Optimisation of Mobile Communication Networks - OMCO NET

The mini conference “Optimisation of Mobile Communication Networks” focuses on advanced methods for search and optimisation applied to wireless communication networks. It is sponsored by Research & Enterprise Fund Southampton Solent University. The conference strives to widen knowledge on advanced search methods capable of optimisation of wireless communications networks. The aim is to provide a forum for exchange of recent knowledge, new ideas and trends in this progressive and challenging area. The conference will popularise new successful approaches on resolving hard tasks such as minimisation of transmit power, cooperative and optimal routing

A Novel Method for Acoustic Noise Cancellation

Over the last several years Acoustic Noise Cancellation (ANC) has been an active area of research and various adaptive techniques have been implemented to achieve a better online acoustic noise cancellation scheme. Here we introduce the various adaptive techniques applied to ANC viz. the LMS algorithm, the Filtered-X LMS algorithm, the Filtered-S LMS algorithm and the Volterra Filtered-X LMS algorithm and try to understand their performance through various simulations. We then take up the problem of cancellation of external acoustic feedback in hearing aid. We provide three different models to achieve the feedback cancellation. These are - the adaptive FIR Filtered-X LMS, the adaptive IIR LMS and the adaptive IIR PSO models for external feedback cancellation. Finally we come up with a comparative study of the performance of these models based on the normalized mean square error minimization provided by each of these feedback cancellation schemes

Physical configuration-based feedforward active noise control using adaptive second-order truncated Volterra filter

This paper presents a physical configuration-based feedforward active noise control scheme with an adaptive second-order truncated Volterra filter for point source cancellation in three-dimensional free-field acoustic environment. The inertial particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used as the parameter adjustment mechanism for tuning the coefficients of the adaptive Volterra filter. The first motivation of this paper is to provide a precise description of the relationship between the degree of cancellation and the physical distances between system components. The second motivation is to improve the cancellation performance in the presence of nonlinearities with the adaptive Volterra filter in light of the characteristics of sensing microphone and actuating loudspeaker. The reason for choosing the inertial PSO algorithm is that it can avoid the trap of local optima. The work thus presented makes two main contributions. The first is using the degree of cancellation as a function of the physical distances between system components to provide a quantitative analysis of system performance. The second is the application of the adaptive Volterra filter, which achieves improvements in the cancellation performance of the system under different physical configurations with a reasonable compromise with complexity. For consistency with the numerical analysis, several simulation experiments are conducted using MATLAB/Simulink

Development of novel hybrid method and geometrical configuration-based active noise control system for circular cylinder and slat noise prediction and reduction applications

This thesis presents a study about the application of a geometrical configuration-based feedforward adaptive active noise control (ANC) system in the low-frequency range of flow-induced (aeroacoustics) noise cancellation and the investigation on the effects of different geometrical configurations on the cancellation performance in the presence of the residual noise signal magnitude (in decibel) or the average amount of cancellation (in decibel). The first motivation is that according to the literature review, the passive flow control is limited in the practical consideration and the active flow control performs better than the passive flow control, especially for the low-frequency range. Consider the principle of the active flow control is the same as the ANC technique, therefore, it is feasible to apply the ANC technique in cancelling the low-frequency range of the far-field (aeroacoustics) noise, which provides instructions on the future practical experiments. The second motivation is that we want to explore the effects of different geometrical configurations on the cancellation performance and it provides instructions on the implementation in future practical experiments. To predict the far-field (aeroacoustics) noise, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) equations are used separately for unsteady flow calculation and far-field (aeroacoustics) noise prediction. The proposed ANC system is used for the low-frequency range of the far-field (aeroacoustics) noise cancellation. Soft computing techniques and evolutionary-computing-based techniques are employed as the parameter adjustment mechanism to deal with nonlinearities existed in microphones and loudspeakers. The case study about the landing gear noise cancellation in the two-dimensional computational domain is completed. Simulation results validate the accuracy of the obtained acoustic spectrum with reasonable error because of the mesh resolution and computer capacity. It is observed that the two-dimensional approach can only predict discrete values of sound pressure level (SPL) associated with the fundamental frequency (Strouhal number) and its harmonics. Cancellation results demonstrate the cancellation capability of the proposed ANC system for the low-frequency range of far-field (aeroacoustics) noise and reflect that within the reasonable physical distance range, the cancellation performance will be better when the detector is placed closer to the secondary source in comparison with the primary source. This conclusion is the main innovative contribution of this thesis and it provides useful instructions on future practical experiments, but detailed physical distance values must be dependent on individual cases

Noise Cancellation in Cognitive Radio Systems: A Performance Comparison of Evolutionary Algorithms

Noise cancellation is one of the important signal processing functions of any communication system, as noise affects data integrity. In existing systems, traditional filters are used to cancel the noise from the received signals. These filters use fixed hardware which is capable of filtering specific frequency or a range of frequencies. However, next generation communication technologies, such as cognitive radio, will require the use of adaptive filters that can dynamically reconfigure their filtering parameters for any frequency. To this end, a few noise cancellation techniques have been proposed, including least mean squares (LMS) and its variants. However, these algorithms are susceptible to non-linear noise and fail to locate the global optimum solution for de-noising. In this paper, we investigate the efficiency of two global search optimization based algorithms, genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization in performing noise cancellation in cognitive radio systems. These algorithms are implemented and their performances are compared to that of LMS using bit error rate and mean square error as performance evaluation metrics. Simulations are performed with additive white Gaussian noise and random nonlinear noise. Results indicate that GA and PSO perform better than LMS for the case of AWGN corrupted signal but for non-linear random noise PSO outperforms the other two algorithms

A Channel Ranking And Selection Scheme Based On Channel Occupancy And SNR For Cognitive Radio Systems

Wireless networks and information traffic have grown exponentially over the last decade. Consequently, an increase in demand for radio spectrum frequency bandwidth has resulted. Recent studies have shown that with the current fixed spectrum allocation (FSA), radio frequency band utilization ranges from 15% to 85%. Therefore, there are spectrum holes that are not utilized all the time by the licensed users, and, thus the radio spectrum is inefficiently exploited. To solve the problem of scarcity and inefficient utilization of the spectrum resources, dynamic spectrum access has been proposed as a solution to enable sharing and using available frequency channels. With dynamic spectrum allocation (DSA), unlicensed users can access and use licensed, available channels when primary users are not transmitting. Cognitive Radio technology is one of the next generation technologies that will allow efficient utilization of spectrum resources by enabling DSA. However, dynamic spectrum allocation by a cognitive radio system comes with the challenges of accurately detecting and selecting the best channel based on the channelâs availability and quality of service. Therefore, the spectrum sensing and analysis processes of a cognitive radio system are essential to make accurate decisions. Different spectrum sensing techniques and channel selection schemes have been proposed. However, these techniques only consider the spectrum occupancy rate for selecting the best channel, which can lead to erroneous decisions. Other communication parameters, such as the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) should also be taken into account. Therefore, the spectrum decision-making process of a cognitive radio system must use techniques that consider spectrum occupancy and channel quality metrics to rank channels and select the best option. This thesis aims to develop a utility function based on spectrum occupancy and SNR measurements to model and rank the sensed channels. An evolutionary algorithm-based SNR estimation technique was developed, which enables adaptively varying key parameters of the existing Eigenvalue-based blind SNR estimation technique. The performance of the improved technique is compared to the existing technique. Results show the evolutionary algorithm-based estimation performing better than the existing technique. The utility-based channel ranking technique was developed by first defining channel utility function that takes into account SNR and spectrum occupancy. Different mathematical functions were investigated to appropriately model the utility of SNR and spectrum occupancy rate. A ranking table is provided with the utility values of the sensed channels and compared with the usual occupancy rate based channel ranking. According to the results, utility-based channel ranking provides a better scope of making an informed decision by considering both channel occupancy rate and SNR. In addition, the efficiency of several noise cancellation techniques was investigated. These techniques can be employed to get rid of the impact of noise on the received or sensed signals during spectrum sensing process of a cognitive radio system. Performance evaluation of these techniques was done using simulations and the results show that the evolutionary algorithm-based noise cancellation techniques, particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm perform better than the regular gradient descent based technique, which is the least-mean-square algorithm

Designing an algorithm using active noise cancellation for development of a headphone in heavy noise industry

Noise pollution is a very big problem prevailing in the environment these days. The workers working in heavy noise industry gets affected by the high level of noise present in the industries. The results may be as adverse as permanent hearing loss or even heart-attack. Here, I have tried to implement a few algorithms which can be used to develop a headphone which will cancel the noise from the environment. I have introduced various Active Noise Cancellation techniques or algorithms. I have discussed the LMS algorithm, the Filtered-x LMS algorithm, FLANN Filter and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Algorithm. I have shown their behaviour in presence of linear as well as non-linear noise environment and discussed the application of each under various circumstances

Design and implementation of an efficient Active Noise Control system

Noise is an undesired, but unavoidable phenomenon. We cannot stop its generation at the source level, but control it at the listener level up to some extent either by passive or active method. In our work we are only concerned about the active method. In this paper we have proposed several types of adaptive algorithms for updating the weights of the digital filter, which acts as the controller. First we have proposed Filtered-X LMS algorithm which is very simple to implement and easy to understand. Then some amount of nonlinearity is introduced in the primary path and the performance is seen to be degraded. So this problem is sorted out by assuming a nonlinear controller using nonlinear algorithms like Volterra series method, Back propagation method for multi-layer perceptron, FLANN filter. After studying these algorithms we introduce a completely different type of algorithm known as evolutionary computing methods, which is based on the population based searching techniques. In this field we have studied 3 algorithms. i.e. Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Differential Evolution. A brief comparison is made between them and also the performance is studied in presence of nonlinearity

Ultra-Wideband Spectrum Hole Identification Using Principal Components and Eigen Value Decomposition

Ultra-Wideband Spectrum Hole identification using Principal Components and Eigen Value Decomposition evolve a method of detecting spectrum hole from complex and corrupted wide band spectrum signal, due to the effect of noise spectrum hole detection is usually a challenge in wideband signal, as the presence of noise give rise to error alert, that is, noise can be misconstrued for signal. Dimensionality reduction was first used as the first level of denoising   technique, Principal component Analysis (PCA) was used in dimensioning Wide Band Spectrum Data; this was able to reduce the noise level in the signal which made it convenient for Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to act on it.  FFT was used to decompose the signal to 64 sub band channels and on further reduction using principal Component Analysis (PCA), a 32 Level sub-band decomposition was carried out. Eigen Value generated shows that the magnitude of the signal to Noise ratio between Eigen Value 1 to 19 was high enough to show the that there exist a signal, while between 20 to 32 shows no signal by implication it indicates that these areas have high possibility of unoccupied spectrum holes