2008 Index IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Vol. 16

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

2009 Index IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters Vol. 8

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author\u27s name. The primary entry includes the coauthors\u27 names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author\u27s name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index

A General Framework for Analyzing, Characterizing, and Implementing Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded Signals

Fourth generation (4G) communications will support many capabilities while providing universal, high speed access. One potential enabler for these capabilities is software defined radio (SDR). When controlled by cognitive radio (CR) principles, the required waveform diversity is achieved via a synergistic union called CR-based SDR. Research is rapidly progressing in SDR hardware and software venues, but current CR-based SDR research lacks the theoretical foundation and analytic framework to permit efficient implementation. This limitation is addressed here by introducing a general framework for analyzing, characterizing, and implementing spectrally modulated, spectrally encoded (SMSE) signals within CR-based SDR architectures. Given orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a 4G candidate signal, OFDM-based signals are collectively classified as SMSE since modulation and encoding are spectrally applied. The proposed framework provides analytic commonality and unification of SMSE signals. Applicability is first shown for candidate 4G signals, and resultant analytic expressions agree with published results. Implementability is then demonstrated in multiple coexistence scenarios via modeling and simulation to reinforce practical utility

Operating System Based Perceptual Evaluation of Call Quality in Radio Telecommunications Networks. Development of call quality assessment at mobile terminals using the Symbian operating system, comparison with traditional approaches and proposals for a tariff regime relating call charging to perceived speech quality.

Call quality has been crucial from the inception of telecommunication networks. Operators need to monitor call quality from the end-user¿s perspective, in order to retain subscribers and reduce subscriber ¿churn¿. Operators worry not only about call quality and interconnect revenue loss, but also about network connectivity issues in areas where mobile network gateways are prevalent. Bandwidth quality as experienced by the end-user is equally important in helping operators to reduce churn. The parameters that network operators use to improve call quality are mainly from the end-user¿s perspective. These parameters are usually ASR (answer seizure ratio), PDD (postdial delay), NER (network efficiency ratio), the number of calls for which these parameters have been analyzed and successful calls. Operators use these parameters to evaluate and optimize the network to meet their quality requirements. Analysis of speech quality is a major arena for research. Traditionally, users¿ perception of speech quality has been measured offline using subjective listening tests. Such tests are, however, slow, tedious and costly. An alternative method is therefore needed; one that can be automatically computed on the subscriber¿s handset, be available to the operator as well as to subscribers and, at the same time, provide results that are comparable with conventional subjective scores. QMeter® ¿ a set of tools for signal and bandwidth measurement that have been developed bearing in mind all the parameters that influence call and bandwidth quality experienced by the end-user ¿ addresses these issues and, additionally, facilitates dynamic tariff propositions which enhance the credibility of the operator. This research focuses on call quality parameters from the end-user¿s perspective. The call parameters used in the research are signal strength, successful call rate, normal drop call rate, and hand-over drop rate. Signal strength is measured for every five milliseconds of an active call and average signal strength is calculated for each successful call. The successful call rate, normal drop rate and hand-over drop rate are used to achieve a measurement of the overall call quality. Call quality with respect to bundles of 10 calls is proposed. An attempt is made to visualize these parameters for better understanding of where the quality is bad, good and excellent. This will help operators, as well as user groups, to measure quality and coverage. Operators boast about their bandwidth but in reality, to know the locations where speed has to be improved, they need a tool that can effectively measure speed from the end-user¿s perspective. BM (bandwidth meter), a tool developed as a part of this research, measures the average speed of data sessions and stores the information for analysis at different locations. To address issues of quality in the subscriber segment, this research proposes the varying of tariffs based on call and bandwidth quality. Call charging based on call quality as perceived by the end-user is proposed, both to satisfy subscribers and help operators to improve customer satisfaction and increase average revenue per user. Tariff redemption procedures are put forward for bundles of 10 calls and 10 data sessions. In addition to the varying of tariffs, quality escalation processes are proposed. Deploying such tools on selected or random samples of users will result in substantial improvement in user loyalty which, in turn, will bring operational and economic advantages

Spatio-Temporal processing for Optimum Uplink-Downlink WCDMA Systems

The capacity of a cellular system is limited by two different phenomena, namely multipath fading and multiple access interference (MAl). A Two Dimensional (2-D) receiver combats both of these by processing the signal both in the spatial and temporal domain. An ideal 2-D receiver would perform joint space-time processing, but at the price of high computational complexity. In this research we investigate computationally simpler technique termed as a Beamfom1er-Rake. In a Beamformer-Rake, the output of a beamfom1er is fed into a succeeding temporal processor to take advantage of both the beamformer and Rake receiver. Wireless service providers throughout the world are working to introduce the third generation (3G) and beyond (3G) cellular service that will provide higher data rates and better spectral efficiency. Wideband COMA (WCDMA) has been widely accepted as one of the air interfaces for 3G. A Beamformer-Rake receiver can be an effective solution to provide the receivers enhanced capabilities needed to achieve the required performance of a WCDMA system. We consider three different Pilot Symbol Assisted (PSA) beamforming techniques, Direct Matrix Inversion (DMI), Least-Mean Square (LMS) and Recursive Least Square (RLS) adaptive algorithms. Geometrically Based Single Bounce (GBSB) statistical Circular channel model is considered, which is more suitable for array processing, and conductive to RAKE combining. The performances of the Beam former-Rake receiver are evaluated in this channel model as a function of the number of antenna elements and RAKE fingers, in which are evaluated for the uplink WCDMA system. It is shown that, the Beamformer-Rake receiver outperforms the conventional RAKE receiver and the conventional beamformer by a significant margin. Also, we optimize and develop a mathematical formulation for the output Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) of a Beam former-Rake receiver. In this research, also, we develop, simulate and evaluate the SINR and Signal to Noise Ratio (Et!Nol performances of an adaptive beamforming technique in the WCDMA system for downlink. The performance is then compared with an omnidirectional antenna system. Simulation shows that the best perfom1ance can be achieved when all the mobiles with same Angle-of-Arrival (AOA) and different distance from base station are formed in one beam

Towards Massive Machine Type Communications in Ultra-Dense Cellular IoT Networks: Current Issues and Machine Learning-Assisted Solutions

The ever-increasing number of resource-constrained Machine-Type Communication (MTC) devices is leading to the critical challenge of fulfilling diverse communication requirements in dynamic and ultra-dense wireless environments. Among different application scenarios that the upcoming 5G and beyond cellular networks are expected to support, such as eMBB, mMTC and URLLC, mMTC brings the unique technical challenge of supporting a huge number of MTC devices, which is the main focus of this paper. The related challenges include QoS provisioning, handling highly dynamic and sporadic MTC traffic, huge signalling overhead and Radio Access Network (RAN) congestion. In this regard, this paper aims to identify and analyze the involved technical issues, to review recent advances, to highlight potential solutions and to propose new research directions. First, starting with an overview of mMTC features and QoS provisioning issues, we present the key enablers for mMTC in cellular networks. Along with the highlights on the inefficiency of the legacy Random Access (RA) procedure in the mMTC scenario, we then present the key features and channel access mechanisms in the emerging cellular IoT standards, namely, LTE-M and NB-IoT. Subsequently, we present a framework for the performance analysis of transmission scheduling with the QoS support along with the issues involved in short data packet transmission. Next, we provide a detailed overview of the existing and emerging solutions towards addressing RAN congestion problem, and then identify potential advantages, challenges and use cases for the applications of emerging Machine Learning (ML) techniques in ultra-dense cellular networks. Out of several ML techniques, we focus on the application of low-complexity Q-learning approach in the mMTC scenarios. Finally, we discuss some open research challenges and promising future research directions.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables, submitted for a possible future publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Parallel task in Subjective Audio Quality and Speech Intelligibility Assessments

Tato disertační práce se zabývá subjektivním testováním jak kvality řeči, tak i srozumitelnosti řeči, prozkoumává existující metody, určuje jejich základní principy a podstaty a porovnává jejich výhody a nevýhody. Práce také porovnává testy z hlediska různých parametrů a poskytuje moderní řešení pro již existující metody testování. První část práce se zabývá opakovatelností subjektivních testování provedených v ideálních laboratorních podmínkách. Takové úlohy opakovatelnosti se provádí použitím Pearsonové korelace, porovnání po párech a jinými matematickými analýzami. Tyto úlohy dokazují správnost postupů provedených subjektivních testů. Z tohoto důvodu byly provedeny čtyři subjektivní testy kvality řeči ve třech různých laboratořích. Získané výsledky potvrzují, že provedené testy byly vysoce opakovatelné a testovací požadavky byly striktně dodrženy. Dále byl proveden výzkum pro ověření významnosti subjektivních testování kvality řeči a srozumitelnosti řeči v komunikačních systémech. Za tímto účelem bylo analyzováno více než 16 miliónů záznamů živých hovorů přes VoIP telekomunikační sítě. Výsledky potvrdily základní předpoklad, že lepší uživatelská zkušenost působí delší trvání hovorů. Kromě dosažených hlavních výsledků však byly učiněny další důležité závěry. Dalším krokem disertační práce bylo prozkoumat techniku paralelních zátěží, existující přístupy a jejich výhody a nevýhody. Ukázalo se, že většina paralelních zátěží používaných v testech byla buď fyzicky, nebo mentálně orientovaná. Jelikož subjekty ve většině případů nejsou stejně fyzicky nebo mentálně zdatní, jejich výkony během úkolů nejsou stejné, takže výsledky nelze správně porovnat. V této disertační práci je navržen nový přístup, kdy jsou podmínky pro všechny subjekty stejné. Tento přístup představuje celou řadu úkolů, které zahrnují kombinaci mentálních a fyzických zátěží (simulátor laserové střelby, simulátor řízení auta, třídění předmětů apod.). Tyto metody byly použity v několika subjektivních testech kvality řeči a srozumitelnosti řeči. Závěry naznačují, že testy s paralelními zátěží mají realističtější výsledky než ty, které jsou prováděny v laboratorních podmínkách. Na základě výzkumu, zkušeností a dosažených výsledků byl Evropskému institutu pro normalizaci v telekomunikacích předložen nový standard s přehledem, příklady a doporučeními pro zajištění subjektivních testování kvality řeči a srozumitelnosti řeči. Standard byl přijat a publikován pod číslem ETSI TR 103 503.This thesis deals with the subjective testing of both speech quality and speech intelligibility, investigates the existing methods, record their main features, as well as advantages and disadvantages. The work also compares different tests in terms of various parameters and provides a modern solution for existing subjective testing methods. The first part of the research deals with the repeatability of subjective speech quality tests provided in perfect laboratory conditions. Such repeatability tasks are performed using Pearson correlations, pairwise comparison, and other mathematical analyses, and are meant to prove the correctness of procedures of provided subjective tests. For that reason, four subjective speech quality tests were provided in three different laboratories. The obtained results confirmed that the provided tests were highly repeatable, and the test requirements were strictly followed. Another research was done to verify the significance of speech quality and speech intelligibility tests in communication systems. To this end, more than 16 million live call records over VoIP telecommunications networks were analyzed. The results confirmed the primary assumption that better user experience brings longer call durations. However, alongside the main results, other valuable conclusions were made. The next step of the thesis was to investigate the parallel task technique, existing approaches, their advantages, and disadvantages. It turned out that the majority of parallel tasks used in tests were either physically or mentally oriented. As the subjects in most cases are not equally trained or intelligent, their performances during the tasks are not equal either, so the results could not be compared correctly. In this thesis, a novel approach is proposed where the conditions for all subjects are equal. The approach presents a variety of tasks, which include a mix of mental and physical tasks (laser-shooting simulator, car driving simulator, objects sorting, and others.). Afterward, the methods were used in several subjective speech quality and speech intelligibility tests. The results indicate that the tests with parallel tasks have more realistic values than the ones provided in laboratory conditions. Based on the research, experience, and achieved results, a new standard was submitted to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute with an overview, examples, and recommendations for providing subjective speech quality and speech intelligibility tests. The standard was accepted and published under the number ETSI TR 103 503

Proceedings of the Fifth International Mobile Satellite Conference 1997

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial communications services. While previous International Mobile Satellite Conferences have concentrated on technical advances and the increasing worldwide commercial activities, this conference focuses on the next generation of mobile satellite services. The approximately 80 papers included here cover sessions in the following areas: networking and protocols; code division multiple access technologies; demand, economics and technology issues; current and planned systems; propagation; terminal technology; modulation and coding advances; spacecraft technology; advanced systems; and applications and experiments

Dynamic Capacity Enhancement using a Smart Antenna in Mobile Telecommunications Networks

This work describes an investigation into the performance of antennas for mobile base station applications and techniques for improving the coverage and capacity within a base station cell. The work starts by tracing the development of mobile systems, both in technical and commercial terms, from the earliest analogue systems to present day broadband systems and includes anticipated future developments. This is followed by an outline of how smart antenna systems can be utilised to improve cell coverage and capacity. A novel smart antenna system incorporating an array of slant ± 450 dual- polarised stacked patch elements four columns wide excited by a novel multi-beam forming and beam shaping network has been designed, simulated and implemented. It is found that for an ideal smart antenna array, four narrow overlapping beams, one wide “broadcast channel” beam and right and left shaped beams can be provided. Results are presented for the simulation of the smart antenna system using CST EM simulation software which inherently includes mutual coupling and the effects of a truncated ground plane on the element patterns. The results show some significant changes to the desired set of coverage patterns and various mutual coupling compensation techniques have been reviewed. An improved design technique has been developed for compensating the performance degrading effects of mutual coupling and finite ground plane dimensions in microstrip antenna arrays. The improved technique utilises combination of two previously known techniques: complex excitation weights compensation by inversion of the array mutual coupling scattering matrix and the incorporation of a WAIM (wide angle impedance matching) sheet. The technique has been applied to a novel multi-beam smart antenna array to demonstrate the efficacy of the technique by electromagnetic simulation. In addition, a demonstrator array has been constructed and tested which has yielded a positive conformation of the simulation results. For the developed demonstrator array which provides seven different beams, beams “footprints” have been predicted both for free space propagation and for urban propagation to evaluate the dynamic capacity performance of the smart antenna in a 3G mobile network. The results indicate that sector capacity can be dynamically tailored to user demand profiles by selection of the appropriate beam patterns provided by the novel smart antenna system