This paper investigates the problem of finding the optimal access point placement in simultaneous broadcast system using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for public access wireless LAN with micrometer or millimeter frequency band. We define our design criteria such that the quality of service is provided uniformly throughout a given service area. The optimal access point placement with a uniform quality of service was obtained by setting the cost function as the combination of a standard deviation of BER and the average of BER in a very fast simulated annealing algorithm. We applied the algorithm to the cases of fixed and mobile terminals, and obtained optimal access point placement results for both cases.

Combining transmission of ultra wideband pulses, organized in blocks, with the inclusion of cyclic prefixing pulses yields a pulsewidth periodic signal at the receiver. Although unknown, this signal fits perfectly the diversity exploitive architecture of a RAKE receiver. Aiming to profit from this signal arrangement, we propose a pulse shape modulation system employing a RAKE receiver that estimates this periodic signal during a training interval and uses the estimated values for detection of data symbols. Our proposal relies on the invariability of the multipath propagation channel during the transmission of a UWB packet, the adequate application of the cyclic prefix, and the fact that different transmitted pulses result in different periodic signals at the receiver. This system is equivalent to transforming the multipath nature of the UWB propagation channel into a multichannel digital communications affected solely by additive noise. Our proposal is important because it ameliorates the performance of a pulse shape modulation RAKE receiver. On the other hand, the cost of our proposed system resides in the inefficiencies product of the cyclic prefix inclusion.

This paper first proposes a fast fingerprint identification method based on a weighted-mean of binary image, and further investigates optimization of the weights. The proposed method uses less computer memory than the conventional pattern matching method, and takes less computation time than both the feature extraction method and the pattern matching method. It is particularly effective on the fingerprints with a small angle of inclination. In order to improve the identification precision of the proposed basic method, three schemes of modifying the proposed basic method are also proposed. The performance of the proposed basic method and its modified schemes is evaluated by theoretical analysis and computer experiment using the fingerprint images recorded from a fingerprint read-in device. The numerical results showed that the proposed method using the modified schemes can improve both the true acceptance rate and the false rejection rate with less memory and complexity in comparison with the conventional pattern matching method and the feature extraction method.

Achieving optimal performance with minimal complexity are conflicting problems encountered in constructing receivers. In this paper, to solve the problem, we propose sector beamed space hopping which utilizes a Viterbi equalizing receiver. Reduction of the number of RF circuit sets, system complexity and decreasing the computational burden of the Viterbi equalizer through the use of sector beamed space hopping is presented. This is achieved using a sector beamed antenna which limits the number of paths in the multipath channel environment. This paper describes each key component which comprises the system and discusses the application of FH-SS communication. The channel is assumed to be an industrial indoor propagation channel, such as those found in a factory, where high reliability is required and many complex multipaths exist. We confirm through simulation that Viterbi equalization using less computational complexity can be obtained. It is found that there exists a trade off between system complexity and performance. Through the discussion of power consumption, cost and BER performance, we show that the proposed system achieves acceptable performance while having a low system complexity.

The medical body area network (MBAN) is an emerging technology to resolve the small area connection issues around human body, especially for the medical applications. This paper proposes a dynamic TDMA (DTDMA) protocol for MBAN with focus on the dependability and power efficiency. In DTDMA, the slots are allocated by the MBAN coordinator only to the devices which have buffered packets and released to other devices after the current allocation. Through the adaptive allocation of the slots in a DTDMA frame, the MBAN coordinator adjusts the duty cycle adaptively with the traffic load. Comparing with the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol, the DTDMA provides more dependability in terms of lower packet dropping rate and less energy consumption especially for an end device of a MBAN.

In this paper, we propose a method for designing a set of pulses whose spectrum is efficiently contained in amplitude and bandwidth. Because these pulses are derived from and have shapes that are either equal or similar to the Hermite pulses, we name our proposed transmit pulses as spectrally efficient Hermite pulses. Given that the proposed set of pulses does not constitute an orthonormal one, we also propose a set of receive templates which permit orthonormal detection of the incoming signals at the receiver. The importance of our proposal is in the potential implementation of M-ary pulse shape modulation systems, for ultra wideband communications, with sets of pulses that are efficiently contained within a specific bandwidth and limited to a certain amplitude.

In this paper we propose a two-stage address coding scheme to transmit two data symbols at once within a frame in a MFSK/FH-CDMA system. We compare it with the conventional system using single-stage address coding. Assumed that the address codes of all users are known in the receiver. A multiuser detection scheme is applied and the performance is evaluated by computer simulations to show the improvement in bit error rate (BER) compairing to the conventional system. We also investigate the performance of error-correcting coding and decoding in the two-stage address coded MFSK/FH-CDMA system. An erasure decoding scheme is modified for the two-stage address coded system and is utilized to improve spectral efficiency or to increase user capacity in the MFSK/FH-CDMA system. Finally, we investigate a hybrid scheme of combining the multi-user detection scheme and the error-correcting decoding scheme for the two-stage address coded MFSK/FH-CDMA system. The performance is evaluated by computer simulations.

This paper describes a spatial and temporal multipath channel model which is useful in array antenna environments for mobile radio communications. From this model, a no distortion criterion, that is an extension of the Nyquist criterion, is derived for equalization in both spatial and temporal domains. An adaptive tapped-delay-line (TDL) array antenna is used as a tool for equalization in both spatial and temporal domains. Several criterion for such spatial and temporal equalization such as ZF (Zero Forcing) and MSE (Mean Square Error), are available to update the weights and tap coefficients. In this paper, we discuss the optimum weights based on the ZF criterion in both spatial and temporal domains. Since the ZF criterion satisfies the Nyquist criterion in case of noise free, this paper applies the ZF criterion for the spatial and temporal equalization as a simple case. The Z transform is applied to represent the spatial and temporal model of the multipath channel and to derive the optimal weights of the TDL array antenna. However, in some cases the optimal antenna weights cannot be decided uniquely. Therefore, the effect on the equalization errors due to a finite number of antenna elements and tap coefficients can be shown numerically by computer simulations.

The tandem structure of a matched filter (MF) and a maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) using the Viterbi algorithm (VA) has been considered to be an optimal receiver for digital pulse-amplitude sequences in the presence of intersymbol interference (ISI) and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). An adaptive array antenna has the capability of filtering received signals in the spatial domain as well as in the temporal one. In this paper, we propose a receiver structure using an adaptive array antenna, a digital filter and the VA that is spatially and temporally optimal for multi-user detection in a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) environment. This receiver uses a tapped delay line (TDL) array antenna and the VA, which provides a maximum likelihood sequence estimate from the spatially and temporally whitened matched filter (ST-WMF) output. Performance of the proposed receiver is evaluated by theoretical analysis and computer simulations.

This paper proposes and investigates a tap selectable Viterbi equalizer for mobile radio communications. When the multipath channel is modeled by a tapped delay line only, the taps which may seriously affect the data sequence estimation are selected and used to calculate the trellis metric in the Viterbi algorithm. The proposed equalization algorithm can reduce the number of path metric calculations and the number of path selections in the Viterbi algorithm. Moreover, we propose an extended equalizer which has antenna diversity. This equalizer calculates the path metric using the antenna outputs and results of channel estimators. Computer simulation is used to evaluate the BER performance of the proposed equalizer in a multipath radio channel.

This paper investigates a multihopping scheme for MFSK (Multilevel Frequency Shift Keying) /FH-SSMA (Frequency Hopping-Spread Spectrum Multiple Access) system. Moreover, we propose and investigate a modified decoding scheme for the coded MFSK/FH-SSMA system. In this multi-hopped MFSK/FH-SSMA system, several hopping frequencies per chip are assigned and transmitted in parallel in order to improve its frequency diversity capability for a fading channel. We theoretically analyze the performance of the multihopped MFSK/FH-SSMA system in a Rayleigh fading channel. Moreover, in the coded MFSK/FH-SSMA system, we propose a modified scheme of the error and erasure decoding of an error-correcting code. The modified decoding scheme utilizes the information of rows having the largest number of entries in the decoded time-frequency matrix. Their BER (Bit Error Rate) performance is evaluated by theoretical analysis in order to show the improvement in user capacity.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) repeater systems have been discussed in several published papers. When a repeater has only one antenna element, the propagation environment is called keyhole. In this kind of scenario the achievable channel capacity and link quality are decreased. Another limit is when the number of the antenna elements of a repeater is larger than that of a MIMO transceiver, the channel capacity cannot be increased. In this paper, in order to obtain an upper bound of the channel capacity, we express a propagation process of the distributed MIMO repeater system with amplify-and-forward method by the numerical formular, and optimize the position of each repeater.

This paper presents a novel decoding strategy called combined iterative demapping/decoding (CIDD), for coded M-ary biorthogonal keying-based direct sequence ultra-wideband (MBOK DS-UWB) systems. A coded MBOK DS-UWB system consists of a convolutional encoder, an interleaver, and an MBOK DS-UWB pulse mapper. CIDD improves the error rate performance of MBOK DS-UWB systems by applying the turbo principle to the demapping and decoding processes at the receiver side. To develop the CIDD, a soft-in/soft-out MBOK demapping algorithm, based on the max-log-MAP algorithm, was derived. Simulation results showed that using CIDD siginificantly improved the error rate performance of both static and multipath fading channels. It was also shown that the computational complexity of CIDD is comparable to that of the Viterbi decoding used in [133,171]8 conventional convolutional coding.

Wireless communication devices in the field of medical implant, such as cardiac pacemakers and capsule endoscopes, have been studied and developed to improve healthcare systems. Especially it is very important to know the range and position of each device because it will contribute to an optimization of the transmission power. We adopt the time-based approach of position estimation using ultra wideband signals. However, the propagation velocity inside the human body differs in each tissue and each frequency. Furthermore, the human body is formed of various tissues with complex structures. For this reason, propagation velocity is different at a different point inside human body and the received signal so distorted through the channel inside human body. In this paper, we apply an adaptive template synthesis method in multipath channel for calculate the propagation time accurately based on the output of the correlator between the transmitter and the receiver. Furthermore, we propose a position estimation method using an estimation of the propagation velocity inside the human body. In addition, we show by computer simulation that the proposal method can perform accurate positioning with a size of medical implanted devices such as a medicine capsule.

Recently, a lot of research works have been carried out regarding intelligent communication. If the final information sink is assumed as a human being, a communication channel can be used more effectively when encoders/decoders work "intelligently" or take into account of the semantics of information to be sent. We have been studying error-controlling systems based on different importance of segmental information. The system divides the information input into segments to which individual importance can be assigned. The segments are individually encoded by appropriate error-correcting codes (ECCs) which correspond to their importance among codes with different error-correcting capabilities. For the information that difference of the importance is systematically aligned, conventional UEP (unequal error protection) codes can be applied, but we treat the case that alignment of the importance of the information source is not systematically aligned. Since the system uses multiple ECCs with different (n,k,d) parameters, information regarding what length of the next codeword is required for decoding. We propose error controlling schemes using mulriple ECCs; the first scheme and the second scheme use the obvious codelength identifying information. In the second scheme, information bits are sorted so that segments with the same importance can be encoded by an ECC with the same error-correcting capability. The third scheme is a main proposal in this paper and uses Variable Capability Coding scheme (VCC) which uses some ECCs having different error-correcting capabilities and codelengths. A sequence encoded by the VCC is separable into appropriate segments without obvious codelength identifying information when the channel error probability is low. Subsequently, we evaluate these schemes by coderate when (1) error correcting capability (2) codelength identifying capability are the same. One of the feature of VCC is the capability of resuming from propagative errors because errors beyond the codelength identifying capability occur and the proper beginning of the codeword is lost in the decoder. We also evaluate this capability as (3) resynchronizing capability.

The medical care day by day and more and more is associated with and reliant upon concepts and advances of electronics and electromagnetics. Numerous medical devices are implanted in the body for medical use. Tissue implanted devices are of great interest for wireless medical applications due to the promising of different clinical usage to promote a patient independence. It can be used in hospitals, health care facilities and home to transmit patient measurement data, such as pulse and respiration rates to a nearby receiver, permitting greater patient mobility and increased comfort. As this service permits remote monitoring of several patients simultaneously it could also potentially decrease health care costs. Advancement in radio frequency communications and miniaturization of bioelectronics are supporting medical implant applications. A central component of wireless implanted device is an antenna and there are several issues to consider when designing an in-body antenna, including power consumption, size, frequency, biocompatibility and the unique RF transmission challenges posed by the human body. The radiation characteristics of such devices are important in terms of both safety and performance. The implanted antenna and human body as a medium for wireless communication are discussed over Medical Implant Communications Service (MICS) band in the frequency range of 402-405 MHz.

Software radio or software defined radio (SDR) is a quite attractive field of research in terms of theoretical cross-over research themes between radio engineering and computer science in academia as well as new multi-standard or all-purpose radio system products in industry. In order to promote research and development in a field of SDR this paper briefly introduces some prospective aspect and research themes on SDR. There are many approaches to research SDR such as architectures, devises, algorithms, description languages and API (application program interface) for achieving reconfigurability and downloadability in an SDR system. One of the approaches is to focus on an antenna for SDR. Although a baseband circuit is generally programable and reconfigurable, an antenna and a RF circuit are used to be less flexible and hardware-dependent and then result in a bottleneck for implementing an SDR system. However, an adaptive array antenna or a smart antenna named a software antenna is adaptively controllable and reconfigurable because it can be programable to form a desired beam pattern if an appropriate set of antenna weights is provided with software. It must be a vital tool for carrying out an SDR system. A software antenna can be considered as an adaptive filter in space and time domains for radio communications, so that the communication theory can be generalized from a conventional time domain into both space and time domains. This paper also introduces structures and theories of a software antenna which I have been studying before this millennium.