IEICE Transactions on Communications - recent issues

Special Section on Peer to Peer Networking Technology

2008-12-19

A Remedy for Network Operators against Increasing P2P Traffic: Enabling Packet Cache for P2P Applications

NAKAO, A., SASAKI, K., YAMAMOTO, S. — 2008-12-19

We observe that P2P traffic has peculiar characteristics as opposed to the other type of traffic such as web browsing and file transfer. Since they exploit swarm effect — a multitude of end points downloading the same content piece by piece nearly at the same time, thus, increasing the effectiveness of caching — the same pieces of data end up traversing the network over and over again within mostly a short time window. In the light of this observation, we propose a network layer packet-level caching for reducing the volume of emerging P2P traffic, transparently to the P2P applications — without affecting operations of the P2P applications at all — rather than banning it, restricting it, or modifying P2P systems themselves. Unlike the other caching techniques, we aim to provide as generic a caching mechanism as possible at network layer — without knowing much detail of P2P application protocols — to extend applicability to arbitrary P2P protocols. Our preliminary evaluation shows that our approach is expected to reduce a significant amount of P2P traffic transparently to P2P applications.

Incentive Mechanism for P2P Content Sharing over Heterogenous Access Networks

SATO, K., HASHIMOTO, R., YOSHINO, M., SHINKUMA, R., TAKAHASHI, T. — 2008-12-19

In peer-to-peer (P2P) content sharing, users can share their content by contributing their own resources to one another. However, since there is no incentive for contributing contents or resources to others, users may attempt to obtain content without any contribution. To motivate users to contribute their resources to the service, incentive-rewarding mechanisms have been proposed. On the other hand, emerging wireless technologies, such as IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks, beyond third generation (B3G) cellular networks and mobile WiMAX, provide high-speed Internet access for wireless users. Using these high-speed wireless access, wireless users can use P2P services and share their content with other wireless users and with fixed users. However, this diversification of access networks makes it difficult to appropriately assign rewards to each user according to their contributions. This is because the cost necessary for contribution is different in different access networks. In this paper, we propose a novel incentive-rewarding mechanism called EMOTIVER that can assign rewards to users appropriately. The proposed mechanism uses an external evaluator and interactive learning agents. We also investigate a way of appropriately controlling rewards based on the system service's quality and managing policy.

CAT: A Cost-Aware BitTorrent

YAMAZAKI, S., TODE, H., MURAKAMI, K. — 2008-12-19

With an enhanced client computer performance and network bandwidth, content distribution services are receiving much attention. However client/server model and peer-to-peer model require vast cost for content distributions. These costs pose an impediment to broaden commercialization of content distribution services via the Internet. Content distribution cost consists of investment for server and network infrastructure which client/server model and peer-to-peer model require respectively. Thus, We focus on network infrastructure, especially in peer-to-peer content distribution networks which drastically increase traffic volume. The main feature of our proposal is utilization of inexpensive inter-ISP connections. This paper presents methods to constitute peer-to-peer content distribution networks that realizes lower cost content distribution and a reduction in the amount of inter-ISP traffic and its costs by considering the priority in usage of ISP interconnections in its distribution. Our proposal extends BitTorrent, which has been widely deployed by several content providers to reduce the load in congested servers and the distribution costs. Our performance evaluations show that our proposal achieves a reduction in network infrastructure costs and improved performance such as distribution time.

An Analytical and Experimental Study of Super-Seeding in BitTorrent-Like P2P Networks

CHEN, Z., LIN, C., CHEN, Y., NIVARGI, V., CAO, P. — 2008-12-19

With the popularity of BitTorrent-like P2P applications, improving its performance has been an active research area. Super-seeding, a special upload policy for the initial seeder, improves the efficiency in producing multiple seeds and reduces the uploading bytes of content initiators, thus being highly expected as a promising solution for improving downloading performance while decreasing uploading cost. However, the overall impacts of super seeding upon BitTorrent performance remain a question and have not been analyzed so far in literature. In this paper, we present an analytical and experimental study over the performance of super-seeding scheme. We attempt to answer the following questions: whether and how much super-seeding saves uploading cost, whether the overall downloading time is decreased by super-seeding, and in which circumstances super-seeding performs worse. Based on the seeding process, our analytical study gives formulas on the new piece distribution time, average downloading time and minimum distribution time for heterogeneous P2P file distribution system with super-seeding. Robust evidence supporting the use (or not) of super-seeding is given based on our worldwide Internet experiments over wide distribution of 250 PlanetLab nodes. With a well-designed experimental scenario, we study the overall download time and upload cost of super seeding scheme under varying seed bandwidth and peer behavior. Results show that super-seeding can save an upload ratio of 20% and does help speeding up swarms in certain modes. Tentative conclusions about the effectiveness of super-seeding and its optimal working circumstances are given with inside mechanism analyzed and negative factor identified. Our work not only provides reference for the potential adoption of super-seeding in BitTorrent and other P2P applications, but also much insights for the tussle of enhancing of Quality of Experience (QoE) and saving cost for a large-scale BitTorrent-like P2P commercial application.

Improving Success Ratio of Object Search in Highly-Dynamic Mobile P2P Networks

TAKESHITA, K., SASABE, M., NAKANO, H. — 2008-12-19

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are temporal and infrastructure-independent wireless networks that consist of mobile nodes. For instance, a MANET can be used as an emergent network for communication among people when a disaster occurred. Since there is no central server in the network, each node has to find out its desired information (objects) by itself. Constructing a mobile Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network over the MANET can support the object search. Some researchers proposed construction schemes of mobile P2P networks, such as Ekta and MADPastry. They integrated DHT-based application-layer routing and network-layer routing to increase search efficiency. Furthermore, MADPastry proposed a clustering method which groups the overlay nodes according to their physical distance. However, it has also been pointed out that the search efficiency deteriorates in highly dynamic environments where nodes quickly move around. In this paper, we focus on route disappearances in the network layer which cause the deterioration of search efficiency. We describe the detail of this problem and evaluate quantitatively it through simulation experiments. We extend MADPastry by introducing a method sharing objects among nodes in a cluster. Through simulation experiments, we show that the proposed method can achieve up to 2.5 times larger success rate of object search than MADPastry.

Peer-to-Peer Based Fast File Dissemination in UMTS Networks

WANG, K., PAN, L., LI, J. — 2008-12-19

In UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) networks upgraded with HSPA (high speed packet access) technology, the high access bandwidth and advanced mobile devices make it applicable to share large files among mobile users by peer-to-peer applications. To receive files quickly is essential for mobile users in file sharing applications, mainly because they are subject to unstable signal strength and battery failures. While many researches present peer-to-peer file sharing architectures in mobile environments, few works focus on decreasing the time spent in disseminating files among users. In this paper, we present an efficient peer-to-peer file sharing design for HSPA networks called AFAM — Adaptive efficient File shAring for uMts networks. AFAM can decrease the dissemination time by efficiently utilizing the upload-bandwidth of mobile nodes. It uses an adaptive rearrangement of a node's concurrent uploads, which causes the count of the node's concurrent uploads to lower while ensuring that the node's upload-bandwidth can be efficiently utilized. AFAM also uses URF — Upload Rarest First policy for the block selection and receiver selection, which achieves real rarest-first for the spread of blocks and effectively avoids the "last-block" problem in file sharing applications. Our simulations show that, AFAM achieves much less dissemination time than other protocols including BulletPrime and a direct implementation of BitTorrent for mobile environments.

Cheatproof Dual-Tree Application-Level Multicast for Bulk Data Distribution

NOGUCHI, T., YAMAMOTO, M. — 2008-12-19

Application-level multicast has drawn a lot of attention as an alternative to IP multicast. In application-level multicast, multicast related features, such as group membership management, packet replication and packet forwarding are implemented at end-hosts instead of routers. The host perceived transmission quality and multicast forwarding responsibility depend on its position in the multicast distribution tree. This nature of application-level multicast motivates selfish members to alter their position by unrightful means to maximize their private benefits. Uncooperative behaviors of these selfish members, i.e. cheating, increase unfairness between selfish members and faithful members. In the context of bulk data distribution, this unfairness between members significantly impacts the receiver throughput. In this paper, to alleviate the negative impact of cheating members, we propose a new tree building protocol which builds dual multicast trees. Our proposed protocol constructs a shortest-widest path tree as the 1st tree. The members having lower position in the 1st tree are located at higher position in the 2nd tree in exchange for their unfairness. To investigate performance of our proposed protocol, it is compared with the existing application-level multicast protocol. Our simulation results show that our protocol outperforms the existing protocol from the view point of throughput and resource utilization against member cheating.

Performance Evaluation of Grid Computing with Parallel Routes Transmission

MIYAGI, H., OKAZAKI, Y., USUI, R., ARAKAWA, Y., OKAMOTO, S., YAMANAKA, N. — 2008-12-19

In a grid computing environment, the network characteristics such as bandwidth and latency affect the task performance. The demands for bandwidth of wide-area networks become large and it reaches more than 100 Gbps. In this article, we focus on parallel routes transmission, such as link aggregation, to realize large bandwidth network. The performance of grid computing with parallel routes transmission is evaluated on the emulated wide-area network.

Channel Estimation and Code Word Inference for Mobile Digital Satellite Broadcasting Reception

HAMADA, M., IKEDA, S. — 2008-12-19

This paper proposes a method of improving reception of digital satellite broadcasting in a moving vehicle. According to some studies, the antennas used for mobile reception will be smaller in the next generation and reception will be more difficult because of a fading multipath channel with delays in a low carrier-to-noise ratio. Commonly used approaches to reduce the inter symbol interference caused by a fading multipath channel with delays are pilot sequences and diversity reception. Digital satellite broadcasting, however, does not transmit pilot sequences for channel estimation and it is not possible to install multiple antennas in a vehicle. This paper does not propose any change to the broadcasting standards but discusses how to process currently available digital satellite signals to obtain better results. Our method does not rely on the pilot sequences or diversity reception, but consists of channel estimation and stochastic inference methods. For each task, two methods are proposed. The maximum likelihood estimation and higher order statistics matching methods are proposed for the estimation, and the marginal with the joint probability inference methods are proposed for the stochastic inference. The improvements were confirmed through experiments with numerical simulations and real data. The computational costs are also discussed for future implementation.

Design of Band-Stop Filters Using Discrete-Time Domain Techniques

TSAI, L.-C., CHU, K.-C. — 2008-12-19

A new formulation of equal-length asymmetric parallel coupled line (APCLs) having zero at z = –1( = ) is employed to study band-stop filters. Such representations offer additional flexibility in the design of filter circuits through two extra variables. An optimization algorithm is used to tune the characteristic impedances of APCLs so that the transfer function of the signal line is close to the system function of an ideal prototype filter. Two band-stop filters are realized in the form of microstrip lines and their frequency responses are measured to validate this new formulation.

A Succeeding Transmission Scheme for Burst Transfer in Optical Burst Switched Networks

HIROTA, Y., TANAKA, Y., TODA, H., MURAKAMI, K. — 2008-12-19

Optical Burst Switched (OBS) networks are considered as promising candidates for the next generation network architecture which does not need high-speed switch technologies. In OBS networks, contention resolution is one of the significant problems. Generally, setup reservations are operated per burst in OBS networks. To transmit multiple successive bursts successfully, the effective wavelength reservation must be implemented and enhanced network performance must be realized. In the proposed method, when an optical burst is generated and its destination is the same as that of the preceding burst or the path until the destination includes the entire path of the preceding burst, the subsequent burst is assigned to the same wavelength as the preceding burst and transmitted sequentially. The main aim in the proposed method is the efficient use of wavelength resources and the reduction of burst loss probability. We simulate and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. As a result, it is verified that the proposed method can reduce the burst loss probably.

Routing Algorithms for Packet/Circuit Switching in Optical Multi-log2N Networks

FUKUSHIMA, Y., JIANG, X., HORIGUCHI, S. — 2008-12-19

The multi-log₂N network architecture is attractive for constructing optical switches, and the related routing algorithms are critical for the operation and efficiency of such switches. Although several routing algorithms have been proposed for multi-log₂N networks, a full performance comparison among them has not been published up to now. Thus, we rectify this omission by providing such a comparison in terms of blocking probability, time complexity, hardware cost and load balancing capability. Notice that the load balance is important for reducing the peak power requirement of a switch, so we also propose in this paper a new routing algorithm for optical multi-log₂N networks to achieve a better load balance.

GridFTP-APT: Automatic Parallelism Tuning Mechanism for GridFTP in Long-Fat Networks

ITO, T., OHSAKI, H., IMASE, M. — 2008-12-19

In this paper, we propose an extension to GridFTP that optimizes its performance by dynamically adjusting the number of parallel TCP connections. GridFTP has been used as a data transfer protocol to effectively transfer a large volume of data in Grid computing. GridFTP supports a feature called parallel data transfer that improves throughput by establishing multiple TCP connections in parallel. However, for achieving high GridFTP throughput, the number of TCP connections should be optimized based on the network status. In this paper, we propose an automatic parallelism tuning mechanism called GridFTP-APT (GridFTP with Automatic Parallelism Tuning) that adjusts the number of parallel TCP connections according to information available to the Grid middleware. Through simulations, we demonstrate that GridFTP-APT significantly improves the performance of GridFTP in various network environments.

Application of Insensitivity Analysis of Coverage Processes to Wireless Sensor Networks

SAITO, H., SHIODA, S., HARADA, J. — 2008-12-19

Randomly distributed wireless sensors used to monitor and detect a moving object were investigated, and performance measures such as the expected time/space detection ratio were theoretically analyzed. In particular, the insensitivities (robustness) of the performance measures to the conditions of the distributed wireless sensors and the target object were analyzed. Robust explicit equations for these performance measures were derived, and these equations can be used to calculate them without knowing the sensing area shape or the target object trajectory. These equations were applied to the following two applications. (1) They were used to estimate the impact of active/sleeping state schedule algorithms of sensors on the expected ratio of the time that the sensors detect the target object during its movement. The results were used to identify the active state schedule that increases the expected time ratio. (2) They were also applied to a sensor density design method that uses a test object. This method can be used to ensure that the expected time ratio that at least one sensor can detect the target satisfies the target value without knowing the sensing area size or the movement of the target object.

TCP Congestion Control Mechanisms for Achieving Predictable Throughput Using Inline Network Measurement

HASEGAWA, G., YAMANEGI, K., MURATA, M. — 2008-12-19

Recently, real-time media delivery services such as video streaming and VoIP have rapidly become popular. For these applications requiring high-level QoS guarantee, our research group has proposed a transport-layer approach to provide predictable throughput for upper-layer applications. In the present paper, we propose a congestion control mechanism of TCP for achieving predictable throughput. It does not mean we can guarantee the throughput, while we can provide the throughput required by an upper-layer application at high probability when network congestion level is not so high by using the inline network measurement technique for available bandwidth of the network path. We present the evaluation results for the proposed mechanism obtained in simulation and implementation experiments, and confirm that the proposed mechanism can assure a TCP throughput if the required bandwidth is not so high compared to the physical bandwidth, even when other ordinary TCP (e.g., TCP Reno) connections occupy the link.

A Protocol Specification-Based Intrusion Detection System for VoIP and Its Evaluation

PHIT, T., ABE, K. — 2008-12-19

We propose an architecture of Intrusion Detection System (IDS) for VoIP using a protocol specification-based detection method to monitor the network traffics and alert administrator for further analysis of and response to suspicious activities. The protocol behaviors and their interactions are described by state machines. Traffic that behaves differently from the standard specifications are considered to be suspicious. The IDS has been implemented and simulated using OPNET Modeler, and verified to detect attacks. It was found that our system can detect typical attacks within a reasonable amount of delay time.

A Computationally Efficient Method for Large Dimension Subcarrier Assignment and Bit Allocation Problem of Multiuser OFDM System

LIN, S.-Y., HUANG, J.-S. — 2008-12-19

In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient method to solve the large dimension Adaptive Subcarrier Assignment and Bit Allocation (ASABA) problem of multiuser orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system. Our algorithm consists of three Ordinal Optimization (OO) stages to find a good enough solution to the considered problem. First of all, we reformulate the considered problem to separate it into subcarrier assignment and bit allocation problem such that the objective function of a feasible subcarrier assignment pattern is the corresponding optimal bit allocation for minimizing the total consumed power. Then in the first stage, we develop an approximate objective function to evaluate the performance of a subcarrier assignment pattern and use a genetic algorithm to search through the huge solution space and select s best subcarrier assignment patterns based on the approximate objective values. In the second stage, we employ an off-line trained artificial neural network to estimate the objective values of the s subcarrier assignment patterns obtained in stage 1 and select the l best patterns. In the third stage, we use the exact objective function to evaluate the l subcarrier assignment patterns obtained in stage 2, and the best one associated with the corresponding optimal bit allocation is the good enough solution that we seek. We apply our algorithm to numerous cases of large-dimension ASABA problems and compare the results with those obtained by four existing algorithms. The test results show that our algorithm is the best in both aspects of solution quality and computational efficiency.

A Novel Power Distribution Scheme Combined with Adaptive Modulation Based on Subcarrier Grouping for OFDM Systems

BOCQUET, W., HAYASHI, K., SAKAI, H. — 2008-12-19

In this paper, we propose to adapt both the modulation scheme and the transmit power in the frequency domain using a heuristic evaluation of the bit error rate (BER) for each subcarrier. The proposed method consists in ordering in terms of fading impact, grouping a certain number of subcarriers and performing local power adaptation in each subcarrier group. The subcarrier grouping is performed in order to equalize the average channel condition of each subcarrier group. Grouping and local power adaptation allow us to take advantage of the channel variations and to reduce the computational complexity of the proposed power distribution scheme, while avoiding the performance degradation due to the suboptimum power adaptation as much as possible. Compared to the conventional power distribution methods, the proposed scheme does not require any iterative process and the power adaptation is directly performed using an analytical formula. Simulations show a gain in terms of BER performance compared to equal power distribution and existing algorithms for power distribution. In addition, due to the subcarrier group specificity, the trade-off between the computational complexity and the performance can be controlled by adjusting the size of the subcarrier groups. Simulation results show significant improvement of BER performance compared to equal power allocation.

Simplified Interference Coupling Model for Two Orthogonal Striplines on Adjacent Layers

ARAKI, K., XIAO, F., KAMI, Y. — 2008-12-19

To evaluate frequency-domain interference between orthogonally intersecting stripline geometries, a lumped mutual capacitance was incorporated into a circuit model, and then a simplified circuit was proposed in the previous paper. The circuit model was approximated from an investigation of the distribution of mutual capacitance but it has remained how the capacitance is approximated. In this paper, a technique using an error function is proposed for the problem. Then, the time-domain response in an analytical expression is studied using the simplified circuit model in a Laplace transformation to make the mechanism clear. Comparing the experimental and the computed results verifies the proposed models.

Construction of Scalable 2-D Multi-Weight Optical Orthogonal Codes for Optical CDMA Networks

PIAO, Y.-C., CHOE, J., SUNG, W., SHIN, D.-J. — 2008-12-19

In this letter, we propose combinatorial and search construction methods of 2-D multi-weight optical orthogonal codes (OOCs) with autocorrelation 0 and crosscorrelation 1, called multi-weight single or no pulse per row (MSNPR) codes. An upper bound on the size of MSNPR codes is derived and the performance of MSNPR codes is compared to those of other OOCs in terms of the bit error rate (BER) and evaluated using blocking probability. It is also demonstrated that the MSNPR codes can be flexibly constructed for different applications, providing the scalability to optical CDMA networks.

Throughput Efficiency of Go-Back-N ARQ Protocol on Parallel Multi-Channel with Burst Errors

NAGAOKA, K., CHEN, C.-X., KOMATSU, M. — 2008-12-19

In this paper, we investigate the throughput efficiency of the Go-Back-N ARQ protocol on parallel multiple channels with burst errors. We assume that packet errors occur according to a two-state Markov chain on each channel. The effect of the decay factor of the Markov chain on throughput efficiency is evaluated based on the results of numerical analysis.

Transmission of Correlated Messages over Interference Channels with Strong Interference

CHOI, S., YOON, E., MOON, H. — 2008-12-19

Transmission of correlated messages over interference channels with strong interference is considered. As a result, an achievable rate region is presented. It is shown that if the messages are correlated, the achievable rate region can be larger than the capacity region given by Costa and El Gamal. As an example, the Gaussian interference channel is considered.

Frequency Shifted Optical SSB Modulation Scheme and Its Application to SCM Transmission

FUJIWARA, T., KIKUSHIMA, K. — 2008-12-19

We propose frequency shifted optical single sideband (OSSB), a novel OSSB modulation scheme. It uses a continuous wave to up-convert the source signal, and the signal and the continuous wave then undergo suppressed carrier OSSB modulation simultaneously. This scheme inherently has no unwanted sidebands, even if the suppressed carrier OSSB modulator is defective. Experiments of 12 GHz RF signal transmission confirm that it achieves 2.4 dB relaxation in chromatic dispersion power fading under the condition of 15 dB SSR.

An Adaptive Superframe Structure Algorithm for IEEE 802.15.4 WPANs

LI, C., LI, H.-B., KOHNO, R. — 2008-12-19

To be adaptive to the bursty traffic of the wireless personal area network (WPAN), a superframe structure adjustment algorithm of IEEE 802.15.4 is proposed. According to the channel utilization ratio which is an index of the traffic load, the algorithm adjusts the duty cycle of the superframe automatically. The simulation results show that the algorithm is adaptive to the traffic variations effectively and saves much more energy not only for the end devices but also for the PAN coordinator. Moreover, the algorithm results in better performance on the lower delay and lower packet dropping rate.

SLA-Constrained Policy-Based Scheduling Mechanism in Grid

HAN, Y., SONG, H., KIM, B., YOUN, C.-H. — 2008-12-19

Due to the dynamic nature and uncertainty of grid computing, system reliability can become very unpredictable. Thus, a well-defined scheduling mechanism that provides high system availability for grid applications is required. In this letter, we propose a SLA-constrained policy-based scheduling mechanism to enhance system performance in grid. Also, we implement the proposed model and show that our policy-based scheduling mechanism can guarantee high system availability as well as support load balancing on an experimental basis.

An Efficient RSS-Based Localization Scheme with Calibration in Wireless Sensor Networks

TRAN-XUAN, C., KIM, E., KOO, I. — 2008-12-19

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), localization using the received signal strength (RSS) method is famous for easy adaptation and low cost where measuring the distance between sensor nodes. However, in real localization systems, the RSS is strongly affected by many surrounding factors and tends to be unstable, so that it degrades accuracy in distance measurement. In this paper, we propose the angle-referred calibration based RSS method where angle relation between sensor nodes is used to perform the calibration for better performance in distance measurement. As a result, the proposed scheme shows that it can provide high precision.

Utilizing a Perceptive Technique for the Delay-Sensitive Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks

SHRESTHA, D. M., SUH, C., KO, Y.-B. — 2008-12-19

CSMA/CA is a well known medium access mechanism extensively used in wireless networks. By detecting the carrier sensing (CS) signal, nodes determine whether the status of the wireless medium is busy or idle. However, recent works have shown that besides detecting the channel status, these signals can be used to derive the transmitted packet size at the nodes in the CS range. In this paper, we present the feasibility of this technique using CC2420 radio. In addition, we show how we can apply larger CS range and packet size detection to solve well-known problems such as reducing latency in the wireless sensor network (WSN). To our knowledge, the proposed solution is the first trial that applies such techniques to design the delay-sensitive scheduling for WSN. Based on our ns-2 simulation, we show that our proposal reduces latency significantly compared to the existing listen/sleep scheduling based protocols.

Lifetime-Aware Replication for Data Durability in P2P Storage Network

KIM, K. — 2008-12-19

Many p2p based wide-area storage networks have been proposed to provide scalable storage services by combining the idle resources of many unreliable nodes. These storage networks can also provide highly available and reliable storage services, by replicating each data on several nodes. The popular approach is availability based replication which uses individual node availability. However, some replicas leave within a short time under high churn in p2p networks. This results in heavy and bursty data traffic, and sometimes some data are lost. This paper presents the lifetime-aware replication which uses the lifetime of each node to prevent the bursty failures and the data loss. It keeps a primary replica which has enough time to replace a lost redundancy. It also spreads replicas on the timeline to reduce the overlapped replicas as best as it can. Results from event-driven simulations show that the lifetime-aware replication keeps high data durability with less data traffic.

Adaptive PSP-MLSE Using State-Space Based RLS for Multi-Path Fading Channels

JOO, J. S. — 2008-12-19

An adaptive per-survivor processing maximum likelihood sequence estimation (PSP-MLSE) using state-space based recursive least-squares (RLS) is proposed for rapidly time varying multi-path fading channels. Unlike PSP-MLSE using Kalman filtering, it does not require the knowledge of model statistics, and with an aid of state-space modeling, it has a robust performance to the fade rate, compared to PSP-MLSE using conventional RLS.

Modified Successive Interference Cancellation for OFDM Signal Detection

CHEN, Y.-K., LEE, H. C., WEI, S.-W. — 2008-12-19

A modified successive interference cancellation (SIC) algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is presented. The presented modified SIC algorithm makes use of an index sequence to avoid the subcarriers re-ordering calculation. Furthermore, by combining the SIC with the conventional zero-forcing (ZF) detection, computation complexity of the presented algorithm can be significantly reduced and meanwhile excellent performance can be maintained.

Improved Subcarrier Allocation in Multi-User OFDM Systems

LEE, W. J., LEE, J., YOON, D., PARK, S. K. — 2008-12-19

In a multi-user orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system, efficient resource allocation is required to provide service to more users. In this letter, we propose an improved subcarrier allocation algorithm that can increase the spectral efficiency and the number of total transmission bits even if the number of users is too large. The proposed algorithm is divided into two stages. In the first stage, a group of users who are eligible for services is determined by using the bit error rate (BER), the users' minimum data rate requirement, and channel information. In the second stage, subcarriers are first allocated to the users on the basis of channel state, and then the reallocation is performed so that resource waste is minimized. We show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional one on the basis of outage probability, spectral efficiency, and the number of total transmission bits through a computer simulation.

On Outage Probability of Limited Feedback Beamforming with Receive Antenna Selection

ZENG, E., ZHU, S., LIAO, X., ZHONG, Z. — 2008-12-19

This letter analyzes the outage probability of limited feedback beamforming systems with receive antenna selection. Tight analytical closed-form expressions of outage performance are derived for both cases, with and without spatial fading correlation, which allow for evaluation of the performance as a function of the codebook size, the level of fading correlation, and the number of transmit and receive antennas. Simulation results are also provided to verify the analysis.

A Simple and Accurate Approximation to the Average Achievable Rate of Stacked OSTBC in Rayleigh Fading Channels

LEE, H., POWERS, E. J. — 2008-12-19

In this letter, we derive a very accurate closed-form approximate formula for the average achievable rate of stacked orthogonal space-time block code (OSTBC) in Rayleigh fading channels. Some simulations are performed to demonstrate that the derived formula shows better agreement with Monte-Carlo simulation results than the existing closed-form approximate expressions.

Adaptive Resource Allocation for the PB/MC-CDMA System in Frequency Selective Fading Channels

LEE, K., LEE, K. — 2008-12-19

We propose Adaptive Resource Allocation for the Partial Block MC-CDMA (ARA-PB/MC-CDMA) system. The ARA-PB/MC-CDMA system aims to improve total throughput performance and frequency efficiency across various channel conditions. It adaptively changes the number of blocks to improve the throughput performance and frequency efficiency according to the Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR). Therefore, the proposed system supports various Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for various SIR values.

Per-Flow Fair Media Access Control in Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks

CHOI, H.-S., LIM, J.-T. — 2008-12-19

IEEE 802.11 Media Access Control (MAC) is the most widely used protocol in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks (WANETs). However, it cannot guarantee fair channel allocation among the flows contending for the channel. In this paper, we propose a new media access control algorithm to achieve per-flow fairness while maximizing WANETs throughput.

Detection for Space-Time Block Coding over Time-Selective Fading Channels

YU, D., LEE, J. H. — 2008-12-19

A detector for space-time block coding is proposed to combat time-selective fading. To suppress both noise and interference, a minimum mean square error (MMSE) based detector is introduced for space-time block coding. It is shown by simulations that the proposed detector outperforms the conventional detectors when the channel is time-selective fading.

A Study of Fast Carrier Search Method for Downlink OFDM

MATSUMOTO, M., MOCHIZUKI, T. — 2008-12-19

This letter proposes a fast carrier search method, the Carrier Search Step method (CSSM), to quickly detect the carrier frequency even when mobile stations have no knowledge of the carrier frequencies used [1]. CSSM consists of two operations: 1) mobile stations use the coarse-to-fine search to detect the synchronization channel (SCH), and 2) the center frequency of SCH is shifted within the channel bandwidth so that mobile stations can detect the SCH in an early step of the coarse-to-fine search. Compared with conventional methods, CSSM can reduce carrier search time by 90% when SCH bandwidth is 1.08 MHz and the channel bandwidth is 5 MHz. The reduction in carrier search time strengthens as the channel bandwidth increases.

Measurement Based MIMO Channel Capacity in an Urban Canyon Environment at the 3.7 GHz Band

LIM, J.-W., KWON, S.-W., PARK, Y.-H., YOON, H.-G., YOOK, J.-G., YOON, Y.-J. — 2008-12-19

This paper describes the measurements made in an urban canyon environment of a relay network scenario to determine the capacity of the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel. While varying antenna number and spacing, we measure the channel matrices in the 3.7 GHz band using a 4 x 4 switching MIMO channel sounder. The results show that antenna spacing is shown to have less impact than signal-to-noise (SNR) on MIMO channel capacity in a line-of-sight (LOS) environment when physical antenna spacing is selected at four wavelengths. As a result, in an urban MIMO LOS scenario, a base station can provide sufficient data throughput to relay station because most links from base station to relay station have LOS environment and are free from restriction of antenna spacing.

Accuracy and Stability Enhancement of Hybrid-Domain MoM Solution for Volume Scattering Problems Using Legendre Expansion

SAEEDFAR, A., SAWAYA, K. — 2008-12-19

An alternative polynomial expansion for electromagnetic field estimation inside three-dimensional dielectric scatterers is presented in this article. In a continuation with the previous work of authors, the Tensor-Volume Integral Equation (TVIE) is solved by using the Galerkin-based moment method (MoM) consisting of a combination of entire-domain and sub-domain basis functions including three-dimensional polynomials. Instead of using trivial power polynomials, Legendre polynomials are adopted for electromagnetic fields expansion in this study. They have the advantage of being a set of orthogonal functions, which allows the use of high-order basis functions without introducing an ill-condition MoM matrix. The accuracy of such approach in MoM is verified by comparing its numerical results with that of exact analytical method such as Mie theory and conventional procedures in MoM. Besides, it is also confirmed that the condition number of the MoM matrix obtained with the proposed approach is lower than that of the previous approaches.

Improving the Accuracy of Ray Tracing Estimation Considering Inhomogeneous Building Surfaces in Urban Environments

2008-12-19

To improve path loss estimation, a ray tracing method for inhomogeneous building surfaces and its verification are presented in this paper. Considering real building surfaces with many heterogeneous materials, the effective specular reflection based on a physical optics (PO) approximation is modeled and applied to the reflection in a ray tracing method. To verify the proposed method, measurement at 2.7 GHz is performed in a complex urban environment. Comparisons between the measurements and the ray tracing results are made in LOS and NLOS environments.

Design of Measurement Apparatus for Electromagnetic Shielding Effectiveness Using Flanged Double Ridged Waveguide

KWON, J. H., CHOI, J. I., YOOK, J. G. — 2008-12-19

In this paper, we design and manufacture a flanged double ridged waveguide with a tapered section as a sample holder for measuring the electromagnetic shielding effectiveness (SE) of planar material in broadband frequency ranges up to 10 GHz. The proposed technique overcomes the limitations of the conventional ASTM D4935 test method at high frequencies. The simulation results for the designed sample holders agree well with the fabricated ones in consideration of the design specification of S₁₁ < –20 dB within the frequency range of 1–10 GHz. To verify the proposed measurement apparatus, the measured SE data of the commercial shielding materials from 1 to 10 GHz were indirectly compared with those obtained from the ASTM D4935 from 30 MHz to 1 GHz. We observed that the SE data obtained by using both experimental techniques agree with each other.

Objective Estimation of Word Intelligibility for Noise-Reduced Speech

YAMADA, T., KUMAKURA, M., KITAWAKI, N. — 2008-12-19

It is essential to ensure a satisfactory QoS (Quality of Service) when offering a speech communication system with a noise reduction algorithm. In this paper, we propose a new obejective test methodology for noise-reduced speech that estimates word intelligibility by using a distortion measure. Experimental results confirmed that the proposed methodology gives an accurate estimate with independence of noise reduction algorithms and noise types.

Sub-Pixel Motion Estimation Scheme Using Selective Interpolation

CHO, J., JEON, G., SUH, J., JEONG, J. — 2008-12-19

Current sub-pixel motion estimation algorithm is time and memory-consuming when performing image compression and communication. So we propose a selective interpolation method for sub-pixel motion estimation. We applied selective interpolations after estimating a candidate for sub-pixel accuracy motion vector from the simplest mathematical model. According to simulation results, the proposed method attains nearly the same performance as the full-search for half-pixel motion estimation with much lower computational complexity.

Asymptotic Performance Analysis of Multihop Relayed Transmissions over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

FANG, Z., LI, L., WANG, Z. — 2008-12-19

This letter studies the asymptotic bit error rate (BER) performance of multihop communication systems with amplify-and-forward relaying over Nakagami-m fading channels. Since it is difficult to find the exact probability density function (PDF) of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the destination, we resort to the series expansion of this PDF in the neighborhood of zero. Building upon this result, a closed-form expression for the average BER in the high SNR region is derived. Numeric results show that the derived asymptotic BER expression is accurate at medium and high SNR for both independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) and independent non-identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) channels.

Exact and Closed-Form Outage Probability of Opportunistic Single Relay Selection in Decode-and-Forward Relaying

KIM, J.-B., KIM, D. — 2008-12-19

In this letter, we first provide the closed-form exact outage probability of opportunistic single relay selection in decode-and-forward (DF) relaying with the direct source-destination link under arbitrarily distributed Rayleigh fading channels. The signals from the source and the selected relay are combined at the destination by using maximal ratio combining (MRC). We derive the probability density function (PDF) and the cumulative density function (CDF) of received SNR at the destination. Numerical results show that the analytic results exactly match with the simulated ones.

Special Section on Emerging Technologies for Practical Ubiquitous and Sensor Networks

Ohashi, M. — 2008-11-10

A Burst Modulation/Demodulation Method for Narrowband Ubiquitous Communication Systems

FUJITA, T., UCHIDA, D., FUJINO, Y., KAGAMI, O., WATANABE, K. — 2008-11-10

This paper presents a wireless burst modulation/demodulation method for narrowband ubiquitous communication systems. This method especially suits those systems, whose traffic is especially dominated by short frame bursts. The proposed modulation method provides a preamble-less frame structure with training symbols, which improves both transmission efficiency and burst synchronization performance. Moreover, the proposed demodulation method achieves superior burst synchronization performance in low carrier-to-noise power ratio (CNR) environments by applying a synchronization method that includes symbol timing recovery, slot synchronization, carrier frequency correction and channel tracking. In addition, this paper presents the result of experiments on hardware prototypes of the proposed modulator and demodulator. The basic operation and practical performance of the proposed method is confirmed through testbed studies.

Error Correction Using Time-Dependent Correlation and Transmit Power Control in Sensor Networks

DOKI, S., OKADA, H., MASE, K. — 2008-11-10

In a sensor network, a certain area or environment are observed by a lot of distributed sensor nodes and a sink collects data observed by sensor nodes. The observed data sequences that sensor nodes generate may have space- and/or time-dependent correlation. This correlation is regarded as redundant information and can be used for channel error correction by joint decoder using correlation. In this paper, we propose the joint decoding scheme using the time-dependent correlation consisting of the consecutive data sequences generated by a sensor node. We also propose a power control scheme using the time-dependent correlation for reduction in energy consumption. We evaluate the packet error rate and the energy consumption ratio, and clarify the effect of our proposed schemes.

Interference-Aware Transmission Power Control for Wireless Sensor Networks

KIM, J., KWON, Y. — 2008-11-10

Maintaining the lowest possible transmission power in the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is vulnerable to the interference fluctuations because of the bad signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR). The previous transmission power control (TPC) algorithms do not consider much for the interferences from other 2.4 GHz devices, which can cause significant performance degradations in real world deployments. This paper proposes the interference-aware transmission power control (I-TPC) algorithm for WSNs. In the proposed algorithm, each node dynamically adjusts the transmission power and the received signal strength (RSS) target, hence the appropriate SINR is provided even when the wireless LAN (WLAN) interferences become strong. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the previous algorithms in terms of the energy and the packet reception ratio (PRR) performance in WLAN interference environments.

Experimental Evaluation of a Simple Outlier RSSI Data Rejection Algorithm for Location Estimation in Wireless Sensor Networks

ANZAI, D., HARA, S. — 2008-11-10

The ability to estimate a target location is essential in many applications of wireless sensor networks. Received signal strength indicator (RSSI)-based maximum likelihood (ML) method in a wireless sensor network usually requires a pre-determined statistical model on the variation of RSSI in a sensing area and uses it as an ML function when estimating the location of a target in the sensing area. However, when estimating the location of a target, due to several reasons, we often measure the RSSIs which do not follow the statistical model, in other words, which are outlier on the statistical model. As the result, the effect of the outlier RSSI data worsens the estimation accuracy. If the wireless sensor network has a lot of sensor nodes, we can improve the estimation accuracy intentionally rejecting such outlier RSSIs. In this paper, we propose a simple outlier RSSI data rejection algorithm for an ML location estimation. The proposed algorithm iteratively eliminates the anchor nodes which measure outlier RSSIs. As compared with the location estimation methods with previously proposed outlier RSSI data rejection algorithms, our proposed method performs better with much less computational complexity.

Multi-Floor Semantically Meaningful Localization Using IEEE 802.11 Network Beacons

AHMAD, U., J. D'AURIOL, B., LEE, Y.-K., LEE, S. — 2008-11-10

This paper presents a new methodology, Beacognition, for real-time discovery of the associations between a signal space and arbitrarily defined regions, termed as Semantically Meaningful Areas (SMAs), in the corresponding physical space. It lets the end users develop semantically meaningful location systems using standard 802.11 network beacons as they roam through their environment. The key idea is to discover the unique associations using a beacon popularity model. The popularity measurements are then used to localize the mobile devices. The beacon popularity is computed using an 'election' algorithm and a new recognition model is presented to perform the localization task. We have implemented such a location system in a five story campus building. The comparative results show significant improvement in localization by achieving on average 83% SMA and 88% Floor recognition rate in less than one minute per SMA training time.

Improvement of Vehicle Positioning Using Car-to-Car Communications in Consideration of Communication Delay

HONTANI, H., HIGUCHI, Y. — 2008-11-10

In this article, we propose a vehicle positioning method that can estimate positions of cars even in areas where the GPS is not available. For the estimation, each car measures the relative distance to a car running in front, communicates the measurements with other cars, and uses the received measurements for estimating its position. In order to estimate the position even if the measurements are received with time-delay, we employed the time-delay tolerant Kalman filtering. For sharing the measurements, it is assumed that a car-to-car communication system is used. Then, the measurements sent from farther cars are received with larger time-delay. It follows that the accuracy of the estimates of farther cars become worse. Hence, the proposed method manages only the states of nearby cars to reduce computing effort. The authors simulated the proposed filtering method and found that the proposed method estimates the positions of nearby cars as accurate as the distributed Kalman filtering.

Energy-Efficient BOP-Based Beacon Transmission Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks

KIM, E.-J., YOUM, S., CHOI, H.-H. — 2008-11-10

Many applications in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) require the energy efficiency and scalability. Although IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee which is being considered as general technology for WSNs enables the low duty-cycling with time synchronization of all the nodes in network, it still suffer from its low scalability due to the beacon frame collision. Recently, various algorithms to resolve this problem are proposed. However, their manners to implement are somewhat ambiguous and the degradation of energy/communication efficiency is serious by the additional overhead. This paper describes an Energy-efficient BOP-based Beacon transmission Scheduling (EBBS) algorithm. EBBS is the centralized approach, in which a resource-sufficient node called as Topology Management Center (TMC) allocates the time slots to transmit a beacon frame to the nodes and manages the active/sleep schedules of them. We also propose EBBS with Adaptive BOPL (EBBS-AB), to adjust the duration to transmit beacon frames in every beacon interval, adaptively. Simulation results show that by using the proposed algorithm, the energy efficiency and the throughput of whole network can be significantly improved. EBBS-AB is also more effective for the network performance when the nodes are uniformly deployed on the sensor field rather than the case of random topologies.

Cross-Layer Design for Low-Power Wireless Sensor Node Using Wave Clock

2008-11-10

We propose Isochronous-MAC (I-MAC) using the Long-Wave Standard Time Code (so called "wave clock"), and introduce cross-layer design for a low-power wireless sensor node with I-MAC. I-MAC has a periodic wakeup time synchronized with the actual time, and thus we take the wave clock. However, a frequency of a crystal oscillator varies along with temperature, which incurs a time difference among nodes. We present a time correction algorithm to address this problem, and shorten the time difference. Thereby, the preamble length in I-MAC can be minimized, which saves communication power. For further power reduction, a low-power crystal oscillator is also proposed, as a physical-layer design. We implemented I-MAC on an off-the-shelf sensor node to estimate the power saving, and verified that the proposed cross-layer design reduces 81% of the total power, compared to Low Power Listening.

Counter-Based Broadcasting with Hop Count Aware Random Assessment Delay Extension for Wireless Sensor Networks

IZUMI, S., TAKEUCHI, T., MATSUDA, T., KAWAGUCHI, H., OHTA, C., YOSHIMOTO, M. — 2008-11-10

Broadcasting is an elementary operation in wireless multi-hop networks. Flooding is a simple broadcast protocol but it frequently causes serious redundancy, contention and collisions. Probability based methods are promising because they can reduce broadcast messages without additional hardware and control packets. In this paper, the counter-based scheme which is one of the probability based methods is focused on as a broadcast protocol, and the RAD (Random Assessment Delay) Extension is proposed to improve the original counter-based scheme. The RAD Extension can be implemented without additional hardware, so that the strength of the counter-based scheme can be preserved. In addition, we propose the additional algorithm called Hop Count Aware RAD Extension to establish shorter path from the source node. Simulation results show that both of the RAD Extension and the Hop Count Aware RAD Extension reduce the number of retransmitting nodes by about 10% compared with the original scheme. Furthermore, the Hop Count Aware RAD Extension can establish almost the same path length as the counter-based scheme.

Multiple Sink Positioning and Routing to Maximize the Lifetime of Sensor Networks

KIM, H., KWON, T., MAH, P. — 2008-11-10

In wireless sensor networks, the sensor nodes collect data, which are routed to a sink node. Most of the existing proposals address the routing problem to maximize network lifetime in the case of a single sink node. In this paper, we extend this problem into the case of multiple sink nodes. To maximize network lifetime, we consider the two problems: (i) how to position multiple sink nodes in the area, and (ii) how to route traffic flows from sensor nodes to sink nodes. In this paper, the solutions to these problems are formulated into a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model. However, it is computationally difficult to solve the MILP formulation as the size of sensor network grows because MILP is NP-hard. Thus, we propose a heuristic algorithm, which produces a solution in polynomial time. From our experiments, we found out that the proposed heuristic algorithm provides a near-optimal solution for maximizing network lifetime in dense sensor networks.

Research of Practical Indoor Guidance Platform Using Fluorescent Light Communication

LIU, X., MAKINO, H., KOBAYASHI, S., MAEDA, Y. — 2008-11-10

This article presents an indoor positioning and communication platform, using fluorescent lights. We set up a practical implementation of a VLC (Visible Light Communication) system in a University building. To finalize this work, it is important that we analyze the properties of the reception signal, especially the length of the data string that can be received at different walking speed. In this paper, we present a model and a series of formulae for analyzing the relationship between positioning signal availability and other important parameters, such as sensor angle, walking speed, data transmission rate, etc. We report a series of real-life experiments using VLC system and compare the results with those generated by the formula. The outcome is an improved design for determination of the reception area with more than 97% accurate signals, and an optimal transmission data length, and transmission rate.

Representative Path Selection for Goal & Path Prediction

YOON, T., LEE, J.-H. — 2008-11-10

Various types of data from environment are used to provide user-adaptive services. Among them, data of a user's past moving paths are useful to predict a moving user's next location and provide related services. This paper proposes a method to predict a moving user's location through analyzing his/her past moving paths. This method analyzes the user's moving path by using three elements of distance, time and direction of moving paths and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), and selects the representative path, which is the one most similar to the current moving path in the past paths. The selected path can be used to provide service like space and time estimation.

Adaptive Yaw Rate Aware Sensor Wakeup Schemes Protocol (A-YAP) for Target Prediction and Tracking in Sensor Networks

RAZA, M. T., MIR, Z. H., AKBAR, A. H., YOO, S.-W., KIM, K.-H. — 2008-11-10

Target tracking is one of the key applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) that forms basis for numerous other applications. The overall procedures of target tracking involve target detection, localization, and tracking. Because of the WSNs' resource constraints (especially energy), it is highly desired that target tracking should be done by involving as less number of sensor nodes as possible. Due to the uncertain behavior of the target and resulting mobility patterns, this goal becomes harder to achieve without predicting the future locations of the target. The presence of a prediction mechanism may allow the activation of only the relevant sensors along the future course, before actually the target reaches the future location. This prior activation contributes to increasing the overall sensor networks lifetime by letting non-relevant nodes sleep. In this paper, first, we introduce a Yaw rate aware sensor wAkeup Protocol (YAP) for the prediction of future target locations. Second, we present improvements on the YAP design through the incorporation of adaptability. The proposed schemes are distributive in nature, and select relevant sensors to determine the target track. The performance of YAP and A-YAP is also discussed on different mobility patterns, which confirms the efficacy of the algorithm.

Optimal Sensor Deployment for Wireless Surveillance Sensor Networks by a Hybrid Steady-State Genetic Algorithm

SEO, J.-H., KIM, Y.-H., RYOU, H.-B., CHA, S.-H., JO, M. — 2008-11-10

An important objective of surveillance sensor networks is to effectively monitor the environment, and detect, localize, and classify targets of interest. The optimal sensor placement enables us to minimize manpower and time, to acquire accurate information on target situation and movement, and to rapidly change tactics in the dynamic field. Most of previous researches regarding the sensor deployment have been conducted without considering practical input factors. Thus in this paper, we apply more real-world input factors such as sensor capabilities, terrain features, target identification, and direction of target movements to the sensor placement problem. We propose a novel and efficient hybrid steady-state genetic algorithm giving low computational overhead as well as optimal sensor placement for enhancing surveillance capability to monitor and locate target vehicles. The proposed algorithm introduces new two-dimensional geographic crossover and mutation. By using a new simulator adopting the proposed genetic algorithm developed in this paper, we demonstrate successful applications to the wireless real-world surveillance sensor placement problem giving very high detection and classification rates, 97.5% and 87.4%, respectively.

A GMM-Based Target Classification Scheme for a Node in Wireless Sensor Networks

KIM, Y., JEONG, S., KIM, D. — 2008-11-10

In this paper, an efficient node-level target classification scheme in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is proposed. It uses acoustic and seismic information, and its performance is verified by the classification accuracy of vehicles in a WSN. Because of the hard limitation in resources, parametric classifiers should be more preferable than non-parametric ones in WSN systems. As a parametric classifier, the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) algorithm not only shows good performances to classify targets in WSNs, but it also requires very few resources suitable to a sensor node. In addition, our sensor fusion method uses a decision tree, generated by the classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm, to improve the accuracy, so that the algorithm drives a considerable increase of the classification rate using less resources. Experimental results using a real dataset of WSN show that the proposed scheme shows a 94.10% classification rate and outperforms the k-nearest neighbors and the support vector machine.

Efficient RFID Search Protocols Using Counters

KIM, S., LIM, J., HAN, J., OH, H. — 2008-11-10

In an RFID search protocol, a reader uses a designated query instead of an unspecified query commonly used in RFID authentication protocols. Due to this fundamental difference, techniques used in RFID authentication protocols may not be suitable for RFID search protocols. Tan et al.'s protocol, however, is based on techniques used in previous works such as using random values. In this paper, we propose two RFID search protocols, one based on static ID and the other based on dynamic ID, both which does not require additional measures to satisfy security requirements of RFID protocols. We achieve this by using counters.

Fuzzy Logic-Based Quantized Event Filter for RFID Data Processing

JANG, S. H., CHOUN, H. S., CHAE, H. S., LEE, J. S. — 2008-11-10

RFID event filtering is an important issue of RFID data management. Tag read events from readers have some problems like unreliability, redundancy, and disordering of tag readings. Duplicated events lead to performance degradation of RFID systems with a flood of similar tag information. Therefore, this paper proposes a fuzzy logic-based quantized event filter. In order to reduce duplicated tag readings and solve disordering of tag readings, the filter applies a fuzzy logic system to control a filtering threshold by the change in circumstances of readers. Continuous tag readings are converted into discrete values for event generation by the filtering threshold. And, the filter generates as many events as the discrete values at a point of event generation time. Experimental results comparing the proposed filter with existing RFID event filters, such as the primitive event filter and the smoothing event filter, verify effectiveness and efficiency of the fuzzy logic-based quantized event filter.

Effective Selective Detection Scheme Based on Pulse Repetition for Coherent UWB Systems

KIM, J., KIM, S., SUNG, W., SHIN, Y. — 2008-11-10

We propose a selective detection scheme based on pulse repetition considering both BER (Bit Error Rate) performance and complexity in coherent UWB (Ultra Wide Band) systems. To take system complexity into account, the proposed scheme transmits the UWB signals by pulse repetition at the transmitter, like conventional PRC (Pulse Repetition Coding). However, to effectively improve BER performance of the system, the proposed scheme performs selective detection by estimating the SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of the received pulse-repeated signal at the UWB receiver.

Efficient and Secure Self-Organized Public Key Management for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

CHOI, D., LEE, Y., PARK, Y., JIN, S.-h., YOON, H. — 2008-11-10

This paper presents a fully self-organized key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks. Unlike most previous schemes, there is no priori shared secret or no priori trust relationship in the proposed scheme; every node plays the same role and carries out the same function of key management. The proposed scheme consists of (1) Handshaking (HS) and (2) Certificate request/reply (CRR) procedures. In HS, a node acquires the public key of the approaching node via a secure side channel. In CRR, a node requests certificates of a remote node via a radio channel to the nodes that it has HSed. If the number of received valid certificates that contain the same public key exceeds a given threshold, the node accepts the remote node's public key as valid. Security is rigorously analyzed against various known attacks and network costs are intensively analyzed mathematically. Using this analysis, we provide parameter selection guideline to optimize performance and to maintain security for diverse cases. Simulation results show that every node acquires the public keys of all other nodes at least 5 times faster than in a previous scheme.

Quality Adaptive Video Streaming Mechanism Using the Temporal Scalability

LEE, S., CHUNG, K. — 2008-11-10

In video streaming applications over the Internet, TCP-friendly rate control schemes are useful for improving network stability and inter-protocol fairness. However, they do not always guarantee a smooth video streaming. To simultaneously satisfy both the network and user requirements, video streaming applications should be quality-adaptive. In this paper, we propose a new quality adaptation mechanism to adjust the quality of congestion-controlled video stream by controlling the frame rate. Based on the current network condition, it controls the frame rate of video stream and the sending rate in a TCP-friendly manner. Through a simulation, we prove that our adaptation mechanism appropriately adjusts the quality of video stream while improving network stability.

Performance Analysis of Profile-Based Location Caching with Fixed Local Anchor for Next-Generation Wireless Networks

KONG, K.-S. — 2008-11-10

Although a lot of works for location management in wireless networks have been reported in the literature, most of the works have been focused on designing per-user-based strategies. This means that they can achieve the performance enhancement only for a certain class of mobile users with a specific range of CMR (call-to-mobility ratio). However, these per-user-based strategies can actually degrade the performance if a user's CMR changes significantly. Therefore, an efficient uniform location management strategy, which can be commonly applied to all mobile users regardless of their CMR, is proposed and analyzed in this paper. The motivation behind the proposed strategy is to exploit the concepts of the two well-known existing strategies: the location caching strategy and the local anchor strategy. That is, the location caching strategy exploits locality in a user's calling pattern, whereas the local anchor strategy exploits locality in a user's mobility pattern. By exploiting these characteristics of both strategies together with the profile management at the HLR (home location register), the proposed strategy can reduce the frequent access to the HLR, and thus effectively results in significant reduction in terms of the total location management cost. The analytical results also demonstrate that the proposed strategy can be uniformly applied to all mobile users, while always maintaining the performance gain over the IS-41 standard regardless of a user's CMR and the network traffic conditions.

A Hybrid P2P Overlay Network for Non-strictly Hierarchically Categorized Content

WAN, Y., ASAKA, T., TAKAHASHI, T. — 2008-11-10

In P2P content distribution systems, there are many cases in which the content can be classified into hierarchically organized categories. In this paper, we propose a hybrid overlay network design suitable for such content called Pastry/NSHCC (Pastry for Non-Strictly Hierarchically Categorized Content). The semantic information of classification hierarchies of the content can be utilized regardless of whether they are in a strict tree structure or not. By doing so, the search scope can be restrained to any granularity, and the number of query messages also decreases while maintaining keyword searching availability. Through simulation, we showed that the proposed method provides better performance and lower overhead than unstructured overlays exploiting the same semantic information.

A Revenue-Based Bandwidth Sharing for Advance and Immediate Reservation Calls

YI, D.-H., KIM, J. — 2008-11-10

To guarantee the timely provisioning of QoS to real-time oriented multiparty and distributed computing applications (e.g., video conferencing and grid computing) that require the utilization of time and quantity-related resources, the resource should be reserved in advance. However, this new type of reservation (i.e., advance reservation) may collide with legacy (i.e., immediate) reservations that do not specify their session duration. In this paper, to suggest a balanced solution between sharing pools of resources and the managing of collisions between reservation calls, a revenue-based resource sharing scheme (focusing on the bandwidth) is proposed. The proposed scheme attempts to avoid possible collisions by employing a virtual profile of resources reserved in advance in an effort to achieve enhanced resource utilization. It is shown through NS-2 [22]-based network simulations that the proposed scheme can achieve balanced performance when compared with other schemes, including static resource partitioning and complete resource sharing.

Hybrid Fault Tolerant Peer to Peer Video Streaming Architecture

OZTOPRAK, K., AKAR, G. B. — 2008-11-10

In this paper, we propose a fault tolerant hybrid p2p-CDN video streaming arhitecture to overcome the problems caused by peer behavior in peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming systems. Although there are several studies modeling and analytically investigating peer behaviors in P2P video streaming systems, they do not come up with a solution to guarantee the required Quality of the Services (QoS). Therefore, in this study a hybrid geographical location-time and interest based clustering algorithm is proposed to improve the success ratio and reduce the delivery time of required content. A Hybrid Fault Tolerant Video Streaming System (HFTS) over P2P networks conforming the required QoS and Fault Tolerance is also offered. The simulations indicate that the required QoS can be achieved in streaming video applications using the proposed hybrid approach.

A Media Access Protocol for Proactive Presence Discovery in Ubiquitous Wireless Networks

Poupyrev, P., DAVIS, P., MORIKAWA, H. — 2008-11-10

This paper proposes a MAC protocol for presence information discovery in ubiquitous networks. The proposed protocol is designed for proactive discovery in which wireless devices periodically broadcast packets containing presence information. The protocol is based on Framed Aloha. The objective of the protocol is to assure the discovery time of single-hop neighbors considering wireless collisions and also power consumption. In this paper, we show that the proposed protocol is able to assure specified discovery time in distributed networks with random topology.

DEMOCO: Energy-Efficient Detection and Monitoring for Continuous Objects in Wireless Sensor Networks

KIM, J.-H., KIM, K.-B., CHAUHDARY, S. H., YANG, W., PARK, M.-S. — 2008-11-10

The proliferation of research on target detection and tracking in wireless sensor networks has kindled development of monitoring continuous objects such as fires and hazardous bio-chemical material diffusion. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient algorithm that monitors a moving event region by selecting only a subset of nodes near object boundaries. The paper also shows that we can effectively reduce report message size. It is verified with performance analysis and simulation results that total average report message size as well as the number of nodes which transmit the report messages to the sink can be greatly reduced, especially when the density of nodes over the network field is high.

A Good IDS Response Protocol of MANET Containment Strategies

CHENG, B.-C., CHEN, H., TSENG, R.-Y. — 2008-11-10

Much recent research concentrates on designing an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to detect the misbehaviors of the malicious node in MANET with ad-hoc and mobility natures. However, without rapid and appropriate IDS response mechanisms performing follow-up management services, even the best IDS cannot achieve the desired primary goal of the incident response. A competent containment strategy is needed to limit the extent of an attack in the Incident Response Life Cycle. Inspired by the T-cell mechanisms in the human immune system, we propose an efficient MANET IDS response protocol (T-SecAODV) that can rapidly and accurately disseminate alerts of the malicious node attacks to other nodes so as to modify their AODV routing tables to isolate the malicious nodes. Simulations are conducted by the network simulator (Qualnet), and the experiment results indicate that T-SecAODV is able to spread alerts steadily while greatly reduce faulty rumors under simultaneous multiple malicious node attacks.

Objective Speech Quality Assessment Based on Payload Discrimination of Lost Packets for Cellular Phones in NGN Environment

UEMURA, S., FUKUMOTO, N., YAMADA, H., NAKAMURA, H. — 2008-11-10

A feature of services provided in a Next Generation Network (NGN) is that the end-to-end quality is guaranteed. This is quite a challenging issue, given the considerable fluctuation in network conditions within a Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) network. Therefore, a novel approach, whereby a network node and a mobile terminal such as a cellular phone cooperate with each other to control service quality is essential. In order to achieve such cooperation, the mobile terminal needs to become more intelligent so it can estimate the service quality, including the user's perceptual quality, and notify the measurement result to the network node. Subsequently, the network node implements some kind of service control function, such as a resource and admission control function, based on the notification from the mobile terminal. In this paper, the role of the mobile terminal in such collaborative system is focused on. As a part of a QoS/QoE measurement system, we describe an objective speech quality assessment with payload discrimination of lost packets to measure the user's perceptual quality of VoIP. The proposed assessment is so simple that it can be implemented on a cellular phone. We therefore did this as part of the QoS/QoE measurement system. By using the implemented system, we can measure the user's perceptual quality of VoIP as well as the network QoS metrics, in terms of criteria such as packet loss rate, jitter and burstiness in real time.

Novel DSA Scheme that Uses Traffic Characteristics to Enhance Throughput Performance of Wide Area Ubiquitous Wireless Networks

SHIMIZU, Y., NUNO, F., WATANABE, K. — 2008-11-10

Wide area ubiquitous wireless networks, which consist of access points (APs) connected to the fixed network and a great many wireless terminals (WTs), can offer a wide range of applications everywhere. In order to enhance network performance, we need to collect different kinds of data from as many WTs as possible; each AP must be capable of accommodating more than 10³ WTs. This requirement can be achieved by employing DSA, a typical centralized media access control scheme, since it has high resource utilization efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel DSA scheme that employs three new techniques to enhance throughput performance; (1) considering that most terminals tend to send data periodically, it employs both polling-based schemes, i.e. request-polling and data-polling, and a random access scheme. (2) In order to enhance bandwidth utilization effectiveness by polling, the polling timing is decided according to the data generation timing. (3) The AP decides the polled data size according to the latest distribution of data size and polls the WT for the data directly. If the data-polling size can not be determined with confidence, the AP uses request-polling instead of data-polling. Simulations verify that the proposed scheme offers better transmission performance than the existing schemes.

Improved Estimation of the Number of Competing Stations Using Scaled Unscented Filter in an IEEE 802.11 Network

KIM, J. S., SHIN, H. J., SHIN, D. R. — 2008-11-10

In this paper, a new methodology to estimate the number of competing stations in an IEEE 802.11 network, is proposed. Due to the nonlinear nature of the measurement model, an iterative nonlinear filtering algorithm, called the Scaled Unscented Filter (SUF), is employed. The SUF can provide a superior alternative to nonlinear filtering than the conventional Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), since it avoids errors associated with linearization. This approach demonstrates both high accuracy in addition to prompt reactivity to changes in the network occupancy status. In particular, the proposed algorithm shows superior performance in non saturated conditions when compared to the EKF. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm provides a more viable method for estimation of the number of competing stations in an IEEE 802.11 network, than estimators based on the EKF.

2-Dimensional Imaging of Human Bodies with UWB Radar Using Approximately Uniform Walking Motion along a Straight Line with the SEABED Algorithm

SAKAMOTO, T., SATO, T. — 2008-11-10

UWB (Ultra Wide-Band) pulse radar is a promising candidate for surveillance systems designed to prevent crimes and terror-related activities. The high-speed SEABED (Shape Estimation Algorithm based on BST and Extraction of Directly scattered waves) imaging algorithm, is used in the application of UWB pulse radar in fields that require realtime operations. The SEABED algorithm assumes that omni-directional antennas are scanned to observe the scattered electric field in each location. However, for surveillance systems, antenna scanning is impractical because it restricts the setting places of the devices. In this paper, movement of a body is used to replace antenna scanning. The instantaneous velocity of any given motion is an unknown variable that changes as a function of time. A pair of antennas is used to analyze delay time to estimate the unknown motion. We propose a new algorithm to estimate the shape of a human body using data obtained from a human body passing stationary antennas.

High Efficiency PWM Controlled Micro DC-DC Converter for Portable Electronic Equipments

SUGAHARA, S., YAMADA, K., KAWASHIMA, T., EDO, M., SATO, T., YAMASAWA, K. — 2008-11-10

In this paper, the characteristics of a micro DC-DC converter for portable electronic equipments are described. In the converter, an inductor, switching devices and control integrated circuits (ICs) were integrated. The external size of the converter module was 3.0 mm x 3.0 mm x 1.0 mm. And the converter had a high efficiency of 83% at the input voltage of 7.2 V and the output voltage of 1.5 V. The miniaturization of the converter was achieved by developing a small inductor of the size of 3.0 mm x 3.0 mm x 0.525 mm. High efficiency was achieved by adopting 0.6 µm CMOS process for ICs and switching devices, using N channel MOSFET for a high side power switch, and controlling a dead time adaptively. The efficiency characteristics of the converter were analyzed experimentally and theoretically. And the losses of the converter were theoretically analyzed.

Simultaneous Tunable Wavelength Conversion and Power Amplification Using a Pump-Modulated Wide-Band Fiber Optical Parametric Amplifier

LU, G.-W., ABEDIN, K. S., MIYAZAKI, T. — 2008-11-10

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-optical broadband wavelength conversion scheme with simultaneous power amplification based on a pump-modulated fiber optic parametric amplifier (FOPA). All-optical tunable wavelength conversion from one to two wavelengths was achieved with ≥ 13 dB extinction ratio and < 2.7-dB power penalty, accompanied by a high (≥ 37 dB) and flat (~ 3 dB variation) FOPA gain spectrum over 47 nm.

Enhanced PMIPv6 Route Optimization Handover

JEON, S., KANG, N., KIM, Y., YOON, W. — 2008-11-10

Packet delivery in Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) relies on an anchor node called LMA. All packets sent by a source node reach a receiver node via LMA, even though the two nodes attach to the same MAG. In some scenarios, PMIPv6 results in high delivery latency and processing costs due to this unnecessary detour. To address this issue, several PMIPv6 route optimization schemes have been proposed. However, high signaling costs and excessive delays remain when handover is performed. For this reason, we propose an enhanced PMIPv6 route optimization (EPRO) scheme. In addition, we analyze the performance of the EPRO. Analytical results indicate that the EPRO outperforms previous schemes in terms of signaling overhead and handover latency.

Improving VoIP Quality Using Silence Description Packets in the Jitter Buffer

JUNG, Y., ATWOOD, J. W., ZEPERNICK, H.-J. — 2008-11-10

The basic playout scheme (BAS) is designed not to take into account network impairment information during silence periods. We propose a jitter-robust playout mechanism (RST), which uses silence description (SID) packets. The lateness loss percentages are compared between the BAS and the RST algorithms. We report that the accuracy of the playout schedule calculation in the BAS is getting worse as the previous silence interval increases and our proposed RST algorithm is more effective in removing high jitter than the BAS. Under high jitter Internet conditions, the accuracy of the estimates and therefore the resulting of VoIP playout quality can be significantly improved by using the SID packets in the playout schedule recalculation.

Multiple Random Beams Selection Exploiting Chordal Distances

TANG, L., ZHU, P., YOU, X., WANG, Y. — 2008-11-10

We consider a time-division multiple access (TDMA) transmission scheme in MIMO broadcast channels. To cope with the fairness issue in heterogeneous networks with slow fading, an opportunistic scheduling algorithm based on the channel eigen-direction is investigated. In the system with sparse users, the mismatch between a random beamforming vector and the principle eigenvector of the channel incurs a throughput penalty. To reduce such a throughput loss, a multiple random beams selection (MRBS) scheme exploiting chordal distances is proposed. Two feedback schemes (unquantized or quantized chordal distances) are considered. The closed-form throughput expressions of the proposed schemes are derived.

A V-BLAST Detector Based on Modified Householder QRD over the Spatially Correlated Fading Channel

JING, X., ZHOU, Z., ZHANG, T. — 2008-11-10

We propose a feasible V-BLAST detector based on modified Householder QRD (M-H-QRD) over spatially correlated fading channel, which can almost match the performance of the V-BLAST algorithm with much lower complexity and better numerical stability. Compared to the sorted QRD (S-QRD) detector, the proposed detector requires a smaller minimum word-length to reach the same value of error floor for fixed-point (FP) numerical precision despite no significant performance difference for floating-point machine precision. All these advantages make it attractive when implemented using FP arithmetic.

Soft versus Hard Cooperative Energy Detection under Low SNR

SHEN, J., XIE, G., LIU, S., ZENG, L., GAO, J., LIU, Y. — 2008-11-10

Amidst conflicting views about whether soft cooperative energy detection scheme (SCEDS) outperforms hard cooperative energy detection scheme (HCEDS) greatly in cognitive radio, we establish the bridge that mathematically connects SCEDS and HCEDS by closed approximations. Through this bridge, it is demonstrate that, if the number of detectors of HCEDS is 1.6 times as that of SCEDS, they have nearly the same performance which is confirmed by numerical simulations, enabling a quantitative evaluation of the relation between them and a resolution of the conflicting views.

SER Performance Analysis and Optimum Power Allocation for a Cooperative ARQ Protocol in Wireless Networks

TIN, L. Q., KONG, H.-Y. — 2008-11-10

In incremental relaying, the destination uses a checking system and requires a retransmission from the relay in case an error happens. After receiving the signal from the relay, the destination combines the signals from the source and the relay and performs detection. However, the combined signal is actually worse because of the erroneous signal from the source. Our scheme eliminates the detrimental signal from the source and uses only the fresh signal from the relay, resulting in a large performance improvement and reduced complexity. The symbol error rate (SER) and its upper bound are established to analyze the power allocation strategy. Simulations verify the rightness of the theoretic studies, and many benefits of cooperative ARQ schemes are revealed.

On the Performance Analysis of Distributed Space-Time Code over Nakagami-m Multipath Channels

ZHONG, Z., ZHU, S., LV, G. — 2008-11-10

In this letter, we analyze the pairwise error probability (PEP) behaviour of distributed space-time code (DSTC) with amplify-and-forward relaying over Nakagami-m multipath channels. An upper bound of PEP for DSTC is derived. From our analysis, it is seen that of the paths from the source to relays and from relays to the destination, those with smaller diversity order result in an overall system performance bottleneck. Numerical examples are provided to corroborate our theoretical analysis.

Multi-Codebook Based Beamforming and Scheduling for MIMO-OFDM Systems with Limited Feedback

SHE, X., LIU, J., CHEN, L., TAOKA, H., HIGUCHI, K. — 2008-11-10

Transmit beamforming can exploit the spatial diversity afforded by multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with low complexity. To apply this technique in more practical systems with the constraint of limited feedback, codebook based beamforming and vector quantization technique have been considered in various papers. On the other hand, multi-user scheduling is able to achieve another form of diversity arising from the independence of fading for different users, however, has not been fully taken into account in existing codebook based beamforming schemes. In this letter, a multi-codebook based beamforming and scheduling scheme is proposed, which exploits both spatial diversity and multi-user diversity by switching the codebook for different resource blocks. Meanwhile, the multi-codebook design issue is addressed, the corresponding theoretical analysis is provided, and the performance gain of proposed scheme is simulated. Furthermore, the impacts of related parameters on the performance gain are also investigated.

Reduced-Complexity Near-ML Detector for a Coded DSTTD-OFDM System

KIM, H., PARK, H. — 2008-11-10

This letter introduces an efficient near-maximum likelihood (ML) detector for a coded double space-time transmit diversity-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DSTTD-OFDM) system. The proposed near-ML detector constructs a candidate vector set through a relaxed minimization method. It reduces computational loads from O(2|A|²) to O(2|A|²), where |A| is the modulation order. Numerical results indicate that the proposed near-ML detector provides both almost ML performance and considerable complexity savings.

Blind SNR Estimation with Coherent Function for OFDM Systems

CHIN, W.-L., CHEN, S.-G. — 2008-11-10

In OFDM receivers, an accurate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation is desirable for all sorts of operations involved in high-performance baseband demodulation. In this work, conventional SNR estimation techniques are investigated. Next, a blind SNR estimation scheme for the phase-shift keying (PSK) signals based on the coherence function is proposed. The proposed method is non-data-aided (NDA) and hence bandwidth-efficient. Simulations confirm that the proposed method has the best performance from moderate to high SNRs both in AWGN and dispersive channels; however, the proposed method has worse performance when SNRs are low.

Channel Estimation for TDS-OFDM System with Transmit Diversity

YANG, F., PENG, K., SONG, J., YANG, Z. — 2008-11-10

A simple transmit diversity scheme based on cyclic-shift pseudo noise (PN) sequences for the time domain synchronous orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (TDS-OFDM) system is proposed and the corresponding channel estimation algorithms are also investigated. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

BER Performance of Decode-and-Forward Relaying Using Equal-Gain Combining over Rayleigh Fading Channels

VO NGUYEN, B. Q., KONG, H. Y. — 2008-11-10

This paper provides a closed form expression for calculating the bit error rate of the decode-and-forward relay protocol that uses equal-gain combining (EGC) at the destination with an arbitrary number of relays. We have shown that EGC technique for decode-and-forward relay scheme offers remarkable diversity advantage over direct transmission. In addition, we also study the impact of combining techniques on the performance of the system by comparing a system that uses EGC to one that uses maximum ratio combining (MRC) & selection combining (SC). Simulations are performed to confirm our theoretical analysis.

A Novel Channel Estimation Method Using Virtual Pilots in MIMO OFDM Systems

LIN, C., ZHANG, W., YANG, F., XU, Y. — 2008-11-10

To improve the performance of the optimal pilot sequences over multiple OFDM symbols in fast time-varying channels, this letter proposes a novel channel estimation method using virtual pilot tones in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. Assuming that the superimposed virtual pilot tones at the data locations over the specific sub-carriers are transmitted from all transmit antennas, the corresponding virtual received pilot signals at the same locations are obtained from the neighboring real received pilot signals over the same sub-carriers by Wiener filter. Based on the least squares (LS) channel estimation, the channel parameters can be obtained from the combination of the virtual and real received pilot signals over one OFDM symbol. Simulation results show that the proposed channel estimation method greatly outperforms the previous method for the optimal pilot sequences over multiple OFDM symbols in fast time-varying channels, as well as approaches the method for the comb-type optimal pilot sequences in performance.

Cumulative Decision Feedback Technique for Energy Constrained Wireless Sensor Networks

VILLARDI, G. P., ABREU THADEU FREITAS DE, G., KOHNO, R. — 2008-11-10

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.

Software Implementation for Multi-Protocol 13.56 MHz RFID Reader

DO, Y., LEE, S., PARK, S.-C. — 2008-11-10

In this paper, we design and implement a multi-protocol 13.56 MHz reader in software. In order to satisfy the timing constraint, three level optimizations called compile level, syntax level, and architectural level optimizations are applied. The execution time of optimized code is reduced by 85%, so that it satisfies timing requirement of a 60 MHz speed EISC processor. In addition, the binary code size is minimized to 211 KBytes which can be loaded on a 256 KB size memory.

Reduced Congestion Queuing: QoS Support for Optimizing Base Station Layout in Multihop Wireless Networks

TANAKA, A., YOSHIDA, S. — 2008-11-10

A QoS support technique for easily minimizing delay in multihop wireless networks is proposed. Using a priority queue operation that reduces delays overall, the proposed technique, Reduced Congestion Queuing (RCQ), solves problems peculiar to multihops. By adding RCQ to a multihop system, base station or access point density and cost can be more effectively curtailed than by simply applying multihops to a cellular network or wireless LAN because RCQ expands the multihop service area. Due to its simplicity, the proposed technique can be used in a wide range of applications, including VoIP.

Precise DOA Estimation Using SAGE Algorithm with a Cylindrical Array

TAKANASHI, M., NISHIMURA, T., OGAWA, Y., OHGANE, T. — 2008-11-10

A uniform circular array (UCA) is a well-known array configuration which can accomplish estimation of 360° field of view with identical accuracy. However, a UCA cannot estimate coherent signals because we cannot apply the SSP owing to the structure of UCA. Although a variety of studies on UCA in coherent multipath environments have been done, it is impossible to estimate the DOA of coherent signals with different incident polar angles. Then, we have proposed Root-MUSIC algorithm with a cylindrical array. However, the estimation performance is degraded when incident signals arrive with close polar angles. To solve this problem, in the letter, we propose to use SAGE algorithm with a cylindrical array. Here, we adopt a CLA Root-MUSIC for the initial estimation and decompose two-dimensional search to double one-dimensional search to reduce the calculation load. The results show that the proposal achieves high resolution with low complexity.

Current Estimation on Multi-Layer Printed Circuit Board with Lumped Circuits by Near-Field Measurement

KATO, S., CHEN, Q., SAWAYA, K. — 2008-11-10

Current distribution on a 2-layer PCB with lumped circuits is estimated by measuring the near electric field. In this method, the current estimation model is made without considering the electrical parameters of lumped circuits. Experimental results are demonstrated and compared with the numerical results, confirming the validity of this method.

Effect of Heterogeneity of Tissues on RF Energy Absorption in the Brain for Exposure Assessment in Epidemiological Studies on Mobile Phone Use and Brain Tumors

VARSIER, N., WAKE, K., TAKI, M., WATANABE, S. — 2008-11-10

We compared SAR distributions in major anatomical structures of the brain of a homogeneous and a heterogeneous model using FDTD calculations. Our results proved a good correlation between SAR values in lobes of the brain where tumors may arise more frequently. However SAR values at some specific locations were shown to be under or overestimated.

Adaptive Intra Refresh for Robust H.264/AVC Transmission

SONG, B., QIN, H., JIANG, X., MA, L. — 2008-11-10

An intra refresh matrix, which models the importance of each macroblock, is first created. This matrix can be used to decide the coding mode of the macroblocks. The proposed technique can greatly improve the decoded video quality over the variable and error-prone channel with high packet loss rate.

A Cell-Based Hybrid Indexing Scheme for Energy Conserving k Nearest Neighbor Search on Air

IM, S., YOUN, H. Y. — 2008-11-10

This letter proposes a Cell-based Hybrid Index (CHI) for energy conserving k Nearest Neighbor search on air. The proposed CHI provides global knowledge on data distribution for fast decision of the search space and local knowledge for efficient pruning of data items. Simulations show that CHI outperforms the existing indexing schemes in terms of tuning time and energy efficiency. With respect to access time, it outperforms them except the distributed indexing scheme optimized for access time.

Special Section on Next-Generation Mobile Multimedia Communications

Ohya, T. — 2008-10-10

Channel Adaptive Error Resilience Scheme for Video Transmission over Mobile WiMAX

KIM, H.-S., CHOI, B.-D., PARK, C.-S., PARK, S.-H., KO, S.-J. — 2008-10-10

Video transmission over mobile worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) can be serverly degraded due to the effect of fading and handoff. In this paper, we propose a channel adaptive error resilience scheme for video transmission over mobile WiMAX. When the channel condition begins to trigger handoff, the current frame is stored in the long-term memory for the forward error correction, and the following frames are encoded by using double motion vectors (MVs) in the sense of multi-hypothesis motion compensation. Even if a whole frame is lost, we can reconstruct the following frames using the stored frame in the long-term memory. However, the error propagation still remains in this forward error resilience method. To refresh the erroneous frames to the decoder, the encoder utilizes the channel adaptive refreshing (CAR). In the CAR, the channel rate is first predicted using channel parameter, a carrier to interference and noise ratio (CINR), and the encoder adaptively determines the number of blocks to be encoded in the intra mode based on the feedback information. Performance evaluations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Maximizing Total QoS-Provisioning of Image Streams with Limited Energy Budget

LEE, W. Y., KIM, K. H., KO, Y. W. — 2008-10-10

To fully utilize the limited battery energy of mobile electronic devices, we propose an adaptive adjustment method of processing quality for multiple image stream tasks running with widely varying execution times. This adjustment method completes the worst-case executions of the tasks with a given budget of energy, and maximizes the total reward value of processing quality obtained during their executions by exploiting the probability distribution of task execution times. The proposed method derives the maximum reward value for the tasks being executable with arbitrary processing quality, and near maximum value for the tasks being executable with a finite number of processing qualities. Our evaluation on a prototype system shows that the proposed method achieves larger reward values, by up to 57%, than the previous method.

Dynamic Network Selection for Multicast Services in Wireless Cooperative Networks

CHEN, L., JIN, L., HE, F., CHENG, H., WU, L. — 2008-10-10

In next generation mobile multimedia communications, different wireless access networks are expected to cooperate. However, it is a challenging task to choose an optimal transmission path in this scenario. This paper focuses on the problem of selecting the optimal access network for multicast services in the cooperative mobile and broadcasting networks. An algorithm is proposed, which considers multiple decision factors and multiple optimization objectives. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is applied to schedule the service queue and an artificial neural network (ANN) is used to improve the flexibility of the algorithm. Simulation results show that by applying the AHP method, a group of weight ratios can be obtained to improve the performance of multiple objectives. And ANN method is effective to adaptively adjust weight ratios when users' new waiting threshold is generated.

AP Selection Algorithm for Real-Time Communications through Mixed WLAN Environments

MORIOKA, Y., HIGASHINO, T., TSUKAMOTO, K., KOMAKI, S. — 2008-10-10

Recent rapid development of high-speed wireless access technologies has created mixed WLAN (Wireless LAN) environments where QoS capable APs coexist with legacy APs. To provide QoS guarantee in this mixed WLAN environment, this paper proposes a new AP selection algorithm. The proposed algorithm assigns an STA (Station) to an AP in the overall WLAN service area. Simulation results show improvement in the VoIP performance in terms of an eMOS (estimated Mean Opinion Score) value and the FTP throughput compared to conventional algorithms.

Adaptive Multimedia Flow Splitting over WiMAX and WiFi Links

KIM, J.-O., YAMAMOTO, T., YAMAGUCHI, A., OBANA, S. — 2008-10-10

To meet the bandwidth requirements of multimedia services, multipath transmission is a promising solution. In this paper, we consider multi-access networks, where WiMAX and WiFi links are set up at the same time. Multipath transmission suffers from the intrinsic problem of out-of-order packet delivery. This has an adverse impact on TCP and even UDP-based delay sensitive applications. However, multimedia streaming services allow some tolerance to transmission delay. Motivated by this observation, we investigate how to split multimedia flows over heterogeneous links. Wireless link capacity varies widely over time due to dynamic radio conditions. The capacity variations should be promptly reflected in traffic splitting in order to accomplish an equal load-balance. A practical prototype system has been implemented. We have performed extensive measurements from a prototype system. Through practical experimental results, we could verify two major research goals. One is that multimedia splitting can improve the overall network performance (e.g., the permitted multimedia sessions or the aggregated bandwidth) while still keeping an acceptable media quality. The other is an adaptation capability to varying link quality. It has been widely investigated under various radio conditions and different monitoring intervals. It is shown that the adaptive technique is effective under dynamic radio environments.

An Enhanced Multihoming Support Scheme with Proxy Mobile IPv6 for Convergent Networks

LI, Y., KUM, D.-W., KANG, J.-E., CHO, Y.-Z. — 2008-10-10

This paper analyzes the limitations of the multihoming support in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 protocol, then proposes an enhanced multihoming support scheme based on a per-interface address configuration method. The proposed scheme can provide a more flexible multihoming support and also maintain application session continuity during a handoff between two interfaces by using IPv6 extension headers. Plus, flow distribution with filters is also used to realize the advantages of multihoming. Simulation results with the OPNET validate the proposed multihoming support scheme for convergent networks.

Performance Improvement of Wireless Mesh Networks by Using a Combination of Channel-Bonding and Multi-Channel Techniques

XU, L., YAMAMOTO, K., MURATA, H., YOSHIDA, S. — 2008-10-10

In the present paper, the use of a combination of channel-bonding and multi-channel techniques is proposed to improve the performance of wireless mesh networks (WMNs). It is necessary to increase the network throughput by broadening the bandwidth, and two approaches to effectively utilize the broadened bandwidth can be considered. One is the multi-channel technique, in which multiple separate frequency channels are used simultaneously for information transmission. The other is the channel-bonding technique used in IEEE 802.11n, which joins multiple frequency channels into a single broader channel. The former can reduce the channel traffic to mitigate the effect of packet collision, while the latter can increase the transmission rate. In the present paper, these two approaches are compared and their respective advantages are clarified in terms of the network throughput and delay performance assuming the same total bandwidth and a CSMA protocol. Our numerical and simulation results indicate that under low-traffic conditions, the channel-bonding technique can achieve low delay, while under traffic congestion conditions, the network performance can be improved by using multi-channel technique. Based on this result, the use of a combination of these two techniques is proposed for a WMN, and show that it is better to use a proper channel technique according to the network traffic condition. The findings of the present study also contribute to improving the performance of a multimedia network, which consists of different traffic types of applications.

Hidden Node Problem Aware Routing Metrics for WLAN Mesh Networks

SANGIAMWONG, J., YAGYU, K., SUZUKI, T. — 2008-10-10

This paper proposes two novel hidden node problem aware routing metrics for wireless local area network (WLAN) mesh networks. To select the path that is least affected by the serious hidden node problem, we propose two routing metrics, M_Nn and M_PCP, that take into account the number of neighboring nodes (N_n) and the packet collision probability (PCP), respectively. The PCP is estimated from neighbor information that is periodically gathered as state announcement packets, which include the transmission time ratio and the neighbor list. Simulation results show that the first proposed M_Nn routing metric tends to be less effective as the number of WLAN nodes increases, i.e., the mesh network becomes denser. On the other hand, with an acceptable increased in the control overhead in the mesh network due to the neighbor information, the second proposed M_PCP routing metric improves the number of allowable concurrent voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls and the user datagram protocol (UDP) data throughput compared to the M_Nn metric. The M_PCP also provides better performance than the other conventional routing metrics, the hop count, and the Airtime proposed in IEEE 802.11s.

Downlink Multihop Transmission Technique for Asymmetric Traffic Accommodation in DS-CDMA/FDD Cellular Communications

MORI, K., NAITO, K., KOBAYASHI, H. — 2008-10-10

This paper proposes an asymmetric traffic accommodation scheme using a multihop transmission technique for CDMA/FDD cellular communication systems. The proposed scheme exploits the multihop transmission to downlink packet transmissions, which require the large transmission power at their single-hop transmissions, in order to increase the downlink capacity. In these multihop transmissions, vacant uplink band is used for the transmissions from relay stations to destination mobile stations, and this leads more capacity enhancement in the downlink communications. The relay route selection method and power control method for the multihop transmissions are also investigated in the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme is evaluated by computer simulation and the results show that the proposed scheme can achieve better system performance.

Incentive-Rewarding Mechanism for User-position Control in Mobile Services

YOSHINO, M., SATO, K., SHINKUMA, R., TAKAHASHI, T. — 2008-10-10

When the number of users in a service area increases in mobile multimedia services, no individual user can obtain satisfactory radio resources such as bandwidth and signal power because the resources are limited and shared. A solution for such a problem is user-position control. In the user-position control, the operator informs users of better communication areas (or spots) and navigates them to these positions. However, because of subjective costs caused by subjects moving from their original to a new position, they do not always attempt to move. To motivate users to contribute their resources in network services that require resource contributions for users, incentive-rewarding mechanisms have been proposed. However, there are no mechanisms that distribute rewards appropriately according to various subjective factors involving users. Furthermore, since the conventional mechanisms limit how rewards are paid, they are applicable only for the network service they targeted. In this paper, we propose a novel incentive-rewarding mechanism to solve these problems, using an external evaluator and interactive learning agents. We also investigated ways of appropriately controlling rewards based on user contributions and system service quality. We applied the proposed mechanism and reward control to the user-position control, and demonstrated its validity.

Balancing Uplink and Downlink under Asymmetric Traffic Environments Using Distributed Receive Antennas

SOHN, I., LEE, B. O., LEE, K. B. — 2008-10-10

Recently, multimedia services are increasing with the widespread use of various wireless applications such as web browsers, real-time video, and interactive games, which results in traffic asymmetry between the uplink and downlink. Hence, time division duplex (TDD) systems which provide advantages in efficient bandwidth utilization under asymmetric traffic environments have become one of the most important issues in future mobile cellular systems. It is known that two types of intercell interference, referred to as crossed-slot interference, additionally arise in TDD systems; the performances of the uplink and downlink transmissions are degraded by BS-to-BS crossed-slot interference and MS-to-MS crossed-slot interference, respectively. The resulting performance unbalance between the uplink and downlink makes network deployment severely inefficient. Previous works have proposed intelligent time slot allocation algorithms to mitigate the crossed-slot interference problem. However, they require centralized control, which causes large signaling overhead in the network. In this paper, we propose to change the shape of the cellular structure itself. The conventional cellular structure is easily transformed into the proposed cellular structure with distributed receive antennas (DRAs). We set up statistical Markov chain traffic model and analyze the bit error performances of the conventional cellular structure and proposed cellular structure under asymmetric traffic environments. Numerical results show that the uplink and downlink performances of the proposed cellular structure become balanced with the proper number of DRAs and thus the proposed cellular structure is notably cost-effective in network deployment compared to the conventional cellular structure. As a result, extending the conventional cellular structure into the proposed cellular structure with DRAs is a remarkably cost-effective solution to support asymmetric traffic environments in future mobile cellular systems.

Data Transmission on AM Broadcast with Acoustic OFDM

2008-10-10

Data transmission via audio link on AM radio system is shown to be achievable by using Acoustic OFDM. We employ Acoustic OFDM to embed data onto audio contents that are then broadcast as AM radio signals. We tuned the parameters, and performed experiments. Text data as URL can be delivered to mobile phone through existing MF AM radio system and radios.

Efficient Transmission of Multicast MAPs in IEEE 802.16e

YEOM, J.-H., LEE, Y.-H. — 2008-10-10

The institute of electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE) 802.16e is designed to support a wide range of applications with various quality of service requirements. Since MAP signaling overhead can unacceptably be large for voice traffic, IEEE 802.16e suggests the use of multicast sub-MAPs whose messages are encoded according to the channel condition. In this case, it is desirable for the base station to properly choose a modulation and coding set associated with the channel condition. In this letter, we consider the use of an adaptive modulation coding scheme for the multicast sub-MAPs without explicit information on the channel condition. The proposed scheme can achieve the same MAP coverage as the broadcast MAP while minimizing the signaling overhead. Simulation results show that when it is applied to voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) services, the proposed scheme can significantly enhance the VoIP capacity.

Design of Low-Pass Filters Using Discrete-Time Domain Techniques

TSAI, L.-C., CHU, K.-C. — 2008-10-10

In this paper, a new formulation of equal-length three-section open stubs having two zeros located on the unit circle and one zero at z = –1 ( = ) in the Z-plane is presented. In particular, new filter configurations consisting of equal-length two-section open stubs, cascade lines, open stubs, and three-section open stubs are employed to emulate the discrete-time filters. To examine the validity of our formulation, we realized two discrete-time Chebyshev type II low-pass filters in the form of microstrip lines. The frequency responses of these two filters are measured to validate this new formulation.

Fractional Subblocking for Partial Transmit Sequence OFDM

GHASSEMI, A., GULLIVER, T. A. — 2008-10-10

Partial transmit sequence (PTS) is a well known technique used to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal. However, it has relatively high complexity due to the computation of multiple inverse fast Fourier transforms (IFFTs). To reduce this complexity, we use intermediate signals within a decimation in frequency (DIF) radix IFFT and propose a new PTS subblocking technique which requires the computation of only partial IFFTs. Performance results are presented which show a PAPR reduction similar to that with other techniques such as original PTS (O-PTS). Further, we show that complexity reduction can be achieved with either low or high radix IFFT algorithms.

Optical Cross-Connect Switch Architectures for Hierarchical Optical Path Networks

KAKEHASHI, S., HASEGAWA, H., SATO, K.-i. — 2008-10-10

This paper proposes new switch architectures for hierarchical optical path cross-connect (HOXC) systems. The architectures allow incremental expansion of system scale in terms of the number of input/output fiber ports, wavebands, and optical paths per waveband. These features assure the cost-effective introduction of HOXCs even at the outset when traffic volume is not so large. Furthermore the effectiveness of the proposed switch architectures is demonstrated in a comparison with single-layer OXCs (conventional OXCs). The results provide useful criteria for the introduction of HOXCs in terms of hardware scale.

Inter-Domain Redundancy Path Computation Methods Based on PCE

HAYASHI, R., OKI, E., SHIOMOTO, K. — 2008-10-10

This paper evaluates three inter-domain redundancy path computation methods based on PCE (Path Computation Element). Some inter-domain paths carry traffic that must be assured of high quality and high reliability transfer such as telephony over IP and premium virtual private networks (VPNs). It is, therefore, important to set inter-domain redundancy paths, i.e. primary and secondary paths. The first scheme utilizes an existing protocol and the basic PCE implementation. It does not need any extension or modification. In the second scheme, PCEs make a virtual shortest path tree (VSPT) considering the candidates of primary paths that have corresponding secondary paths. The goal is to reduce blocking probability; corresponding secondary paths may be found more often after a primary path is decided; no protocol extension is necessary. In the third scheme, PCEs make a VSPT considering all candidates of primary and secondary paths. Blocking probability is further decreased since all possible candidates are located, and the sum of primary and secondary path cost is reduced by choosing the pair with minimum cost among all path pairs. Numerical evaluations show that the second and third schemes offer only a few percent reduction in blocking probability and path pair total cost, while the overheads imposed by protocol revision and increase of the amount of calculation and information to be exchanged are large. This suggests that the first scheme, the most basic and simple one, is the best choice.

{nu}LIN6: An Integrated Mobility Protocol in IPv6

BANNO, A., TERAOKA, F. — 2008-10-10

This paper proposes a protocol called LIN6 which supports both network mobility and host mobility in IPv6. There are several proposals to support network mobility and host mobility. Network Mobility (NEMO) Basic Support Protocol has several problems such as pinball routing, large header overhead due to multiple levels of tunneling, and a single point of failure. Optimized NEMO (ONEMO) and Mobile IP with Address Translation (MAT) are solutions to provide route optimization, but they generate a lot of signaling messages at a handover. In LIN6, packet relay is required only once regardless of the nested level in network mobility while optimal routing is always provided in host mobility. A fixed-sized extension header is used in network mobility while there is no header overhead in host mobility. LIN6 is more tolerant of network failure and mobility agent failure than NEMO Basic Support Protocol. It also allows ordinary IPv6 nodes to communicate with mobile nodes and nodes in the mobile network. We implemented LIN6 on NetBSD 2.0 Release. Our measurement results showed LIN6 can provide host mobility and network mobility with low overhead.

Application-Level and User-Level QoS Assessment of Audio-Video IP Transmission over Cross-Layer Designed Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

NUNOME, T., TASAKA, S., NAKAOKA, K. — 2008-10-10

This paper performs application-level QoS and user-level QoS assessment of audio-video streaming in cross-layer designed wireless ad hoc networks. In order to achieve high QoS at the user-level, we employ link quality-based routing in the network layer and media synchronization control in the application layer. We adopt three link quality-based routing protocols: OLSR-SS (Signal Strength), AODV-SS, and LQHR (Link Quality-Based Hybrid Routing). OLSR-SS is a proactive routing protocol, while AODV-SS is a reactive one. LQHR is a hybrid protocol, which is a combination of proactive and reactive routing protocols. For application-level QoS assessment, we performed computer simulation with ns-2 where an IEEE 802.11b mesh topology network with 24 nodes was assumed. We also assessed user-level QoS by a subjective experiment with 30 assessors. From the assessment results, we find AODV-SS the best for networks with long inter-node distances, while LQHR outperforms AODV-SS for short inter-node distances. In addition, we also examine characteristics of the three schemes with respect to the application-level QoS in random topology networks.

Broadcasting with Randomized Network Coding in Dense Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

MATSUDA, T., NOGUCHI, T., TAKINE, T. — 2008-10-10

In this paper, we consider the broadcast storm problem in dense wireless ad hoc networks where interference among densely populated wireless nodes causes significant packet loss. To resolve the problem, we apply randomized network coding (RNC) to the networks. RNC is a completely different approach from existing techniques to resolve the problem, and it reduces the number of outstanding packets in the networks by encoding several packets into a single packet. RNC is a kind of linear network coding, and it is suited to wireless ad hoc networks because it can be implemented in a completely distributed manner. We describe a procedure for implementing the wireless ad hoc broadcasting with RNC. Further, with several simulation scenarios, we provide some insights on the relationship between the system parameters and performance and find that there is the optimal length of coding vectors for RNC in terms of packet loss probability. We also show a guideline for the parameter setting to resolve the broadcast storm problem successfully.

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation Performance for Dual QoS Classes in Resilient Packet Ring

OKUMURA, Y. — 2008-10-10

This paper proposes an improved dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm for dual Quality of Service (QoS) classes to maximize the utilization rate of the Resilient Packet Ring (RPR). To achieve dynamic bandwidth allocation for the two QoS classes in the RPR, each node measures the high priority traffic flow and assigns the appropriate bandwidth; the remaining bandwidth is used for low priority traffic. It passes a control frame containing the measured bandwidth of the high priority traffic to the other nodes. Based on the advertised high priority traffic bandwidth, any node that is congested transmits, to the other nodes, a fairness message to fairly allocate the remaining low priority bandwidth. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed algorithm enhances the utilization rate and reduces the delay of high priority frames.

Design Methodology of a Sensor Network Architecture Supporting Urgent Information and Its Evaluation

KAWAI, T., WAKAMIYA, N., MURATA, M. — 2008-10-10

Wireless sensor networks are expected to become an important social infrastructure which helps our life to be safe, secure, and comfortable. In this paper, we propose design methodology of an architecture for fast and reliable transmission of urgent information in wireless sensor networks. In this methodology, instead of establishing single complicated monolithic mechanism, several simple and fully-distributed control mechanisms which function in different spatial and temporal levels are incorporated on each node. These mechanisms work autonomously and independently responding to the surrounding situation. We also show an example of a network architecture designed following the methodology. We evaluated the performance of the architecture by extensive simulation and practical experiments and our claim was supported by the results of these experiments.

An Opportunistic Forwarding Scheme Exploiting both Long Progress and Adaptive Rate in Wireless Networks

TANG, S., SHIRAZI, M. N., SHAGDAR, O., SUZUKI, R., OBANA, S. — 2008-10-10

In Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) geographic routing is characterized by local forwarding decision. Links with a long progress are preferred under the greedy forwarding rule. However in a real system long links tend to have a high packet loss rate due to multipath fading. A sub-optimal solution may separately exploit path diversity or rate adaptation. In this paper we study channel efficiency of multi-hop forwarding and try to jointly optimize rate adaptation and forwarder selection in geographic routing by the tradeoff between progress and instantaneous rate. We define a new metric — Bit Transfer Speed (BTS) — as the ratio of the progress made towards the destination to the equivalent time taken to transfer a payload bit. This metric takes overhead, rate and progress into account. Then we propose a packet forwarding scheme that Opportunistically exploits both long Progress and Adaptive Rate (OPAR) by a cross-layer design of routing and MAC. In OPAR each node selects for a packet the forwarder with the highest BTS. The forwarder changes as local topology (progress), packet size (overhead ratio) or channel state (data rate) varies. Simulation results show that compared with the normalized advance (NADV) [7] scheme and contention-based forwarding (CBF) [17] scheme, OPAR has lower packet loss and can effectively reduce channel occupation time by over 30% in the scenario with moderate mobility speeds.

An Efficient Signature Matching Scheme for Mobile Security

ZHANG, R., IWATA, M. — 2008-10-10

The development of network technology reveals the clear trend that mobile devices will soon be equipped with more and more network-based functions and services. This increase also results in more intrusions and attacks on mobile devices; therefore, mobile security mechanisms are becoming indispensable. In this paper, we propose a novel signature matching scheme for mobile security. This scheme not only emphasizes a small resource requirement and an optimal scan speed, which are both important for resource-limited mobile devices, but also focuses on practical features such as stable performance, fast signature set updates and hardware implementation. This scheme is based on the finite state machine (FSM) approach widely used for string matching. An SRAM-based two-level finite state machine (TFSM) solution is introduced to utilize the unbalanced transition distribution in the original FSM to decrease the memory requirement, and to shorten the critical path of the single-FSM solution. By adjusting the boundary of the two FSMs, optimum memory usage and throughput are obtainable. The hardware circuit of our scheme is designed and evaluated by both FPGA and ASIC technology. The result of FPGA evaluation shows that 2,168 unique patterns with a total of 32,776 characters are stored in 177.75 KB SelectRAM blocks of Xilinx XC4VLX40 FPGA and a 3.0 Gbps throughput is achieved. The result of ASIC evaluation with 180 nm-CMOS library shows a throughput of over 4.5 Gbps with 132 KB of SRAM. Because of the small amount of memory and logic cell requirements, as well as the scalability of our scheme, higher performance is achieved by instantiating several signature matching engines when more resources are provided.

OFDM Transmission Characteristics where the Delay Profile Exceeds the Guard Interval in Nakagami-Rice Fading Environment

KARASAWA, Y., VANMANY, C. — 2008-10-10

In order to evaluate the effect of Nakagami-Rice fading on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) signal transmission when the delay profile exceeds the guard interval, a simple prediction model is developed by extending the Equivalent Transmission-Path (ETP) model for Rayleigh fading. The validity of the model is demonstrated by comparing the calculated values of BER to those obtained by computer simulation. Using the newly developed ETP-OFDM model, digital transmission characteristics of the OFDM signal in a multipath environment when the delay profile exceeds the guard interval are shown as a function of K factor, delay spread, guard interval and OFDM symbol period.

Predictive Closed-Loop Power Control for CDMA Cellular Networks

CHOE, S., UYSAL, M. — 2008-10-10

In this paper, we present and analyze a predictive closed-loop power control (CLPC) scheme which employs a comb-type sample arrangement to effectively compensate multiple power control group (PCG) delays over mobile fading channels. We consider both least squares and recursive least squares filters in our CLPC scheme. The effects of channel estimation error, prediction filter error, and power control bit transmission error on the performance of the proposed CLPC method along with competing non-predictive and predictive CLPC schemes are thoroughly investigated. Our results clearly indicate the superiority of the proposed scheme with its improved robustness under non-ideal conditions. Furthermore, we carry out a Monte-Carlo simulation study of a 5 x 5 square grid cellular network and evaluate the user capacity. Capacity improvements up to 90% are observed for a typical cellular network scenario.

Performance Analysis of Transmit Diversity Systems with Multiple Antenna Replacement

PARK, K.-H., YANG, H.-C., KO, Y.-C. — 2008-10-10

Transmit diversity systems based on orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC) usually suffer from rate loss and power spreading. Proper antenna selection scheme can help to more effectively utilize the transmit antennas and transmission power in such systems. In this paper, we propose a new antenna selection scheme for such systems based on the idea of antenna switching. In particular, targeting at reducing the number of pilot channels and RF chains, the transmitter now replaces the antennas with the lowest received SNR with unused ones if the output SNR of space time decoder at the receiver is below a certain threshold. With this new scheme, not only the number of pilot channels and RF chains to be implemented is decreased, the average amount of feedback information is also reduced. To analyze the performance of this scheme, we derive the exact integral closed form for the probability density function (PDF) of the received SNR. We show through numerical examples that the proposed scheme offers better performance than traditional OSTBC systems using all available transmitting antennas, with a small amount of feedback information. We also examine the effect of different antenna configuration and feedback delay.

On the Estimation of Carrier Frequency Offset and DC Offset for OFDM Systems

LIN, H., NAKAO, T., LU, W., YAMASHITA, K. — 2008-10-10

In an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receiver with direct-conversion architecture, carrier frequency offset (CFO) and direct-current offset (DCO), which cause severe performance degradation, need to be estimated and compensated. Recently, by investigating the subspace of OFDM signal after coarse DCO cancellation using time-domain average, we have proposed a nullspace-based estimator (NSE), for blind CFO and DCO estimation. In this paper, based on an analysis of the cost function of the NSE, we propose a common nullspace based estimator (CNSE). It is shown that by matching the frequency occupation of the received OFDM signal with CFO and DCO, the CNSE can achieve the full performance potential of the NSE. Also, the performance analysis reveals that the CNSE can asymptotically approach the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) of OFDM CFO estimation in the presence of DCO. Finally the analysis results are confirmed by simulations.

A Novel MAC Protocol for QoS in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

TAKAHASHI, K., TERASAWA, T., TSUBOI, T. — 2008-10-10

We propose a medium access control (MAC) protocol for real-time applications in one-hop ad-hoc wireless networks. It is a distributed mechanism that takes account of priority and has a bounded packet delay. Nodes use energy signals to contend for the right to access the channel. Nodes, which have a packet to transmit, send energy signals or listen to the channel based on their binary frame. The node that has sent energy signals and has not heard any energy signals wins the right to access the channel. We use two schemes to determine the binary frame: at the beginning of a session, a node determines it based on its priority level and a random number; after successful transmission, based on a count of successful packet transmissions. With the first scheme, in order to reduce contention losses, the nodes that had won the right to access the channel but failed in transmission have priority over the other nodes. With the second scheme, the node that has the largest count, the one that has been waiting the longest, can send a packet without risking collision. The protocol provides higher probability of successful transmission and a limit on maximum packet delay. An analysis of the protocol provides conditions for the protocol to be stable. We evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol using simulations of a network with a mixed population of data and real-time nodes, whose source is constant bit rate (CBR) and a two state Markov on/off process.

Analysis of a Multi-Oscillated Current Resonant Type DC-DC Converter

MATSUO, O., MATSUO, H., ISHIZUKA, Y., OTA, H. — 2008-10-10

This paper presents the analysis of a new multi-oscillated current resonant type DC-DC converter. Current resonant converters have several remarkable features such as high efficiency, small size, low cost and low noise, and are frequently employed in many portable electronic systems such as personal computers, cellular phones and flat panel displays. The current resonant type converter generally employs pulse frequency modulation for constant voltage control in the output. For this reason, the magnetizing current through the converter not only causes a power loss under a light load, but also a loss during stand-by. Therefore, this type of converter has a problem in that the required smaller size cannot be achieved, because an auxiliary source is necessary for stand-by. In order to solve these problems, a new current resonant type power supply is proposed in which two driving methods are employed. In these driving methods, one MOSFET as a main switch is driven by an auxiliary winding of the transformer and another MOSFET as a main switch is driven by the driving IC with a low withstand voltage. Good agreement of the observed and simulated waveforms was confirmed. In addition, eight distinct states and four distinct operating modes, which compose of the sequence of states, were clarified by experimental and simulated analysis.

A Novel Entropy Based Image Watermarking in Wavelet Domain

WU, G.-D., HUANG, P.-H. — 2008-10-10

In this paper, we proposed a novel entropy-based image watermarking method in wavelet domain. Unlike traditional entropy, we use the normalized energy instead of the probability which is called energy-based entropy (EBE). Based on EBE, the watermark can be embedded robustly and imperceptibly. In our proposed method, the wavelet-trees are grouped into super-trees. Then each super-tree is also divided into five sub-blocks. According to the watermark bit state, the EBE of each sub-block will be modified respectively. In an experiment, three images (Lenna, Goldhill and Peppers) are chosen for evaluating the performance. The PSNR of these watermarked images are 44.039, 43.51 and 43.67. Compared with Wang et al. [18], it greatly increases the PSNR, by about 5.8, 4.8 and 3.9 dB respectively. For the consideration of the capacity for embedding, the maximum number of watermark bits is also increased. The experimental results show that the proposed entropy-based watermarking method performs well in JPEG compression, filtering (Gaussian filter, median filter and sharpen) and geometrical attacks (pixel shift and rotation). In addition, it is also very robust to against the multiple watermark attack.

A Support Vector Machine-Based Gender Identification Using Speech Signal

LEE, K.-H., KANG, S.-I., KIM, D.-H., CHANG, J.-H. — 2008-10-10

We propose an effective voice-based gender identification method using a support vector machine (SVM). The SVM is a binary classification algorithm that classifies two groups by finding the voluntary nonlinear boundary in a feature space and is known to yield high classification performance. In the present work, we compare the identification performance of the SVM with that of a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based method using the mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). A novel approach of incorporating a features fusion scheme based on a combination of the MFCC and the fundamental frequency is proposed with the aim of improving the performance of gender identification. Experimental results demonstrate that the gender identification performance using the SVM is significantly better than that of the GMM-based scheme. Moreover, the performance is substantially improved when the proposed features fusion technique is applied.

Proposal of Stackable ROADM for Wavelength Transparent IP-over-CWDM Networks

NOORUZZAMAN, MD., HARADA, Y., KOYAMA, O., KATSUYAMA, Y. — 2008-10-10

A stackable reconfigurable optical add/drop multilplexer has been proposed to give wavelength transparency to IP-over-CWDM networks. It was clarified by experiments that the proposed structure was wavelength transparent.

Enhanced Class-of-Service Oriented Packet Scheduling Scheme for EPON Access Networks

HAN, I., PARK, H.-S., HAN, M.-S. — 2008-10-10

A fast class-of-service oriented packet scheduling (FCOPS) has a service fairness problem since a credit pool for a service class is initialized at the beginning of a transmission cycle whose starting moment is fixed at a specific ONU. To remedy the service unfairness of FCOPS, we suggest an enhanced class-of-service oriented packet scheduling (ECOPS) that uses a new initialization cycle whose starting moment is fairly distributed to each ONU. Also, ECOPS generates a colorless grant to utilize the resource wastage, when traffic is light and the total sum of grants of an ONU is less than a minimum size. Using simulation, we validate ECOPS as superior to FCOPS in the mean delay and the service fairness.

Secure and Reliable Broadcasting Based on Cooperative Diversity in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

PARK, T. — 2008-10-10

In wireless ad hoc networks, providing an authentication service to verify that the broadcast packet is from the claimed sender without modification, is challenging due mainly to the inherently lossy wireless links. This paper presents a novel Secure and Reliable Broadcasting that reinforces the broadcast authentication with reliability and energy-efficiency capabilities by using the cooperative diversity to superimpose two distinct signals. The proposed protocol achieves significant savings of transmission power and fair assurance of reliability among receivers.

Adaptive Forgetting Factor Subarray RLS Beamforming for Multipath Environments

CHANG, A.-C., HSU, C., SU, I.-J. — 2008-10-10

This letter presents an efficient adaptive beamformer to deal with the multipath environments created by signal source scatterings. To improve the performance possible with the fixed forgetting factor, the regular adaptive forgetting factor algorithm is derived and applied to the subarray recursive least squares (RLS) beamforming. Simulations confirm that the proposed scheme has better performance than not only the conventional RLS algorithm but also the subarray RLS and adaptive forgetting factor RLS algorithms.

Adaptive Interference Avoidance with Pre-RAKE Diversity Combining for High-Data-Rate UWB Systems

LIAO, X., ZHU, S., ZENG, E. — 2008-10-10

Multipath energy capture and inter-symbol interference (ISI) are two intractable problems in high-data-rate Ultra-wideband (UWB) systems. To tackle the problems and simplify the receiver, we propose an adaptive interference avoidance scheme based on Pre-RAKE combining technique. The symbol repetition period (SRP) is regarded a changeable parameter in an ordered set to avoid severe interference paths and guarantee high data-rate. The set is known to both the transmitter and receiver. The index of the selected SRP is then sent to the receiver to coordinate the transmitter and receiver. The SRP can be updated adaptively according to the variations of the channels. Both theoretical analysis and simulations show that the ISI is mitigated and the transmission rate is improved simultaneously compared to the constant SRP transmission scheme.

Robust Transceiver Design for Multiuser MIMO Downlink with Channel Uncertainties

MIAO, W., LI, Y., CHEN, X., ZHOU, S., WANG, J. — 2008-10-10

This letter addresses the problem of robust transceiver design for the multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) downlink where the channel state information at the base station (BS) is imperfect. A stochastic approach which minimizes the expectation of the total mean square error (MSE) of the downlink conditioned on the channel estimates under a total transmit power constraint is adopted. The iterative algorithm reported in [2] is improved to handle the proposed robust optimization problem. Simulation results show that our proposed robust scheme effectively reduces the performance loss due to channel uncertainties and outperforms existing methods, especially when the channel errors of the users are different.

Spectral Efficiency Improvement of OFDM by Using Time Domain Superimposition of Data

LEE, J., YANG, J., KIM, D. — 2008-10-10

A scheme of the superimposing additional data signal in the time domain for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is proposed. The proposed scheme has a tradeoff between the degree of freedom for data transmission and inter-carrier interference (ICI), which provides the flexibility of data rate decision when the finite number of modulation and coding levels are available for the given channel condition. A performance analysis of the bit error rate (BER) confirms this tradeoff. In simulation on the practical environment which experiences multipath fading and error of channel estimation, the results show that much improvement of spectral efficiency has been achieved while keeping as nearly good bit error rate as the conventional OFDM. Moreover, the single carrier transmission of the superimposed additional data in the time domain also gives an opportunity of boosting the signal power up to the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) margin of the OFDM system.

Outage Probability of Cooperative Relay in Rayleigh Fading with Unequal-Power Rayleigh Interferers

YANG, Q., KWAK, K. S. — 2008-10-10

In this letter, we investigate the outage performance for decode-and-forward relaying under Rayleigh fading in the presence of multiple unequal-powered Rayleigh co-channel interferers. A close-form expression for the outage probability is derived and simulation results verify the theoretical solution.

Single Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation with Low Threshold Effect

CHEN, J.-Y., HSIEH, M.-H. — 2008-10-10

Frequency offset estimation is an important technique in receiver design of wireless communications. In many applications, sampled single frequency tone is selected as training symbol/sequence for frequency synchronization. Under this assumption, frequency offset estimation can be regarded as the problem of single carrier frequency offset estimation. In this Letter, an approximate maximum likelihood frequency estimator is proposed. This estimator is efficient at moderate and high SNR's. Compared with other estimators, the proposed estimator is less sensitive to the variance threshold and offers feasible levels of computation complexity. The proposed estimator is suitable for high frequency offset cases and coarse/fine frequency synchronization applications.

Design of New Quasi-Orthogonal STBC with Minimum Decoding Complexity for Four Transmit Antennas

CHAE, C., JUNG, T., HWANG, I. — 2008-10-10

A new Space-Time Block Code (STBC) achieving full rate and full diversity for general QAM and four transmit antennas is proposed. This code also possesses a quasi-orthogonal (QO) property like the conventional Minimum Decoding Complexity QO-STBC (MDC-QO-STBC), leading to joint ML detection of only two real symbols. The proposed code is shown to exhibit the identical error performance with the existing MDC-QO-STBC. However, the proposed code has an advantage in transceiver implementation since this code can be modified so that the increase of PAPR occurs on only two transmit antennas, whereas MDC-QO-STBC incurs a PAPR increase on all transmit antennas.

Joint Channel Estimation and Phase Noise Suppression for OFDM Systems

KIM, Y.-H., KIM, S.-C. — 2008-10-10

Phase noise (PHN) can cause the common phase error (CPE) and the inter-carrier interference (ICI), both of which impair the accurate channel estimation in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In this letter, we build a new signal model parameterized by the channel impulse response, the CPE and the ICI. Based on this model, we derive the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and the minimum mean square error estimator (MMSEE). Simulation results show that the proposed schemes significantly improve the performance of OFDM systems in the presence of PHN.

Robust MOE Detector for DS-CDMA Systems with Signature Waveform Mismatch

LIN, T.-T. — 2008-10-10

In this letter, a decision-directed MOE detector with excellent robustness against signature waveform mismatch is proposed for DS-CDMA systems. Both the theoretic analysis and computer simulation results demonstrate that the proposed detector can provide better SINR performance than that of conventional detectors.

An Efficient Uplink Scheduling Algorithm with Variable Grant-Interval for VoIP Service in BWA Systems

OH, S.-M., CHO, S., KIM, J.-H., KWUN, J. — 2008-10-10

This letter proposes an efficient uplink scheduling algorithm for the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service with variable frame-duration according to the voice activity in IEEE 802.16e/m systems. The proposed algorithm dynamically changes the grant-interval to save the uplink bandwidth, and it uses the random access scheme when the voice activity changes from silent-period to talk-spurt. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm can increase the VoIP capacity by 26 percent compared to the conventional extended real-time polling service (ertPS).

QR-LRL Signal Detection for Spatially Multiplexed MIMO Systems

BAHNG, S., PARK, Y.-O., KIM, J. — 2008-10-10

The performance of the ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) signal detection method is well known to depend on the successful detection of the first layer. In a previous work, in an effort to mitigate the error propagation effect, all the constellation points were tried as the first layer symbol, thereby achieving a better performance. In this letter, we show that the selection of the first layer impacts the error performance significantly, and based on the observation, we propose a novel signal detection method QR-LRL. In the proposed work, the least reliable layer (LRL) is chosen to be the first layer, which is shown to be the best choice in terms of noise enhancement in detecting the other layers. Also, we discuss Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) computation when the proposed method is used. Computer simulations confirm the efficacy of the proposed method.

Space-Time Block Codes with Limited Feedback Using Antenna Grouping

CHAE, C.-B., SHIM, S., HEATH, R. W. — 2008-10-10

We propose an antenna grouping method that improves the error rate performance of space-time codes in a wide range of mobility environments. The idea is to group symbols to antennas based on limited feedback from the mobile station to utilize all antennas. Our approach requires only two bits of feedback information to achieve better link performance and full rate for a certain four transmit antenna system. Numerical results confirm the bit/frame error gains over the Alamouti-based space-time block code and antenna subset selection strategies.

UWB Localization for NLOS under Indoor Multipath Channel: Scheme and TOA Estimation

XIAO, Z., YI, K.-C., TIAN, B., WANG, Y.-C. — 2008-10-10

This letter proposes a UWB signaling localization scheme for indoor multipath channel. It demonstrates that the proposed method does not require LOS path (LP) and is suitable for severe non line-of-sight (NLOS) condition. A low-complexity TOA estimation algorithm, the strongest path (SP) detection by convolution, is designed, which is easier to implement than the LP detection since it dispenses with the process of threshold setting. Experiments under NLOS channels in IEEE.802.15.4a are conducted and the localization influences due to the algorithm parameters are discussed. The results prove the feasibility of the proposed localization scheme under the indoor multipath NLOS environment.

A Novel Capacity Analysis for Wireless Backhaul Mesh Networks

CHUNG, T.-Y., LEE, K.-C., LEE, H.-C. — 2008-10-10

This paper derived a closed-form expression for inter-flow capacity of a backhaul wireless mesh network (WMN) with centralized scheduling by employing a ring-based approach. Through the definition of an interference area, we are able to accurately describe a bottleneck collision area for a WMN and calculate the upper bound of inter-flow capacity. The closed-form expression shows that the upper bound is a function of the ratio between transmission range and network radius. Simulations and numerical analysis show that our analytic solution can better estimate the inter-flow capacity of WMNs than that of previous approach.

Internal Antenna for Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) Application

YU, Y., KIM, J., CHOI, J. — 2008-10-10

An internal antenna with a system ground for digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) service is proposed. The proposed antenna consists of a main patch with a two-step slit, two additional elements, and a system ground. The antenna has a small volume, 36 mm x 11 mm x 6 mm, and an average gain of –2.22 dBi to –0.06 dBi over the DVB-H band.

Scalable Video Streaming Adaptive to Time-Varying IEEE 802.11 MAC Parameters

LEE, K.-J., SUH, D.-Y., PARK, G.-H., HUH, J.-D. — 2008-10-10

This letter proposes a QoS control method for video streaming service over wireless networks. Based on statistical analysis, the time-varying MAC parameters highly related to channel condition are selected to predict available bitrate. Adaptive bitrate control of scalably-encoded video guarantees continuity in streaming service even if the channel condition changes abruptly.

Next Generation S-DMB Using Hierarchical Modulation

OH, C.-I. — 2008-10-10

In this paper, we propose a method to ensure larger number of channels than the current Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (S-DMB). For Backwards Compatibility (BC) for legacy subscribers, we apply Hierarchical Eight Phase Shift Keying (H-8PSK) modulation and Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code. Using the newly proposed method, we simulate the performance deterioration of the existing stream and the performance of the new stream according to code rates of LDPC and deviation angle. As the result, we present the optimal deviation angle, which produces the least performance deterioration of the existing system and the best performance of the new system, drawing satisfiable improvement in transmission rate.