Asynchronous Signals Research Articles

Pseudo-Determined Blind Source Separation for Ad-hoc Microphone Networks

We propose a pseudo-determined blind source separation framework that exploits the information from a large number of microphones in an ad-hoc network to extract and enhance sound sources in a reverberant scenario. After compensating for the time offsets and sampling rate mismatch between (asynchronous) signals, we interpret as a determined $M\times M$ mixture the over-determined $M\times N$ mixture, where $M>N$ is the number of microphones and $N$ is the number of sources. Next, we propose a pseudodetermined mixture model that can apply an $M\times M$ independent component analysis (ICA) directly to the $M$ -channel recordings. Moreover, we propose a reference-based permutation alignment scheme that aligns the permutation of the ICA outputs and classifies them into target channels, which contain the $N$ sources, and nontarget channels, which contain reverberation residuals. Finally, using the signals from nontarget channels, we estimate in each target channel the power spectral density of the noise component that we suppress with a spectral postfilter. Interestingly, we also obtain late-reverberation suppression as by-product. Experiments show that each processing block improves incrementally source separation and that the performance of the proposed pseudodetermined separation improves as the number of microphones increases.

A brain-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton for human gait training.

Brain-computer interfaces have been a novel approach to translate human intentions into movement commands in robotic systems. This paper describes an electroencephalogram-based brain-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton for gait training, as a proof of concept towards rehabilitation with human-in-the-loop. Instead of using conventional single electroencephalography correlates, e.g., evoked P300 or spontaneous motor imagery, we propose a novel framework integrated two asynchronous signal modalities, i.e., sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) and movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs). We executed experiments in a biologically inspired and customized lower-limb exoskeleton where subjects (N = 6) actively controlled the robot using their brain signals. Each subject performed three consecutive sessions composed of offline training, online visual feedback testing, and online robot-control recordings. Post hoc evaluations were conducted including mental workload assessment, feature analysis, and statistics test. An average robot-control accuracy of 80.16% ± 5.44% was obtained with the SMR-based method, while estimation using the MRCP-based method yielded an average performance of 68.62% ± 8.55%. The experimental results showed the feasibility of the proposed framework with all subjects successfully controlled the exoskeleton. The current paradigm could be further extended to paraplegic patients in clinical trials.

A Matched Comparison Across Three Different Sensory Pairs of Cross-Modal Temporal Recalibration From Sustained and Transient Adaptation

Sustained exposure to an asynchronous multisensory signal causes perceived simultaneity to shift in the direction of the leading component of the adapting stimulus. This is known as temporal recalibration, and recent evidence suggests that it can occur very rapidly, even after a single asynchronous audiovisual (AV) stimulus. However, this form of rapid recalibration appears to be unique to AV stimuli, in contrast to recalibration following sustained asynchronies which occurs with audiotactile (AT) and visuotactile (VT) stimuli. This study examines temporal recalibration to AV, VT and AT asynchrony with spatially collocated stimuli using a design that produces both sustained and inter-trial recalibration by combining the traditional sustained adaptation approach with an inter-trial analysis of sequential dependencies in an extended test period. Thus, we compare temporal recalibration to both sustained and transient asynchrony in three crossmodal combinations using the same design, stimuli and observers. The results reveal that prolonged exposure to asynchrony produced equivalent temporal recalibration for all combinations: AV, AT and VT. The pattern for rapid, inter-trial recalibration was very different. Rapid recalibration occurred strongly for AV stimuli, weakly for AT and did not occur at all for VT. For all sensory pairings, recalibration from sustained asynchrony decayed to baseline during the test phase while inter-trial recalibration was present and stable throughout testing, suggesting different mechanisms may underlie adaptation at long and short timescales.

Perceived Synchrony of Frog Multimodal Signal Components IsInfluenced by Content and Order.

Multimodal signaling is common in communication systems. Depending on the species, individual signal components may be produced synchronously as a result of physiological constraint (fixed) or each component may be produced independently (fluid) in time. For animals that rely on fixed signals, a basic prediction is that asynchrony between the components should degrade the perception of signal salience, reducing receiver response. Male túngara frogs, Physalaemus pustulosus, produce a fixed multisensory courtship signal by vocalizing with two call components (whines and chucks) and inflating a vocal sac (visual component). Using a robotic frog, we tested female responses to variation in the temporal arrangement between acoustic and visual components. When the visual component lagged a complex call (whine + chuck), females largely rejected this asynchronous multisensory signal in favor of the complex call absent the visual cue. When the chuck component was removed from one call, but the robofrog inflation lagged the complex call, females responded strongly to the asynchronous multimodal signal. When the chuck component was removed from both calls, females reversed preference and responded positively to the asynchronous multisensory signal. When the visual component preceded the call, females responded as often to the multimodal signal as to the call alone. These data show that asynchrony of a normally fixed signal does reduce receiver responsiveness. The magnitude and overall response, however, depend on specific temporal interactions between the acoustic and visual components. The sensitivity of túngara frogs to lagging visual cues, but not leading ones, and the influence of acoustic signal content on the perception of visual asynchrony is similar to those reported in human psychophysics literature. Virtually all acoustically communicating animals must conduct auditory scene analyses and identify the source of signals. Our data suggest that some basic audiovisual neural integration processes may be at work in the vertebrate brain.

Comparison of Starting Current Characteristics for Three-Phase Induction Motor Due to Phase-control Soft Starter and Asynchronous PWM AC Chopper

This paper presents the comparison of starting current characteristics of a three-phase induction motor fed by two types of soft starters. The first soft starter under investigation is a conventional AC voltage controller on the basis of a phase-control technique. The other is the proposed asynchronous PWM AC chopper which is developed from the conventional synchronous PWM AC chopper. In this paper, the proposed asynchronous PWM AC chopper control scheme is developed by generating only two asynchronous PWM signals for a three-phase main power circuit (6 switching devices) from a single voltage control signal which is compared with a single sawtooth carrier signal. By this approach, the PWM signals are independent and easy to implement since the PWM signals do not need to be synchronized with a three-phase voltage source. Details of both soft starters are discussed. The experimental and simulation results of the starting currents are shown. It is found that the asynchronous PWM AC chopper efficiently works as a suitable soft starter for the three-phase induction motor due to that the starting currents are reduced and are sinusoidal with less harmonic contents, when being compared with the starting current waveforms using the conventional phase-control starting technique. Also the proposed soft starter offers low starting electromagnetic torque pulsation.

Comparison of methods for separating vibration sources in rotating machinery

Vibro-acoustic signatures are widely used for diagnostics of rotating machinery. Vibration based automatic diagnostics systems need to achieve a good separation between signals generated by different sources. The separation task may be challenging, since the effects of the different vibration sources often overlap.In particular, there is a need to separate between signals related to the natural frequencies of the structure and signals resulting from the rotating components (signal whitening), as well as a need to separate between signals generated by asynchronous components like bearings and signals generated by cyclo-stationary components like gears. Several methods were proposed to achieve the above separation tasks. The present study compares between some of these methods. The paper also presents a new method for whitening, Adaptive Clutter Separation, as well as a new efficient algorithm for dephase, which separates between asynchronous and cyclo-stationary signals. For whitening the study compares between liftering of the high quefrencies and adaptive clutter separation. For separating between the asynchronous and the cyclo-stationary signals the study compares between liftering in the quefrency domain and dephase. The methods are compared using both simulated signals and real data.

Blind Sampling Rate Offset Estimation for Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks Through Weighted Least-Squares Coherence Drift Estimation

Microphone arrays allow to exploit the spatial coherence between simultaneously recorded microphone signals, e.g., to perform speech enhancement, i.e., to extract a speech signal and reduce background noise. However, in systems where the microphones are not sampled in a synchronous fashion, as it is often the case in wireless acoustic sensor networks, a sampling rate offset (SRO) exists between signals recorded in different nodes, which severely affects the speech enhancement performance. To avoid this performance reduction, the SRO should be estimated and compensated for. In this paper, we propose a new approach to blind SRO estimation for an asynchronous wireless acoustic sensor network, which exploits the phase drift of the coherence between the asynchronous microphones signals. We utilize the fact that the SRO causes a linearly increasing time delay between two signals and hence a linearly increasing phase-shift in the short-time Fourier transform domain. The increasing phase shift, observed as a phase drift of the coherence between the signals, is used in a weighted least-squares framework to estimate the SRO. This method is referred to as least-squares coherence drift (LCD). Experimental results in different real-world recording and simulated scenarios show the effectiveness of LCD compared to different benchmark methods. The LCD is effective even for short signal segments. We finally demonstrate that the use of the LCD within a conventional compensation approach eliminates the performance loss due to SRO in a speech enhancement algorithm based on the multichannel Wiener filter.

基于脉冲展宽波形的光脉冲位置调制异步采样信号的数据恢复技术

基于脉冲展宽波形的光脉冲位置调制异步采样信号的数据恢复技术

Bidirectional Fiber-Wireless Access Technology for 5G Mobile Spectral Aggregation and Cell Densification

Empowered by spectral aggregation and cell densification, future 5G mobile data networks pose a huge challenge to building next-generation mobile fronthaul systems with higher capacity, scalability, and energy efficiency. Under this circumstance, traditional solutions based on the Common Public Radio Interface or channel aggregation with digital signal processing (DSP) are not sufficient to support heterogeneous ubiquitous wireless access. In this paper, we demonstrate a point-to-multipoint bidirectional mobile fronthaul system. Wavelength division multiplexing plus frequency division multiplexing is applied to support independent asynchronous small cells. Intensity-modulation and direct-detection downlink (DL) as well as field-modulation and heterodyne-detection uplink (UL) are proposed. Combined with efficient virtual tone-based DSP for phase recovery and carrier-frequency-offset estimation, signal degradations from beating among incoherent asynchronous UL signals are mitigated. Proof-of-concept experiments are demonstrated where 20 and 16 80-MHz component carriers are transmitted over 25-km standard single-mode fiber for DL and UL, respectively. Less than 6% error vector magnitudes with 64-, 16-, and 4-ary quadrature amplitude modulation are obtained.

A Readout IC Using Two-Step Fastest Signal Identification for Compact Data Acquisition of PET Systems.

A readout integrated circuit (ROIC) using two-step fastest signal identification (FSI) is proposed to reduce the number of input channels of a data acquisition (DAQ) block with a high-channel reduction ratio. The two-step FSI enables the proposed ROIC to filter out useless input signals that arise from scattering and electrical noise without using complex and bulky circuits. In addition, an asynchronous fastest signal identifier and a self-trimmed comparator are proposed to identify the fastest signal without using a high-frequency clock and to reduce misidentification, respectively. The channel reduction ratio of the proposed ROIC is 16:1 and can be extended to 16 × N:1 using N ROICs. To verify the performance of the two-step FSI, the proposed ROIC was implemented into a gamma photon detector module using a Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode with a lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate array. The measured minimum detectable time is 1 ns. The difference of the measured energy and timing resolution between with and without the two-step FSI are 0.8% and 0.2 ns, respectively, which are negligibly small. These measurement results show that the proposed ROIC using the two-step FSI reduces the number of input channels of the DAQ block without sacrificing the performance of the positron emission tomography (PET) systems.

The Parameter Identification Method of Blade Asynchronous Vibration under Sweep Speed Excitation

The non-contact blade tip timing (BTT) measurement, with the advantage of measuring all the disk blades, has obtained widespread applications in industries. The measured data is under-sampled. Generally asynchronous vibrations will appear with the rotating speed sweeping under the excitation of the flow field, which can create a great increase of the blade vibration amplitude that is potentially harmful to the operation reliability of the turbine. In this paper, the investigation on the parameter identification method of blade asynchronous vibration under variable speed excitations was deeply explored. A novel method of parameter identification has been developed, based on the two sensors data interpolation in order to increase the frequency that can be identified. The spectral analysis with all phases Fast Fourier Transform (apFFT) was performed to extract the accuracy amplitude and phase of the blade. The order tracking calculation was carried out based on the minimum angle error. A mathematical model with four blades was developed to simulate the BTT testing data which can produce the simulation of speed sweep asynchronous vibration signal of the four blades. The correctness and accuracy of the algorithm was verified with the parameters identification of blade asynchronous vibration using the simulation model.

Assessing statistical significance of phase synchronization index — An application to study baroreflex function in critically-ill infants

Abstract Phase differences of two signals in perfect synchrony exhibit a narrow band distribution, whereas the phase differences of two asynchronous signals exhibit uniform distribution. We assess the statistical significance of the phase synchronization between two signals by using a signed rank test to compare the distribution of their phase differences to the theoretically expected uniform distribution for two asynchronous signals. Using numerical simulation of a second order autoregressive (AR2) process, we show that the proposed approach correctly identifies the coupling between the AR2 process and the driving white noise. We also identify the optimal p-value that distinguishes coupled scenarios from uncoupled ones. To identify the limiting cases, we study the phase synchronization between two independent white noises as a function of bandwidth of the filter in a different second simulation. We identify the frequency bandwidth below which the proposed approach fails and suggest using a data-driven approach for those scenarios. Finally, we demonstrate the application of this approach to study the coupling between beat-to-beat cardiac intervals and continuous blood pressure obtained from critically-ill infants to characterize the baroreflex function.

Electronic Circuit Experiments and SPICE Simulation of Double Covering Bifurcation of 2-Torus Quasi-Periodic Flow in Phase-Locked Loop Circuit

Double covering (DC) bifurcation of a 2-torus quasi-periodic flow in a phase-locked loop circuit was experimentally investigated using an electronic circuit and via SPICE simulation; in the circuit, the input radio-frequency signal was frequency modulated by the sum of two asynchronous sinusoidal baseband signals. We observed both DC and period-doubling bifurcations of a discrete map on two Poincaré sections, which were realized by changing the sample timing from one baseband sinusoidal signal to the other. The results confirm the DC bifurcation of the original flow.

Bilateral photoplethysmography for arterial steal detection in arteriovenous fistula using a fractional-order decision-making quantizer.

As inflow and outflow stenoses worsen, both flow resistance and pressure increase in the stenotic vascular access. During dialysis, when blood flow decreases, it may retrograde from the peripheral artery through the palmar arch to the arterial anastomosis site. Arterial steal syndrome (ASS) causes distal hypoperfusion, resulting in hand ischemia or extremity pain and edema. Hence, this study proposes the bilateral photoplethysmography (PPG) for ASS detection in arteriovenous fistulas. The decision-making quantizer utilizes the fractional-order feature extraction method and a non-cooperative game (NCG) framework to evaluate the ASS risk level. Bilateral asynchronous PPG signals have significant differences in the rise time and amplitude in relation to the degree of stenosis. The fractional-order self-synchronization error formulation is a feature extraction method used to quantify bilateral differences in blood flow changes between the dexter and sinister PPG signals. The NCG model as a method of decision-making is then employed to evaluate the ASS risk level. Using an acoustic Doppler measurement, the resistive (Res) index is also used to evaluate the vascular access stenosis at the arterial anastomosis site. In contrast with alternative methods including the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level or Res index, our experimental results indicate that the proposed decision-making quantizer is more efficient in preventing ASS during hemodialysis treatment.

Inter-cell interference mitigation in multi-cellular visible light communications.

Inter-cell interference hinders multi-cellular optical wireless communication to support various applications. We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a multicarrier-based cell partitioning scheme, combined with frequency reuse, which could be effective in optical communications although it is inefficient in RF wireless communications. For multicarrier-based cell partitioning, Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based multiple access (OFDMA) was employed to accommodate multi-cellular optical wireless communications without a large guard band between adjacent cells and without additional RF components. Moreover, we employed filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC) to mitigate inter-cell interference generated in OFDMA-based cell partitioning due to asynchronous signals originated from RF path difference. By using FBMC-based cell partitioning, inter-cell interference could be effectively mitigated as well as capacity and spectral efficiency were improved about 1.5 times compared to those of OFDMA. Because no cyclic prefix (CP) is required in FBMC, the improvement factor could be increased if there is a large RF path difference between lighting cells. Moreover, it could be a stronger solution when many neighboring cells exist causing large interference. The proposed multicarrier-based cell partitioning combined with FBMC will effectively support visible light communication (VLC)-based localization-based services (LBS) and indoor positioning system by transparently providing trilateration-based positioning method.

Design and implementation of inter-domain communication mechanism for high performance data processing

The basic improvement in the computer operation is the involvement of multi-operating systems running on a physical computer. To make extensive use of virtualization technologies in cloud computing, the inter-domain communication effectiveness is a key factor for the functioning of distributed applications and some intensive network applications. The synchronous communication mechanism, used by the traditional virtual machine implementation mechanism based on the asynchronous signal fed by the virtual machine mechanism, often causes high latency and slow performance. The communication mechanism, called com-socket that uses interprocessor interrupts for synchronization and elimination of some unnecessary packet inspections is developed and implemented. The approach of using shared memory to reduce the data copying time is applied. The com-socket implementation is carried out on X86 in combination with the virtual machine mechanism. The study revealed that the com-socket has lower latency and higher performance compared to UNIX IPC.

A model-based comparison of three theories of audiovisual temporal recalibration

Observers change their audio-visual timing judgements after exposure to asynchronous audiovisual signals. The mechanism underlying this temporal recalibration is currently debated. Three broad explanations have been suggested. According to the first, the time it takes for sensory signals to propagate through the brain has changed. The second explanation suggests that decisional criteria used to interpret signal timing have changed, but not time perception itself. A final possibility is that a population of neurones collectively encode relative times, and that exposure to a repeated timing relationship alters the balance of responses in this population. Here, we simplified each of these explanations to its core features in order to produce three corresponding six-parameter models, which generate contrasting patterns of predictions about how simultaneity judgements should vary across four adaptation conditions: No adaptation, synchronous adaptation, and auditory leading/lagging adaptation. We tested model predictions by fitting data from all four conditions simultaneously, in order to assess which model/explanation best described the complete pattern of results. The latency-shift and criterion-change models were better able to explain results for our sample as a whole. The population-code model did, however, account for improved performance following adaptation to a synchronous adapter, and best described the results of a subset of observers who reported least instances of synchrony.

Audiovisual temporal recalibration occurs independently at two different time scales.

Combining signals across the senses improves precision and speed of perception, although this multisensory benefit declines for asynchronous signals. Multisensory events may produce synchronized stimuli at source but asynchronies inevitably arise due to distance, intensity, attention and neural latencies. Temporal recalibration is an adaptive phenomenon that serves to perceptually realign physically asynchronous signals. Recently, it was discovered that temporal recalibration occurs far more rapidly than previously thought and does not require minutes of adaptation. Using a classical audiovisual simultaneity task and a series of brief flashes and tones varying in onset asynchrony, perceived simultaneity on a given trial was found to shift in the direction of the preceding trial’s asynchrony. Here we examine whether this inter-trial recalibration reflects the same process as prolonged adaptation by combining both paradigms: participants adapted to a fixed temporal lag for several minutes followed by a rapid series of test trials requiring a synchrony judgment. Interestingly, we find evidence of recalibration from prolonged adaptation and inter-trial recalibration within a single experiment. We show a dissociation in which sustained adaptation produces a large but decaying recalibration effect whilst inter-trial recalibration produces large transient effects whose sign matches that of the previous trial.

Optimal Stochastic Tracking for Primary Frequency Control in an Interactive Smart Grid Infrastructure

An optimal stochastic tracking scheme is proposed for an interactive smart grid infrastructure made of three steps: 1) The utility reshapes the customer load profiles by scheduling a demand response for the requested customer loads; 2) individual smart home makes optimal sequential decisions on power purchase; and 3) optimal stochastic control schemes for the active power balance (primary frequency control) are designed, in the presence of uncertainties arising from customer loads and distributed renewable generations. With the first two parts addressed in our previous work, in this paper, we focus on the primary frequency control scheme design in the multilayer control architecture to stabilize frequency and maintain the active power balance within the distributed areas. We propose two stochastic tracking schemes based on the state-space representation of a synchronous generator: 1) reference-dynamics-based tracking and 2) reference-statistics-based tracking. We further extend the proposed optimal controllers by considering the realistic scenario of asynchronous load signals from different customers. To compensate for different delays seen by different customer signals, a Kalman-filter-based prediction scheme is proposed to estimate the correct reference signal. We show that the centralized reference prediction can equivalently be implemented distributively. Simulation results are presented, showing the performances of the proposed prediction and tracking schemes.

Positive stabilization for switched linear systems under asynchronous switching

SummaryThis paper is concerned with the positive stabilization for a class of switched systems under asynchronous switching signals. Because it inevitably takes some time to identify the active subsystem in the real systems and activate the corresponding controller, the switching of controllers lags behind that of subsystems, which arises the problem of the asynchronous switching. By analyzing the solution of dynamic systems, the mode‐dependent controllers are designed to guarantee the positivity and exponential stability for the resultant closed‐loop switched linear systems under asynchronous switching signals in continuous‐time and discrete‐time cases, respectively. Sufficient conditions for the existence of admissible state‐feedback controllers are developed, and the corresponding switching signals are designed. Furthermore, a synchronous switching phenomenon is discussed as a special case. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.