949 research outputs found
Artefact reduction in photoplethysmography
The use of optical techniques in biomedical monitoring and diagnosis is becoming
increasingly widespread, primarily because of the non-invasive nature of optically
derived measurements. Physiological analysis is usually achieved by characterisation
of the spectral or temporal properties of the interaction between light and the
anatomy. Although some optical measurements require complex instrumentation and
protocols, recent technological advances have resulted in robust and compact
equipment that is now used routinely in a multitude of clinical contexts.
Unfortunately, these measurements are inherently sensitive to corruption from
dynamic physical conditions or external sources of light, inducing signal artefact.
Artefact is the primary restriction in the applicability of many optical measurements,
especially for ambulatory monitoring and tele-medicine.
The most widely used optical measurement is photoplethysmography, a technique
that registers dynamic changes in blood volume throughout the peripheral vasculature
and can be used to screen for a number of venous disorders, as well as monitoring the
cardio-vascular pulse wave. Although photoplethysmographic devices are now
incorporated into many patient-monitoring systems, the prevalent application is a
measurement known as pulse oximetry, which utilises spectral analysis of the
peripheral blood to estimate the arterial haernoglobin oxygen saturation. Pulse
oximetry is well established as an early warning for hypoxia and is now mandatory
under anaesthesia in many countries. The problem of artefact is prominent in these
continuous monitoring techniques, where it is often impossible to control the physical
conditions during use.
This thesis investigates the possibility of reducing artefact corruption of
photoplethysmographic signals in real time, using an electronic processing
methodology that is based upon inversion of a physical artefact model. The
consequences of this non-linear artefact reduction technique for subsequent signal
analysis are discussed, culminating in a modified formulation for pulse oximetry that
not only has reduced sensitivity to artefact but also possesses increased generality.
The design and construction of a practical electronic system is then used to explore
both the implementation issues and the scope of this technique. The performance of
artefact reduction obtained is then quantified under realistic experimental conditions,
demonstrating that this methodology is successful in removing or reducing a large
proportion of artefact encountered in clinically relevant situations.
It is concluded that non-linear artefact reduction can be applied to any
photoplethysmographic technology, reducing interpretation inaccuracies that would
otherwise be induced by signal artefact. It is also speculated that this technology
could enable the use of photoplethysmographic systems in applications that are
currently precluded by the inherent severity of artefact
Design, analysis and evaluation of sigma-delta based beamformers for medical ultrasound imaging applications
The inherent analogue nature of medical ultrasound signals in conjunction with the abundant merits provided by digital image acquisition, together with the increasing use of relatively simple front-end circuitries, have created considerable demand for single-bit beamformers in digital ultrasound imaging systems. Furthermore, the increasing need to design lightweight ultrasound systems with low power consumption and low noise, provide ample justification for development and innovation in the use of single-bit beamformers in ultrasound imaging systems. The overall aim of this research program is to investigate, establish, develop and confirm through a combination of theoretical analysis and detailed simulations, that utilize raw phantom data sets, suitable techniques for the design of simple-to-implement hardware efficient digital ultrasound beamformers to address the requirements for 3D scanners with large channel counts, as well as portable and lightweight ultrasound scanners for point-of-care applications and intravascular imaging systems.
In addition, the stability boundaries of higher-order High-Pass (HP) and Band-Pass (BP) ÎŁâÎ modulators for single- and dual- sinusoidal inputs are determined using quasi-linear modeling together with the describing-function method, to more accurately model the modulator quantizer. The theoretical results are shown to be in good agreement with the simulation results for a variety of input amplitudes, bandwidths, and modulator orders. The proposed mathematical models of the quantizer will immensely help speed up the design of higher order HP and BP ÎŁâÎ modulators to be applicable for digital ultrasound beamformers.
Finally, a user friendly design and performance evaluation tool for LP, BP and HP modulators is developed. This toolbox, which uses various design methodologies and covers an assortment of modulators topologies, is intended to accelerate the design process and evaluation of modulators. This design tool is further developed to enable the design, analysis and evaluation of beamformer structures including the noise analyses of the final B-scan images. Thus, this tool will allow researchers and practitioners to design and verify different reconstruction filters and analyze the results directly on the B-scan ultrasound images thereby saving considerable time and effort
CMOS SPAD-based image sensor for single photon counting and time of flight imaging
The facility to capture the arrival of a single photon, is the fundamental limit to the detection of quantised
electromagnetic radiation. An image sensor capable of capturing a picture with this ultimate optical and
temporal precision is the pinnacle of photo-sensing. The creation of high spatial resolution, single photon
sensitive, and time-resolved image sensors in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology
offers numerous benefits in a wide field of applications. These CMOS devices will be suitable to replace high
sensitivity charge-coupled device (CCD) technology (electron-multiplied or electron bombarded) with
significantly lower cost and comparable performance in low light or high speed scenarios. For example, with
temporal resolution in the order of nano and picoseconds, detailed three-dimensional (3D) pictures can be
formed by measuring the time of flight (TOF) of a light pulse. High frame rate imaging of single photons can
yield new capabilities in super-resolution microscopy. Also, the imaging of quantum effects such as the
entanglement of photons may be realised.
The goal of this research project is the development of such an image sensor by exploiting single photon
avalanche diodes (SPAD) in advanced imaging-specific 130nm front side illuminated (FSI) CMOS technology.
SPADs have three key combined advantages over other imaging technologies: single photon sensitivity,
picosecond temporal resolution and the facility to be integrated in standard CMOS technology. Analogue
techniques are employed to create an efficient and compact imager that is scalable to mega-pixel arrays. A
SPAD-based image sensor is described with 320 by 240 pixels at a pitch of 8ÎŒm and an optical efficiency or
fill-factor of 26.8%. Each pixel comprises a SPAD with a hybrid analogue counting and memory circuit that
makes novel use of a low-power charge transfer amplifier. Global shutter single photon counting images are
captured. These exhibit photon shot noise limited statistics with unprecedented low input-referred noise at an
equivalent of 0.06 electrons.
The CMOS image sensor (CIS) trends of shrinking pixels, increasing array sizes, decreasing read noise, fast
readout and oversampled image formation are projected towards the formation of binary single photon imagers
or quanta image sensors (QIS). In a binary digital image capture mode, the image sensor offers a look-ahead to
the properties and performance of future QISs with 20,000 binary frames per second readout with a bit error
rate of 1.7 x 10-3. The bit density, or cumulative binary intensity, against exposure performance of this image
sensor is in the shape of the famous Hurter and Driffield densitometry curves of photographic film.
Oversampled time-gated binary image capture is demonstrated, capturing 3D TOF images with 3.8cm
precision in a 60cm range
Timing Signals and Radio Frequency Distribution Using Ethernet Networks for High Energy Physics Applications
Timing networks are used around the world in various applications from telecommunications systems to industrial processes, and from radio astronomy to high energy physics. Most timing networks are implemented using proprietary technologies at high operation and maintenance costs. This thesis presents a novel timing network capable of distributed timing with subnanosecond accuracy. The network, developed at CERN and codenamed âWhite- Rabbitâ, uses a non-dedicated Ethernet link to distribute timing and data packets without infringing the sub-nanosecond timing accuracy required for high energy physics applications. The first part of this thesis proposes a new digital circuit capable of measuring time differences between two digital clock signals with sub-picosecond time resolution. The proposed digital circuit measures and compensates for the phase variations between the transmitted and received network clocks required to achieve the sub-nanosecond timing accuracy. Circuit design, implementation and performance verification are reported. The second part of this thesis investigates and proposes a new method to distribute radio frequency (RF) signals over Ethernet networks. The main goal of existing distributed RF schemes, such as Radio-Over-Fibre or Digitised Radio-Over-Fibre, is to increase the bandwidth capacity taking advantage of the higher performance of digital optical links. These schemes tend to employ dedicated and costly technologies, deemed unnecessary for applications with lower bandwidth requirements. This work proposes the distribution of RF signals over the âWhite-Rabbitâ network, to convey phase and frequency information from a reference base node to a large numbers of remote nodes, thus achieving high performance and cost reduction of the timing network. Hence, this thesis reports the design and implementation of a new distributed RF system architecture; analysed and tested using a purpose-built simulation environment, with results used to optimise a new bespoke FPGA implementation. The performance is evaluated through phase-noise spectra, the Allan-Variance, and signalto- noise ratio measurements of the distributed signals
Dirty RF Signal Processing for Mitigation of Receiver Front-end Non-linearity
ï»żModerne drahtlose Kommunikationssysteme stellen hohe und teilweise
gegensÀtzliche Anforderungen an die Hardware der Funkmodule, wie z.B.
niedriger Energieverbrauch, groĂe Bandbreite und hohe LinearitĂ€t. Die
GewÀhrleistung einer ausreichenden LinearitÀt ist, neben anderen analogen
Parametern, eine Herausforderung im praktischen Design der Funkmodule. Der
Fokus der Dissertation liegt auf breitbandigen HF-Frontends fĂŒr
Software-konfigurierbare Funkmodule, die seit einigen Jahren kommerziell
verfĂŒgbar sind. Die praktischen Herausforderungen und Grenzen solcher
flexiblen Funkmodule offenbaren sich vor allem im realen Experiment. Eines
der Hauptprobleme ist die Sicherstellung einer ausreichenden analogen
Performanz ĂŒber einen weiten Frequenzbereich. Aus einer Vielzahl an
analogen Störeffekten behandelt die Arbeit die Analyse und Minderung von
NichtlinearitÀten in EmpfÀngern mit direkt-umsetzender Architektur. Im
Vordergrund stehen dabei Signalverarbeitungsstrategien zur Minderung
nichtlinear verursachter Interferenz - ein Algorithmus, der besser unter
"Dirty RF"-Techniken bekannt ist. Ein digitales Verfahren nach der
VorwÀrtskopplung wird durch intensive Simulationen, Messungen und
Implementierung in realer Hardware verifiziert. Um die LĂŒcken zwischen
Theorie und praktischer Anwendbarkeit zu schlieĂen und das Verfahren in
reale Funkmodule zu integrieren, werden verschiedene Untersuchungen
durchgefĂŒhrt. Hierzu wird ein erweitertes Verhaltensmodell entwickelt, das
die Struktur direkt-umsetzender EmpfÀnger am besten nachbildet und damit
alle Verzerrungen im HF- und Basisband erfasst. DarĂŒber hinaus wird die
LeistungsfÀhigkeit des Algorithmus unter realen Funkkanal-Bedingungen
untersucht. ZusÀtzlich folgt die Vorstellung einer ressourceneffizienten
Echtzeit-Implementierung des Verfahrens auf einem FPGA. AbschlieĂend
diskutiert die Arbeit verschiedene Anwendungsfelder, darunter spektrales
Sensing, robuster GSM-Empfang und GSM-basiertes Passivradar. Es wird
gezeigt, dass nichtlineare Verzerrungen erfolgreich in der digitalen
DomÀne gemindert werden können, wodurch die Bitfehlerrate gestörter
modulierter Signale sinkt und der Anteil nichtlinear verursachter
Interferenz minimiert wird. SchlieĂlich kann durch das Verfahren die
effektive LinearitÀt des HF-Frontends stark erhöht werden. Damit wird der
zuverlÀssige Betrieb eines einfachen Funkmoduls unter dem Einfluss der
EmpfÀngernichtlinearitÀt möglich. Aufgrund des flexiblen Designs ist der
Algorithmus fĂŒr breitbandige EmpfĂ€nger universal einsetzbar und ist nicht
auf Software-konfigurierbare Funkmodule beschrÀnkt.Today's wireless communication systems place high requirements on the
radio's hardware that are largely mutually exclusive, such as low power
consumption, wide bandwidth, and high linearity. Achieving a sufficient
linearity, among other analogue characteristics, is a challenging issue in
practical transceiver design. The focus of this thesis is on wideband
receiver RF front-ends for software defined radio technology, which became
commercially available in the recent years. Practical challenges and
limitations are being revealed in real-world experiments with these radios.
One of the main problems is to ensure a sufficient RF performance of the
front-end over a wide bandwidth. The thesis covers the analysis and
mitigation of receiver non-linearity of typical direct-conversion receiver
architectures, among other RF impairments. The main focus is on DSP-based
algorithms for mitigating non-linearly induced interference, an approach
also known as "Dirty RF" signal processing techniques. The conceived
digital feedforward mitigation algorithm is verified through extensive
simulations, RF measurements, and implementation in real hardware. Various
studies are carried out that bridge the gap between theory and practical
applicability of this approach, especially with the aim of integrating that
technique into real devices. To this end, an advanced baseband behavioural
model is developed that matches to direct-conversion receiver architectures
as close as possible, and thus considers all generated distortions at RF
and baseband. In addition, the algorithm's performance is verified under
challenging fading conditions. Moreover, the thesis presents a
resource-efficient real-time implementation of the proposed solution on an
FPGA. Finally, different use cases are covered in the thesis that includes
spectrum monitoring or sensing, GSM downlink reception, and GSM-based
passive radar. It is shown that non-linear distortions can be successfully
mitigated at system level in the digital domain, thereby decreasing the bit
error rate of distorted modulated signals and reducing the amount of
non-linearly induced interference. Finally, the effective linearity of the
front-end is increased substantially. Thus, the proper operation of a
low-cost radio under presence of receiver non-linearity is possible. Due to
the flexible design, the algorithm is generally applicable for wideband
receivers and is not restricted to software defined radios
Removing non-stationary noise in spectrum sensing using matrix factorization
Spectrum sensing is key to many applications like dynamicspectrum access (DSA) systems or telecom regulators who need to measure utilization of frequency bands. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommends a 10 dB threshold above the noise to decide whether a channel is occupied or not. However, radio frequency (RF) receiver front-ends are non-ideal. This means that the obtained data is distorted with noise and imperfections from the analog front-end. As part of the front-end the automatic gain control (AGC) circuitry mainly affects the sensing performance as strong adjacent signals lift the noise level. To enhance the performance of spectrum sensing significantly we focus in this article on techniques to remove the noise caused by the AGC from the sensing data. In order to do this we have applied matrix factorization techniques, i.e., SVD (singular value decomposition) and NMF (non-negative matrix factorization), which enables signal space analysis. In addition, we use live measurement results to verify the performance and to remove the effects of the AGC from the sensing data using above mentioned techniques, i.e., applied on block-wise available spectrum data. In this article it is shown that the occupancy in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band, obtained by using energy detection (ITU recommended threshold), can be an overestimation of spectrum usage by 60%
The design of micro-processors for digital protection of power systems
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