Measurement of the Structure Constant of Refractivity at Optical Wavelengths Using a Scintillometer

The structure constant of the atmospheric refractive index is used for characterizing the turbulence strength and for predicting the scintillation of electromagnetic waves in atmosphere. It is measured continuously in Prague using an optical scintillometer. First monthly and seasonal statistics obtained from the data gathered in the summer 2011 are provided. Lognormal distribution parameters are fitted to the empirical cumulative distribution. The hourly statistics of the structure constant show the typical evolution of turbulence strength during a day

Prussian Blue-coated interdigitated array electrodes for possible analytical application

Thin films of iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II) (Prussian Blue) were electrochemically deposited on interdigitated array (IDA) electrodes, yielding systems which can be considered as chemiresistors in sensing alkali metal ion concentrations in an adjacent electrolyte. This is due to the fact that the conductivity of the film being measured by a steady-state current on application of a voltage to the two-fingered electrodes of the IDA depends on both the redox stare of the film and the cation concentration in the electrolyte. From the dependence of the steady-state current on the electrode (bias) potential at variable cation concentrations for different alkali metal ions and for mixtures of alkali metal ions, the possibilities of analytical application were elucidated. In addition, by using the methods of staircase coulometry and scanning conductivity, the electron diffusion coefficient De was determined as a function of the redox state of Prussian Blue. It is concluded that Prussian Blue-coated IDA electrodes are, in principle, suitable as chemiresistors for the determination of alkali metal ion concentrations with increasing selectivity in the series Li < Na < K < Rb < Cs

3D Pose Estimation and 3D Model Retrieval for Objects in the Wild

We propose a scalable, efficient and accurate approach to retrieve 3D models for objects in the wild. Our contribution is twofold. We first present a 3D pose estimation approach for object categories which significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art on Pascal3D+. Second, we use the estimated pose as a prior to retrieve 3D models which accurately represent the geometry of objects in RGB images. For this purpose, we render depth images from 3D models under our predicted pose and match learned image descriptors of RGB images against those of rendered depth images using a CNN-based multi-view metric learning approach. In this way, we are the first to report quantitative results for 3D model retrieval on Pascal3D+, where our method chooses the same models as human annotators for 50% of the validation images on average. In addition, we show that our method, which was trained purely on Pascal3D+, retrieves rich and accurate 3D models from ShapeNet given RGB images of objects in the wild.Comment: Accepted to Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 201

Propagation Characteristics and Availability Performance Assessment for Simulated Terrestrial Hybrid 850 nm/58 GHz System

Results of a propagation study on a free space optical link at 850 nm on a path 853 meters long and on a parallel 58 GHz radio link obtained over a 3-year period of observation are presented. The cumulative distributions of attenuation due to all of the hydrometeors combined as well as due to individual hydrometeors were obtained for both paths. The availability performances of the FSO link, the RF link and the simulated hybrid FSO/RF system were assessed. Significantly higher availability performance was achieved for the simulated hybrid FSO/RF system than for the FSO link alone. The diversity improvement factor reached significant values for attenuation greater than 5 dB and a significant diversity gain was obtained for the percentages of time smaller than 2%

Generator of Time Series of Rain Attenuation: Results of Parameter Extraction

Rain attenuation has a significant impact on the availability of millimeter wave communication systems. In order to dynamically simulate such radio systems, several generators of artificial time series of rain attenuation have been developed. This paper briefly describes the DLR channel model and presents the results of model parameter extraction from time series measured on terrestrial microwave paths in the Czech Republic

Precise Characterization and Multiobjective Optimization of Low Noise Amplifiers

Although practically all function blocks of the satellite navigation receivers are realized using the CMOS digital integrated circuits, it is appropriate to create a separate low noise antenna preamplifier based on a low noise pHEMT. Such an RF front end can be strongly optimized to attain a suitable tradeoff between the noise figure and transducer power gain. Further, as all the four principal navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and COMPASS) work in similar frequency bands (roughly from 1.1 to 1.7 GHz), it is reasonable to create the low noise preamplifier for all of them. In the paper, a sophisticated method of the amplifier design is suggested based on multiobjective optimization. A substantial improvement of a standard optimization method is also outlined to satisfy a uniform coverage of Pareto front. Moreover, for enhancing efficiency of many times repeated solutions of large linear systems during the optimization, a new modification of the Markowitz criterion is suggested compatible with fast modes of the LU factorization. Extraordinary attention was also given to the accuracy of modeling. First, an extraction of pHEMT model parameters was performed including its noise part, and several models were compared. The extraction was carried out by an original identification procedure based on a combination of metaheuristic and direct methods. Second, the equations of the passive elements (including transmission lines and T-splitters) were carefully defined using frequency dispersion of their parameters as Q, ESR, etc. Third, an optimal selection of the operating point and essential passive elements was performed using the improved optimization method. Finally, the s-parameters and noise figure of the amplifier were measured, and stability and third-order intermodulation products were also checked

GP2C: Geometric Projection Parameter Consensus for Joint 3D Pose and Focal Length Estimation in the Wild

We present a joint 3D pose and focal length estimation approach for object categories in the wild. In contrast to previous methods that predict 3D poses independently of the focal length or assume a constant focal length, we explicitly estimate and integrate the focal length into the 3D pose estimation. For this purpose, we combine deep learning techniques and geometric algorithms in a two-stage approach: First, we estimate an initial focal length and establish 2D-3D correspondences from a single RGB image using a deep network. Second, we recover 3D poses and refine the focal length by minimizing the reprojection error of the predicted correspondences. In this way, we exploit the geometric prior given by the focal length for 3D pose estimation. This results in two advantages: First, we achieve significantly improved 3D translation and 3D pose accuracy compared to existing methods. Second, our approach finds a geometric consensus between the individual projection parameters, which is required for precise 2D-3D alignment. We evaluate our proposed approach on three challenging real-world datasets (Pix3D, Comp, and Stanford) with different object categories and significantly outperform the state-of-the-art by up to 20% absolute in multiple different metrics.Comment: Accepted to International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 201

Location Field Descriptors: Single Image 3D Model Retrieval in the Wild

We present Location Field Descriptors, a novel approach for single image 3D model retrieval in the wild. In contrast to previous methods that directly map 3D models and RGB images to an embedding space, we establish a common low-level representation in the form of location fields from which we compute pose invariant 3D shape descriptors. Location fields encode correspondences between 2D pixels and 3D surface coordinates and, thus, explicitly capture 3D shape and 3D pose information without appearance variations which are irrelevant for the task. This early fusion of 3D models and RGB images results in three main advantages: First, the bottleneck location field prediction acts as a regularizer during training. Second, major parts of the system benefit from training on a virtually infinite amount of synthetic data. Finally, the predicted location fields are visually interpretable and unblackbox the system. We evaluate our proposed approach on three challenging real-world datasets (Pix3D, Comp, and Stanford) with different object categories and significantly outperform the state-of-the-art by up to 20% absolute in multiple 3D retrieval metrics.Comment: Accepted to International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV) 2019 (Oral

A Terrestrial Multiple-Receiver Radio Link Experiment at 10.7 GHz - Comparisons of Results with Parabolic Equation Calculations

This work presents the results of a terrestrial multiple-receiver radio link experiment at 10.7 GHz. Results are shown in the form of the power levels recorded at several antennas attached to a receiving mast. Comparisons of the measurement data with theoretical predictions using a parabolic equation technique show that, due to the complex propagation environment of the troposphere in terms of the refractive index of air, closer agreement between measurements and simulations can be achieved during periods of standard refractive conditions

BER and Availability Measured on FSO Link

The BER and the availability belong among the basic qualitative parameters of free space optical (FSO) links. The BER parameter is usually mentioned by FSO manufacturers, but it is not defined what conditions a certain value of BER stands for. This article deals with problems of measuring the BER of free space optical link and with questions how to determine the probability of unavailability of a certain link. The implementation of bit error rate tester with the E1 interface system is presented. In the article the statistics of the meteorological optical range for the year 2006 are shown. Using these data one can determine the probability of a certain value of atmospheric attenuation that influences the link unavailability