Burst-by-Burst Adaptive Decision Feedback Equalised TCM, TTCM and BICM for H.263-Assisted Wireless Video Telephony

Decision Feedback Equaliser (DFE) aided wideband Burst-by-Burst (BbB) Adaptive Trellis Coded Modulation (TCM), Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation (TTCM) and Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) assisted H.263-based video transceivers are proposed and characterised in performance terms when communicating over the COST 207 Typical Urban wideband fading channel. Specifically, four different modulation modes, namely 4QAM, 8PSK, 16QAM and 64QAM are invoked and protected by the above-mentioned coded modulation schemes. The TTCM assisted scheme was found to provide the best video performance, although at the cost of the highest complexity. A range of lower-complexity arrangements will also be characterised. Finally, in order to confirm these findings in an important practical environment, we have also investigated the adaptive TTCM scheme in the CDMA-based Universal Mobile Telecommunications System's (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) scenario and the good performance of adaptive TTCM scheme recorded when communicating over the COST 207 channels was retained in the UTRA environment

Enabling Micro-level Demand-Side Grid Flexiblity in Resource Constrained Environments

The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presents various resource and operational electric grid challenges. Micro-level (household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be a cost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solar energy, but literature and field deployments exploring the necessary information and communication technologies (ICTs) are scant. This paper presents an exploratory framework for enabling information driven grid flexibility through the Internet of Things (IoT), and a proof-of-concept wireless sensor gateway (FlexBox) to collect the necessary parameters for adequately monitoring and actuating the micro-level demand-side. In the summer of 2015, thirty sensor gateways were deployed in the city of Managua (Nicaragua) to develop a baseline for a near future small-scale demand response pilot implementation. FlexBox field data has begun shedding light on relationships between ambient temperature and load energy consumption, load and building envelope energy efficiency challenges, latency communication network challenges, and opportunities to engage existing demand-side user behavioral patterns. Information driven grid flexibility strategies present great opportunity to develop new technologies, system architectures, and implementation approaches that can easily scale across regions, incomes, and levels of development

Post-peak ICT: graceful degradation for communication networks in an energy constrained future

In recent years, rising energy prices and increasing environmental concerns have boosted research in the so called green ICT and green networking research tracks, aimed at improving the energy efficiency of communications while still offering maximal functionality. In this article we explore a future scenario in which low power networking is no longer optional, but instead becomes a necessity due to fluctuating energy availability. The contribution of this work is twofold. First, we argue why a so called post-peak future scenario, in which we can no longer rely on fossil fuels as our main resource for electricity production, is not unlikely, and what it might entail. Second, we explore the consequences of such a scenario for ICT: How well can current and future infrastructures cope with temporary energy limitations? As an illustration, we present a case study showing the impact of reduced energy availability on a wireless access network

Space Shuttle/TDRSS communication and tracking systems analysis

In order to evaluate the technical and operational problem areas and provide a recommendation, the enhancements to the Tracking and Data Delay Satellite System (TDRSS) and Shuttle must be evaluated through simulation and analysis. These enhancement techniques must first be characterized, then modeled mathematically, and finally updated into LinCsim (analytical simulation package). The LinCsim package can then be used as an evaluation tool. Three areas of potential enhancements were identified: shuttle payload accommodations, TDRSS SSA and KSA services, and shuttle tracking system and navigation sensors. Recommendations for each area were discussed

What did the Romans ever do for us? ‘Next generation’ networks and hybrid learning resources

Networked learning is fundamentally concerned with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to link people to people and resources, to support the process of learning. This paper explores some current and forthcoming changes in ICT and some potential implications of these developments for networked learning. Whilst we aim to avoid taking a technologically determinist stance, we explore the potential for future practice and how some educational and pedagogic practices are evolving to exploit and shape the digital environment. We argue that we can change both the ways in which connections between people (learners and other learners; learners and tutors) are made and the nature of the resources that learning communities (particularly distributed communities) can engage with. In doing this we draw on two strands of work. Firstly, we draw on the ‘IBZL Education’ a UK Open University initiative to develop new scholarship in the context of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) through which educators are encouraged to think about technological change in the next five to ten years and ways in which we can intervene and shape these developments. We use problem-based learning as an example of a learning experience that can be difficult to implement in a networked learning environment. IBZL identified two broad strands of significant technological development. 'Superfast' broadband networks that are capable of supporting novel applications are being rolled in the UK (and elsewhere). Also, boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are becoming blurred as in the ‘internet of things’ where, for example, RFID tags enable information about the real world to be brought into the virtual one. We use the term ‘artefact’ to describe designed components, whether entirely digital, such as a computer forum, or material, such as a tablet PC. Networked ‘hybrid’ technologies of virtual and material components have may great potential for use in education. Secondly, we illustrate how these changes may be beginning to happen in distance education using the example of TU100 My Digital Life, a new introductory Open University. . TU100 Students use an electronics board in their own homes to work on a programming problem in collaboration other students through a tutor-led tutorial in a web conferencing system. We also note some of the evident complexity that establishing such resources as part of wider infrastructures of networked learning would be likely to involve