Hypothesizing a New Case Study House Program: A Systems Approach

In 1945, Arts and Architecture announced that they would be publishing the designs of eight case study houses that envisioned the “house—post war.” These infamous Case Study Houses grew from an initial eight to thirty-six designs over twenty-two years—some built, some imagined

Free-Form: The Adversarial Role of Materials in Automation

Beyond allowing students to create physical models of complex geometry they would be unable to produce by hand, how can 3D-printing become relevant to studio and in practice? This paper will discuss the underlying dilemma confronting materials in studio education, particularly in the United States. Materials are, in many ways, foreign to the studio process, and this is compounded by the addition of a “foreign” technology, such as computer-aided manufacturing. Materials are more often seen as an aesthetic selection, and their adversarial role (the way in which materials can be unpredictable, counterproductive, and even belligerent) in construction is not essential or deep learning in the studio environment. Design-build education models often seek to confront this dilemma, particularly if they are more focused on research into materials and their fabrication, but even fewer programs utilize technology such as 3D-printing, again because it can be seen as difficult enough to teach students simple manufacturing processes. This paper will discuss five schools pioneering the potential of these tools: the ETH Zurich, the University of Stuttgart, MIT, the Bartlett, and Sci-Arc. While these schools have generated provocative research and compelling full-scale installations, there is also a distinct gap between this research and its dissemination/assimilation into mainstream practice. This paper seeks to understand the gap between possibility and pragmatics by studying these innovative schools’ methodologies and the ways in which their outcomes manifest in studio/practice. In summary, 3D-printing can offer the same potential as any other tool utilized in a design-build studio. It forces students to grapple with a material understanding they can choose to ignore on paper and in a virtual environment. By more literally understanding the conversion of a three-dimensional virtual solid into a sequence of coordinates (the g-code), the mystique of the technology is made equal to that of the wood stud

RF and Microwave Band-Pass Passive Filters for Mobile Transceivers with a Focus on BAW Technology

International audienc

Radio-Communications Architectures

Wireless communications, i.e. radio-communications, are widely used for our different daily needs. Examples are numerous and standard names like BLUETOOTH, WiFI, WiMAX, UMTS, GSM and, more recently, LTE are well-known [Baudoin et al. 2007]. General applications in the RFID or UWB contexts are the subject of many papers. This chapter presents radio-frequency (RF) communication systems architecture for mobile, wireless local area networks (WLAN) and connectivity terminals. An important aspect of today's applications is the data rate increase, especially in connectivity standards like WiFI and WiMAX, because the user demands high Quality of Service (QoS). To increase the data rate we tend to use wideband or multi-standard architecture. The concept of software radio includes a self-reconfigurable radio link and is described here on its RF aspects. The term multi-radio is preferred. This chapter focuses on the transmitter, yet some considerations about the receiver are given. An important aspect of the architecture is that a transceiver is built with respect to the radio-communications signals. We classify them in section 2 by differentiating Continuous Wave (CW) and Impulse Radio (IR) systems. Section 3 is the technical background one has to consider for actual applications. Section 4 summarizes state-of-the-art high data rate architectures and the latest research in multi-radio systems. In section 5, IR architectures for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) systems complete this overview; we will also underline the coexistence and compatibility challenges between CW and IR systems

Interpreting site : studies in perception, representation, and design

xi, 176 p.; 25 c

Analysis of a PLL Based Frequency Synthesizer using Switched Loop Bandwidth for Mobile WiMAX

International audienceThis document is focused on design aspects of a fractional-N PLL (Phase Locked Loop) based frequency synthesizer proposed for the Mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Mobile Access) standard. Requirements in terms of phase noise, settling time, frequency resolution and frequency of operation for WiMAX frequency synthesizer are presented. Furthermore, a high-speed CP (Charge Pump) PLL based synthesizer with a switched loop bandwidth is proposed and simulated. It has a 32 MHz reference frequency and a 50 kHz loop bandwidth with frequency raster of 125 kHz and 14 µs settling time

Phase Noise Analysis of PLL Based Frequency Synthesizers for Multi-Radio Mobile Terminals

International audienceThis paper deals with phase noise analysis and design aspects of PLL based frequency synthesizers for cognitive multi-radio mobile terminals. Principal features of PLL based frequency synthesizers are presented and simulated. This document describes various issues of the loop filter design and the overall impact on the frequency synthesizer performance in terms of the phase noise, settling time and the spurious suppression capability. Phase noise requirements for main communication standards in the frequency band 800 MHz to 6 GHz are investigated as well

Phase Noise Analysis of PLL Based Frequency Synthesizers for Multi-Radio Mobile Terminals

International audienceThis paper deals with phase noise analysis and design aspects of PLL based frequency synthesizers for cognitive multi-radio mobile terminals. Principal features of PLL based frequency synthesizers are presented and simulated. This document describes various issues of the loop filter design and the overall impact on the frequency synthesizer performance in terms of the phase noise, settling time and the spurious suppression capability. Phase noise requirements for main communication standards in the frequency band 800 MHz to 6 GHz are investigated as well

Improved energy detection receiver for ranging in IEEE 802.15.4a standard

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a novel energy detection (ED) receiver architecture combined with time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation algorithm, compliant to the IEEE 802.15.4a standard. The architecture is based on double overlapping integrators and a sliding correlator. It exploits a series of ternary preamble sequences with perfect autocorrelation property. This property ensures coding gain, which allows an accurate estimation of power delay profile (PDP). To improve TOA estimation, the interpolation of PDP samples is proposed and the architecture is validated by using an ultra-wideband signals measurements platform. These measurements are carried out in line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight multipath environments. The experimental results show that the ranging performances obtained by the proposed architecture are higher than those obtained by the conventional architecture based on a single-integrator in both LOS and NLOS environments