1,452 research outputs found
Application-Specific Number Representation
Reconfigurable devices, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), enable application-
specific number representations. Well-known number formats include fixed-point, floating-
point, logarithmic number system (LNS), and residue number system (RNS). Such different
number representations lead to different arithmetic designs and error behaviours, thus produc-
ing implementations with different performance, accuracy, and cost.
To investigate the design options in number representations, the first part of this thesis presents
a platform that enables automated exploration of the number representation design space. The
second part of the thesis shows case studies that optimise the designs for area, latency or
throughput from the perspective of number representations.
Automated design space exploration in the first part addresses the following two major issues:
² Automation requires arithmetic unit generation. This thesis provides optimised
arithmetic library generators for logarithmic and residue arithmetic units, which support
a wide range of bit widths and achieve significant improvement over previous designs.
² Generation of arithmetic units requires specifying the bit widths for each
variable. This thesis describes an automatic bit-width optimisation tool called R-Tool,
which combines dynamic and static analysis methods, and supports different number
systems (fixed-point, floating-point, and LNS numbers).
Putting it all together, the second part explores the effects of application-specific number
representation on practical benchmarks, such as radiative Monte Carlo simulation, and seismic
imaging computations. Experimental results show that customising the number representations
brings benefits to hardware implementations: by selecting a more appropriate number format,
we can reduce the area cost by up to 73.5% and improve the throughput by 14.2% to 34.1%; by
performing the bit-width optimisation, we can further reduce the area cost by 9.7% to 17.3%.
On the performance side, hardware implementations with customised number formats achieve
5 to potentially over 40 times speedup over software implementations
Fermi LAT and the Observation of Flares in Extragalactic Sources
English
The directional coincidence, within 6 arcminutes, between the neutrino detected by IceCube and an extragalactic source with increased activity, observed at GeV energies by the LAT detector on board the Fermi spacecraft, requires an in-depth study of the direction and time distribution of gamma-ray active sources, in order to understand what the probability of a random coincidence could be. In this thesis, we aim to prepare a catalog of «flares» (intense and sudden increases in luminosity) of some sources detected by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi spacecraft. The catalog should indeed become the basis to understand what the probability to have a directional coincidence with high-energy neutrinos would be, with important consequences on acceleration models powering active galactic nuclei
Otimização do fronthaul ótico para redes de acesso de rádio (baseadas) em computação em nuvem (CC-RANs)
Doutoramento conjunto (MAP-Tele) em Engenharia Eletrotécnica/TelecomunicaçõesA proliferação de diversos tipos de dispositivos moveis, aplicações e serviços
com grande necessidade de largura de banda têm contribuído para o aumento
de ligações de banda larga e ao aumento do volume de trafego das
redes de telecomunicações moveis. Este aumento exponencial tem posto
uma enorme pressão nos mobile operadores de redes móveis (MNOs). Um
dos aspetos principais deste recente desenvolvimento, é a necessidade que as
redes têm de oferecer baixa complexidade nas ligações, como também baixo
consumo energético, muito baixa latência e ao mesmo tempo uma grande
capacidade por baixo usto. De maneira a resolver estas questões, os MNOs
têm focado a sua atenção na redes de acesso por rádio em nuvem (C-RAN)
principalmente devido aos seus benefícios em termos de otimização de performance
e relação qualidade preço. O standard para a distribuição de sinais
sem fios por um fronthaul C-RAN é o common public radio interface (CPRI).
No entanto, ligações óticas baseadas em interfaces CPRI necessitam de uma
grande largura de banda. Estes requerimentos podem também ser atingidos
com uma implementação em ligação free space optical (FSO) que é um sistema
ótico que usa comunicação sem fios. O FSO tem sido uma alternativa
muito apelativa aos sistemas de comunicação rádio (RF) pois combinam a
flexibilidade e mobilidade das redes RF ao mesmo tempo que permitem a
elevada largura de banda permitida pelo sistema ótico. No entanto, as ligações
FSO são suscetíveis a alterações atmosféricas que podem prejudicar
o desempenho do sistema de comunicação. Estas limitações têm evitado o
FSO de ser tornar uma excelente solução para o fronthaul. Uma caracterização
precisa do canal e tecnologias mais avançadas são então necessárias
para uma implementação pratica de ligações FSO. Nesta tese, vamos estudar
uma implementação eficiente para fronthaul baseada em tecnologia
á rádio-sobre-FSO (RoFSO). Propomos expressões em forma fechada para
mitigação das perdas de propagação e para a estimação da capacidade do
canal de maneira a aliviar a complexidade do sistema de comunicação. Simulações
numéricas são também apresentadas para formatos de modulação
adaptativas. São também considerados esquemas como um sistema hibrido
RF/FSO e tecnologias de transmissão apoiadas por retransmissores
que ajudam a alivar os requerimentos impostos por um backhaul/fronthaul
de C-RAN. Os modelos propostos não só reduzem o esforço computacional,
como também têm outros méritos, tais como, uma elevada precisão na estimação
do canal e desempenho, baixo requisitos na capacidade de memória
e uma rápida e estável operação comparativamente com o estado da arte
em sistemas analíticos (PON)-FSO. Este sistema é implementado num recetor
em tempo real que é emulado através de uma field-programmable gate
array (FPGA) comercial. Permitindo assim um sistema aberto, interoperabilidade,
portabilidade e também obedecer a standards de software aberto.
Os esquemas híbridos têm a habilidade de suportar diferentes aplicações,
serviços e múltiplos operadores a partilharem a mesma infraestrutura de
fibra ótica.The proliferation of different mobile devices, bandwidth-intensive applications
and services contribute to the increase in the broadband connections
and the volume of traffic on the mobile networks. This exponential growth
has put considerable pressure on the mobile network operators (MNOs). In
principal, there is a need for networks that not only offer low-complexity,
low-energy consumption, and extremely low-latency but also high-capacity
at relatively low cost. In order to address the demand, MNOs have given significant
attention to the cloud radio access network (C-RAN) due to its beneficial
features in terms of performance optimization and cost-effectiveness.
The de facto standard for distributing wireless signal over the C-RAN fronthaul
is the common public radio interface (CPRI). However, optical links
based on CPRI interfaces requires large bandwidth. Also, the aforementioned
requirements can be realized with the implementation of free space
optical (FSO) link, which is an optical wireless system. The FSO is an appealing
alternative to the radio frequency (RF) communication system that
combines the flexibility and mobility offered by the RF networks with the
high-data rates provided by the optical systems. However, the FSO links are
susceptible to atmospheric impairments which eventually hinder the system
performance. Consequently, these limitations prevent FSO from being an
efficient standalone fronthaul solution. So, precise channel characterizations
and advanced technologies are required for practical FSO link deployment
and operation. In this thesis, we study an efficient fronthaul implementation
that is based on radio-on-FSO (RoFSO) technologies. We propose closedform
expressions for fading-mitigation and for the estimation of channel
capacity so as to alleviate the system complexity. Numerical simulations
are presented for adaptive modulation scheme using advanced modulation
formats. We also consider schemes like hybrid RF/FSO and relay-assisted
transmission technologies that can help in alleviating the stringent requirements
by the C-RAN backhaul/fronthaul. The propose models not only
reduce the computational requirements/efforts, but also have a number of
diverse merits such as high-accuracy, low-memory requirements, fast and
stable operation compared to the current state-of-the-art analytical based
approaches. In addition to the FSO channel characterization, we present
a proof-of-concept experiment in which we study the transmission capabilities
of a hybrid passive optical network (PON)-FSO system. This is
implemented with the real-time receiver that is emulated by a commercial
field-programmable gate array (FPGA). This helps in facilitating an
open system and hence enables interoperability, portability, and open software
standards. The hybrid schemes have the ability to support different
applications, services, and multiple operators over a shared optical fiber
infrastructure
CABE : a cloud-based acoustic beamforming emulator for FPGA-based sound source localization
Microphone arrays are gaining in popularity thanks to the availability of low-cost microphones. Applications including sonar, binaural hearing aid devices, acoustic indoor localization techniques and speech recognition are proposed by several research groups and companies. In most of the available implementations, the microphones utilized are assumed to offer an ideal response in a given frequency domain. Several toolboxes and software can be used to obtain a theoretical response of a microphone array with a given beamforming algorithm. However, a tool facilitating the design of a microphone array taking into account the non-ideal characteristics could not be found. Moreover, generating packages facilitating the implementation on Field Programmable Gate Arrays has, to our knowledge, not been carried out yet. Visualizing the responses in 2D and 3D also poses an engineering challenge. To alleviate these shortcomings, a scalable Cloud-based Acoustic Beamforming Emulator (CABE) is proposed. The non-ideal characteristics of microphones are considered during the computations and results are validated with acoustic data captured from microphones. It is also possible to generate hardware description language packages containing delay tables facilitating the implementation of Delay-and-Sum beamformers in embedded hardware. Truncation error analysis can also be carried out for fixed-point signal processing. The effects of disabling a given group of microphones within the microphone array can also be calculated. Results and packages can be visualized with a dedicated client application. Users can create and configure several parameters of an emulation, including sound source placement, the shape of the microphone array and the required signal processing flow. Depending on the user configuration, 2D and 3D graphs showing the beamforming results, waterfall diagrams and performance metrics can be generated by the client application. The emulations are also validated with captured data from existing microphone arrays.</jats:p
Efficient modular arithmetic units for low power cryptographic applications
The demand for high security in energy constrained devices such as mobiles and PDAs is growing rapidly. This leads to the need for efficient design of cryptographic algorithms which offer data integrity, authentication, non-repudiation and confidentiality of the encrypted data and communication channels. The public key cryptography is an ideal choice for data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation whereas the private key cryptography ensures the confidentiality of the data transmitted. The latter has an extremely high encryption speed but it has certain limitations which make it unsuitable for use in certain applications. Numerous public key cryptographic algorithms are available in the literature which comprise modular arithmetic modules such as modular addition, multiplication, inversion and exponentiation. Recently, numerous cryptographic algorithms have been proposed based on modular arithmetic which are scalable, do word based operations and efficient in various aspects. The modular arithmetic modules play a crucial role in the overall performance of the cryptographic processor. Hence, better results can be obtained by designing efficient arithmetic modules such as modular addition, multiplication, exponentiation and squaring. This thesis is organized into three papers, describes the efficient implementation of modular arithmetic units, application of these modules in International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA). Second paper describes the IDEA algorithm implementation using the existing techniques and using the proposed efficient modular units. The third paper describes the fault tolerant design of a modular unit which has online self-checking capability --Abstract, page iv
Telecommunications Networks
This book guides readers through the basics of rapidly emerging networks to more advanced concepts and future expectations of Telecommunications Networks. It identifies and examines the most pressing research issues in Telecommunications and it contains chapters written by leading researchers, academics and industry professionals. Telecommunications Networks - Current Status and Future Trends covers surveys of recent publications that investigate key areas of interest such as: IMS, eTOM, 3G/4G, optimization problems, modeling, simulation, quality of service, etc. This book, that is suitable for both PhD and master students, is organized into six sections: New Generation Networks, Quality of Services, Sensor Networks, Telecommunications, Traffic Engineering and Routing
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