle and Vieta’s angle, the performance metrics of a third order PLL are related to the real roots of its characteristic equation