Body Area Networks (BAN) can provide a wide range of applications including medical support, healthcare monitoring, and consumer electronics with increased convenience or comfort. To harmonize with the strong demands from both medical and healthcare societies, and information and communications technology (ICT) industries, IEEE 802.15.6 task group (TG6) was set up to develop an IEEE wireless standard on BAN. This paper presents a general guidance to TG6. Some pre-works to set up TG6 are reviewed. The objectives, main topics, current status are described in details.

A non-data aided carrier recovery technique using digital modulation format identification called multi-mode PLL (Phase Locked Loop) is proposed. This technique can be interpreted as a modulation identification method that is robust against static phase and frequency offsets. The performance of the proposed technique is studied and the analytical expressions are derived for the probability of lock detection, acquisition time over AWGN channel in the cases of M-PSK and M-QAM modulations with respect to frequency offset and signal-to-noise ratio.

A novel UWB system for a new indoor short distance radio-communication is examined. Various types of UWB systems have been proposed in the literature. Particularly direct sequence (DS) systems and time hopping (TH) systems are attractive due to low power consumption and a simple transceiver construction. In this paper, we consider to apply modulated and modified Hermite pulses (MMHP) for both DS-UWB and TH-UWB systems. Furthermore, MMHP are extended to a novel pulse set referred as limited bandwidth MMHP set in order to reduce various interferences. It is composed of pseudo-orthogonal pulses that have both good auto-correlation characteristics in all orders and low cross-correlation characteristics between different orders. The proposed pulse set also have some specific notches, which can be used to reduce narrow-band interference (NBI). Additionally, we propose a novel pulse shape hopping that employs the proposed MMHP set. Multi-user interference (MUI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI) can be reduced by such a pulse shape hopping scheme for the DS or TH UWB signal format. Simulation results show significant performance improvements by using the proposed UWB system.

This letter proposes a simple combined coding and modulation based on super-orthogonal convolutional codes (SOCs) in order to support both coherent and non-coherent ultra-wideband (UWB) receivers. In the proposed scheme, the coherent receivers obtain a coding gain as large as the SOC while simultaneously supporting non-coherent receivers. In addition, their performance can be freely adapted by changing the encoder constraint length and the number of PPM slots according to its application. Thus, the proposal enables a more flexible system design for low data-rate UWB systems.

Impulse ultra-wideband (UWB) is an attractive technology for large ad hoc sensor networks due to its precise ranging capacity, multi-path fading robustness and low radiation power. The transient and carrier-less nature of low radiation pulse and harsh multipath channel condition makes it cumbersome to implement carrier sensing. We proposed clear channel assessment (CCA) based on preamble-assisted modulation (PAM) for UWB sensor networks. Preamble symbols are periodically inserted into the frame payload in the time domain to serve as regular feature for reliable CCA. We simulated the CCA performance in the multipath UWB channel model developed by IEEE 802.15.4a. PAM and CCA configurations were optimized for the distributed carrier sense multiple access protocol. PAM was accepted by 802.15.4a group as an optional feature. Furthermore, the multiplexed preamble symbols can be exploited for channel estimation to improve communication and ranging.

Body Area Network (BAN) is considered as a promising technology in supporting medical and healthcare services by combining with various biological sensors. In this paper, we look at wearable BAN, which provides communication links among sensors on body surface. In order to design a BAN that manages biological information with high efficiency and high reliability, the propagation characteristics of BAN must be thoroughly investigated. As a preliminary effort, we measured the propagation characteristics of BAN at frequency bands of 400 MHz, 600 MHz, 900 MHz and 2400 MHz respectively. Channel models for wearable BAN based on the measurement were derived. Our results show that the channel model can be described by using a path loss model for all frequency bands investigated.

The application of Cumulative Decision Feedback (DF) technique for energy/complexity constrained Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is considered. Theoretical bit error probability and average rate of a BPSK modulated DF are derived together with PHY-MAC layers' energy efficiency model for DF and Forward Error Correction (FEC) techniques. Moreover, an empirical optimization, which in turn relies upon a low complexity SNR estimation method also derived in this letter, is applied to the DF technique in order to obtain maximum energy efficiency.

This paper evaluates the performance of DS/CDMA with diversity coding and multiuser interference (MUI) cancellation in fading multipath channel. The diversity technique considered in this paper, is different from the conventional scheme and transmits different information over different channels. It is shown that, this diversity scheme performs better than conventional diversity scheme, and when combined with MUI cancellation provides significant performance improvement. Effects of partial band jamming on the system are also considered.

We propose a direct-sequence spread-spectrum multi-access (DS/SSMA) receiver that incorporates multipath diversity combining and multistage co-channel interference (CCI) cancellation. This receiver structure which is more resistant to the near/far problem essentially removes more and more of the CCI with each successive cancellation stage. With the assumption that perfect channel estimates have been obtained, we analyze the bit error rate (BER) performance of this system when received powers are unequal. Results show that the BER can approach that of a single-user case as the number of CCI cancellation stages increases.

When an image of a 3D object is transmitted or recorded, its range image as well its grey-scale image are required. In this paper, we propose a method of coding for efficient compression of a pair of a pair of range and grey-scale images of 3D objects. We use Lambertian reflection optical model to model the relationship between a 3D object shape and it's brightness. Good illuminant direction estimation leads to good grey-scale image generation and furthermore effects compression results. A method for estimating the illuminant derection and composite albedo from grey-scale image statistics is presented. We propose an approach for estimating the slant angle of illumination based on an optical model from a pair of range and grey-scale images. Estimation result shows that our approach is better. Using the estimated parameters of illuminant direction and composite albedo a synthetic grey-scale image is generated. For comparison, a comparison coding method is used, in which we assume that the range and grey-scale images are compressed separately. We propose an efficient compression coding method for a pair of range and grey-scale images in which we use the correlation between range and grey-scale images, and compress them together. We also evaluate the coding method on a workstation and show numerical results.

We introduce a differential space-time block code (DSTBC) integrated with trellis coded modulation with two transmit antennas. Our scheme enables transmission of DSTBC encoded symbols as trellis metric rather than concatenating an outer code. Unlike conventional DSTBC, different transmit symbol phase rotations are used for each transmit antenna in order to obtain more options for trellis branch. The set partitioning for proposed codes is derived as well. The decoder computes decision statistic using Viterbi Algorithm with different number of states undergoing Rayleigh fading channels. This approach can provide full diversity gain as well as coding gain simultaneously remaining full transmit rate, which cannot be obtained by conventional DSTBC.

Beam-space time coding methods are being extensively investigated, since they provide levels of performance appropriate for the next and future generations of wireless communication systems. In this paper, we focus on beam-domain space-time coding, especially considering the case when transmit beams have inter-beam interference (IBI). A new beam-space time coding scheme that takes into account the overlap amount among beams is proposed. We observe that the overlap of beams introduces an amount of correlation to the channels in a similar way to the well-known Partial Response (PR) channel in magnetic recording. Based on that observation, the proposed system can make use of IBI to encode and decode the signals. We evaluate the proposed system both via theoretical upper bound and via computer simulations. The Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the proposed system using IBI is better than that of the system with no-IBI because the proposed system delivers more coding gain. However, the overlap of beams decreases the diversity gain. The tradeoff relationship between diversity gain and coding gain is investigated.

In this paper, we focus attention on the development of security techniques using software defined radio (SDR) technologies. We propose a new secure download system which uses the characteristics of the field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) composing the SDR. The proposed system has the novelty that realization of high security encipherment is possible. This is achieved using the characteristic of FPGAs which allows systems to be arranged in a variety of different layouts, as well as by using the configuration information as the key. This unifies the renewal of the key and the encipherment. In addition the proposed system has the merit that it has high security against illegal acquisition such as a wiretapping, and can also be used in conjunction with any other current cipher algorithm. As an evaluation of the security, we show that the proposed system has high immunity to illegal acquisition of software using replay attack, by verification of the protocol as well as by numerical computation. The proposed system can therefore realize high security software downloads based on SDR.

To reduce the bandwidth needed for data transmission in an ad-hoc communication network, such as an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) inter-vehicle communication network, a broadcast scheme is proposed where the data to be transmitted is arranged into several classes. Each class contains more specific and detailed information. Since information to be transmitted often has a geographical relevance, the classes can be structured to represent this relationship. As data is routed through the ad-hoc network, the total amount of transmitted data is reduced by removing the data contained in one class on each hop. The class structure is adaptive so that in unforeseen situations the relative importance of transmitted data can be dynamically adjusted. Furthermore different manufacturers can implement different classes structures, and total length of data may be different. By computer simulation it was shown that in the proposed system the required bandwidth for transmission to achieve similar data reception rates to conventional non-structured data schemes can be reduced to less than one third, resulting in a more efficient transmission scheme. In addition a packet structure similar to IP packets is proposed which will enable easily integration of multimedia transmissions into vehicle to vehicle communications.