General-purpose Design Research Articles

Evaluation of Experiment Designs for MIMO Identification by Cross-Validation

Guidelines for design of input perturbations for identification of multivariable systems are given. The focus is on control-oriented identification, but for comparison some general-purpose designs are also considered. The information needed for design of input perturbations such as double rectangular pulses, pseudo-random binary sequences, and multi-sinusoidal signals can be obtained from a simple step test. Such a test also gives information about the directionality properties of the system. This information can be used to design control-oriented experiments as shown in the paper. The design techniques are illustrated by realistic simulations of a moderately ill-conditioned 3×3 system. The identified models, and thus the experiment designs, are evaluated by cross-validations. According to this evaluation, the directional input designs are superior to standard input designs for identification of MIMO systems.

Implementation of Filter Bank–Based RF Transceiver for TV White Space

This paper presents a general-purpose design scheme of a filter bank (FB)–based radio frequency (RF) transceiver that operates across the entire ultra-high frequency (UHF) TV band from 470 MHz to 698 MHz and complies with the TV white space (TVWS) regulatory requirements. To this end, an intermediate frequency (IF) band-pass filter (BPF) with a sharp skirt characteristic is considered as a solution for handling the incoming signals from a baseband modem. Specifically, an FB-based BPF structure with four ceramic resonator filters that effectively rejects unwanted signals is proposed to extract a desired signal in the TV band. Achievable data rates of a cognitive radio system (CRS) employing the proposed FB-based RF transceiver at the application layer are investigated in both wired and wireless environments. The service coverage of the CRS network is measured according to several modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) of the CRS. The results show that the coverage of a wireless network in a nearly open area can be extended by more than 9.3 km in the TVWS. Experimental results also confirm that the proposed FB-based RF transceiver is adequate for utilization in TVWS applications.

Optimizing hash-array mapped tries for fast and lean immutable JVM collections

The data structures under-pinning collection API (e.g. lists, sets, maps) in the standard libraries of programming languages are used intensively in many applications. The standard libraries of recent Java Virtual Machine languages, such as Clojure or Scala, contain scalable and well-performing immutable collection data structures that are implemented as Hash-Array Mapped Tries (HAMTs). HAMTs already feature efficient lookup, insert, and delete operations, however due to their tree-based nature their memory footprints and the runtime performance of iteration and equality checking lag behind array-based counterparts. This particularly prohibits their application in programs which process larger data sets. In this paper, we propose changes to the HAMT design that increase the overall performance of immutable sets and maps. The resulting general purpose design increases cache locality and features a canonical representation. It outperforms Scala’s and Clojure’s data structure implementations in terms of memory footprint and runtime efficiency of iteration (1.3–6.7x) and equality checking (3–25.4x).

IMPROVEMENT OF OPERATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AIRCRAFT WITH A DEFORMABLE COMBINED WING

In this article studied the characteristics of the experimental and numerical models, as well as a comparative analysis of performance of flying machines with different types of bearing surfaces with equal specific wing loading G / S. Development of experimental aircrafts with soft wings due to the need to increase the operation of aircrafts. The results of wind tunnel test has performed using a general purpose classical scheme for models plane (Aeroprakt A-20) and are provided with two different types of wing skin: completely rigid wing and hybrid wing, which consists of 30% hard part and 70% soft inflatable portion. By correction of wind tunnel test results Aeroprakt aircraft A-20, derived from the characteristics of the deformable wing aircraft. Based on the research performance of experimental and computational models of the comparative analysis of aircraft performance characteristics of the aircraft with the wing skin of different types at equal specific wing loading G / S. The above article results demonstrate the possibility of using a general-purpose design of the proposed design solution aircraft - carrying surface, the combination of a rigid front and rear inflatable parts.

Monitoring Protein Structure on the Surface of Gold Nanoparticles using NMR Spectroscopy

Because of their unique spectroscopic properties and biocompatibility, protein-functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have many potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Surface-bound proteins can be used both as molecular sensors and drug delivery vectors, and the plasmonic properties of gold enable the detection of very small changes in surface chemistry. Unfortunately, the design of general-purpose, functionalized AuNPs is severely complicated by our limited understanding of protein structure on nanoparticle surfaces. Some enzymes remain active on AuNPs while others are inactive, and it is currently impossible to predict which behavior will be observed. To address this problem, we have recently developed several new NMR-based approaches for monitoring protein structure on AuNP surfaces. We find that the adsorption capacity of 15 nm AuNPs can be predicted using the native structure, suggesting that proteins remain globular on the AuNP surface. Additionally, we demonstrate that proteins can be displaced from AuNPs by organothiols, supporting a case for reversible binding. Finally, we have used hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX) to monitor structural perturbations of two model proteins, GB3 and Ubiquitin, when bound to AuNPs. We find no significant changes in slow HDX rates (5-300 min), suggesting that AuNP-induced structural changes are small for these two proteins. Together, these results support a model where most of a protein's native contacts are preserved upon adsorption, although larger changes may occur over long timescales.

실세계 도로 네트워크 환경에서의 이동객체 패턴기반 분산 예측 프레임워크 설계

Recently, due to the proliferation of mobile smart devices, the inovation of bigdata, which analyzes and processes massive data collected from various sensors implaned in smart devices, expands to LBSs. Many location prediction techniques for moving objects have been studied in literature. However, as the majority of studies perform location prediction which depends on specific applications, they hardly reflect the technical requirements of next-generation spatio-temporal information services. Therefore, this paper proposes the design of general-purpose distributed moving object prediction query processing framework that is capable of performing primitive and various types of queries effectively based on massive spatio-temporal data of moving objects in real-world space networks.

Exploring Energy Scalability in Coprocessor-Dominated Architectures for Dark Silicon

As chip designers face the prospect of increasingly dark silicon, there is increased interest in incorporating energy-efficient specialized coprocessors into general-purpose designs. For specialization to be a viable means of leveraging dark silicon, it must provide energy savings over the majority of execution for large, diverse workloads, and this will require deploying coprocessors in large numbers. Recent work has shown that automatically generated application-specific coprocessors can greatly improve energy efficiency, but it is not clear that current techniques will scale to Coprocessor-Dominated Architectures ( CoDAs ) with hundreds or thousands of coprocessors. We show that scaling CoDAs to include very large numbers of coprocessors is challenging because of the energy cost of interconnects, the memory system, and leakage. These overheads grow with the number of coprocessors and, left unchecked, will squander the energy gains that coprocessors can provide. The article presents a detailed study of energy costs across a wide range of tiled CoDA designs and shows that careful choice of cache configuration, tile size, coarse-grain power management and transistor implementation can limit the growth of these overheads. For multithreaded workloads, designer must also take care to avoid excessive contention for coprocessors, which can significantly increase energy consumption. The results suggest that, for CoDAs that target larger workloads, amortizing shared overheads via multithreading can provide up to 3.8× reductions in energy per instruction, retaining much of the 5.3× potential of smaller designs.

FITS: A flexible virtual network testbed architecture

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of FITS (Future Internet Testbed with Security), an open, shared, and general-purpose testbed for the Future Internet. FITS defines an innovative architecture that allows users running experiments with new mechanisms and protocols using both Xen and OpenFlow on the same network infrastructure. FITS integrates several recognized state-of-the-art features such as plane separation, zero-loss network migration, and smartcard-driven security access, to cite a few. The current physical testbed is composed of nodes placed at several Brazilian and European institutions interconnected by encrypted tunnels. Besides presenting the FITS architecture and its features, we also discuss deployment challenges and how we have overcome them.

Low-Power Reconfigurable Miniature Sensor Nodes for Condition Monitoring

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are being deployed at an escalating rate for various application fields. The ever growing number of application areas requires a diverse set of algorithms with disparate processing needs. WSNs also need to adapt to prevailing energy conditions and processing requirements. The preceding reasons rule out the use of a single fixed design. Instead, a general purpose design that can rapidly be adapted to different conditions and requirements is desired. In lieu of the traditional inflexible wireless sensor node consisting of a separate micro-controller, radio transceiver, sensor array and energy storage, we propose a unified rapidly reconfigurable miniature sensor node, implemented with a transport triggered architecture processor on a low-power Flash FPGA. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind. The proposed approach does not solely concentrate on energy efficiency but a high emphasis is also put on the ease of development perspective. Power consumption and silicon area usage comparison based on solutions implemented using our novel rapid design approach for wireless sensor nodes are performed. The comparison is performed between 16-bit fixed point, 16-bit floating point and 32-bit floating point implementations. The implemented processors and algorithms are intended for rolling bearing condition monitoring, but can be fully extended for other applications as well.

E+e- HADRON PRODUCTION CROSS SECTIONS AT BELLE

A number of production cross sections for electron-positron annihilation to a hadronic final state have been measured using the Belle dataset, which is possible given the general purpose design of the Belle detector and its large solid-angle coverage. The cross section measurements predominantly fall above 3 GeV, which still leaves the opportunity for using the dataset to systematically measure cross sections below 3 GeV. These low-energy cross sections are important for improving the precision of the Standard Model prediction for the muon anomalous magnetic moment.

Dynamic Streamization Model Execution for SIMD Engines on Multicore Architectures

This paper proposes dynamic streamization model execution (DSME), a dynamic vectorization technique for single instruction multiple data (SIMD) engines on multicore architectures. The technique uses stream model as intermediate representation for programs to optimize the combination of computation and memory accesses of SIMD engines in general-purpose (GP) designs. DSME allows the dynamic placement of computations on different cores when they are not in use to utilize multiple SIMD engines. This study also discusses hardware extensions to existing GP processor designs as well as related compiler extensions that use the special hardware components. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that performance gains of DSME can be achieved.

Visual Basic and SolidWorks Based Development of Design System for Trellis Screen Protective Device

[Purpose] To solve problems for lack of the design system for the trellis screen protective device, a general-purpose design system is required to perform structural design and make budget on materials required. [Method] Visual Basic and SolidWorks redevelopment technologies are used to develop this design system, where the user interface and dimensions of parts can be used to update 3D models for parts and assemblies; also, budget can be made on materials required for making the device. [Results] This system is proven to be able to greatly improve the design quality and efficiency. [Conclusion] This system has combined update of 3D models and material budget and will provide reference for other design systems in aspects of design flow and design methods.

Thermoelastic Damping in the Axisymmetric Vibration of Circular Microplate Resonators with Two-Dimensional Heat Conduction

Predicting thermoelastic damping (TED) is crucial in the design of high Q micromechanical resonators. Circular plates are common elements in the microresonators. In the past, some analytical models have been developed for TED in circular microplate resonators. However, to obtain a simple analytical expression, the previous models neglected the temperature gradient along the radial and circumferential directions, only the heat conduction through the thickness of the circular plate was considered. Thus the previous models cannot be used for general purpose design and optimization of microplate resonators. This paper presents a new analytical model for the TED in the circular microplates vibrating in the axisymmetric mode. Compared with the previous models, the present model considers two-dimensional heat conduction over thermoelastic temperature gradients along the thickness direction and the radial direction. The temperature field is represented by the product of the Bessel series along the radial direction and an unknown function along the thickness direction, which is determined in the solution procedure. The present model is validated by comparison with the previous model and the finite element method (FEM) model.

Evaluation of Fiber-Bundle Based Transmitter Configurations With Alignment Control Algorithm for Mobile FSO Nodes

A fiber-bundle approach for beam steering at the transmitter was recently proposed and investigated that allowed tracking of the receiver without the use of mechanical devices for mobile free-spaced optical (FSO) platforms experiencing misalignment due to movement and atmospheric turbulence. This paper investigates different transmitter configurations along with a general pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) algorithm on key parameters including power availability at the receiver, switching time, link recapturing time, and coverage area at the receiver plane. The alignment control algorithm with different ways to track receiver is also evaluated on these key parameters. The algorithm performance versus transmitted power, switching time and the threshold power for beam steering was examined. The investigation finds that a combination of switching combined with splitting of the light between fibers is a suitable solution to provide the best trade-off between link up time and the coverage area at the receiver, and thus is a good general purpose design choice, and the optical tracking system with target location information demands fewer efforts to recover and maintain the dynamic link than the one without the awareness of the receiver location information.

Quark: A Lightweight Hash

The need for lightweight (that is, compact, low-power, low-energy) cryptographic hash functions has been repeatedly expressed by professionals, notably to implement cryptographic protocols in RFID technology. At the time of writing, however, no algorithm exists that provides satisfactory security and performance. The ongoing SHA-3 Competition will not help, as it concerns general-purpose designs and focuses on software performance. This paper thus proposes a novel design philosophy for lightweight hash functions, based on the sponge construction in order to minimize memory requirements. Inspired by the stream cipher Grain and by the block cipher KATAN (amongst the lightest secure ciphers), we present the hash function family Quark, composed of three instances: u-Quark, d-Quark, and s-Quark. As a sponge construction, Quark can be used for message authentication, stream encryption, or authenticated encryption. Our hardware evaluation shows that Quark compares well to previous tentative lightweight hash functions. For example, our lightest instance u-Quark conjecturally provides at least 64-bit security against all attacks (collisions, multicollisions, distinguishers, etc.), fits in 1379 gate-equivalents, and consumes on average 2.44 μW at 100 kHz in 0.18 μm ASIC. For 112-bit security, we propose s-Quark, which can be implemented with 2296 gate-equivalents with a power consumption of 4.35 μW.

Scanning properties of a resonant fiber-optic piezoelectric scanner

We develop a resonant fiber-optic scanner using four piezoelectric elements arranged as a square tube, which is efficient to manufacture and drive. Using coupled-field model based on finite element method, scanning properties of the scanner, including vibration mode, resonant frequency, and scanning range, are numerically studied. We also physically measure the effects of geometry sizes and drive signals on the scanning properties, thus providing a foundation for general purpose designs. A scanner adopted in a prototype of imaging system, with a diameter of ~2 mm and driven by a voltage of 10 V (peak to peak), demonstrates the scanning performance by obtaining an image of resolution target bars. The proposed fiber-optic scanner can be applied to micro-endoscopy that requires two-dimensional scanning of fibers.

An Energy and Performance Exploration of Network-on-Chip Architectures

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> In this paper, we explore the designs of a circuit-switched router, a wormhole router, a quality-of-service (QoS) supporting virtual channel router and a speculative virtual channel router and accurately evaluate the energy-performance tradeoffs they offer. Power results from the designs placed and routed in a 90-nm CMOS process show that all the architectures dissipate significant idle state power. The additional energy required to route a packet through the router is then shown to be dominated by the data path. This leads to the key result that, if this trend continues, the use of more elaborate control can be justified and will not be immediately limited by the energy budget. A performance analysis also shows that dynamic resource allocation leads to the lowest network latencies, while static allocation may be used to meet QoS goals. Combining the power and performance figures then allows an energy-latency product to be calculated to judge the efficiency of each of the networks. The speculative virtual channel router was shown to have a very similar efficiency to the wormhole router, while providing a better performance, supporting its use for general purpose designs. Finally, area metrics are also presented to allow a comparison of implementation costs. </para>

Generating cutter paths for marine propellers without interference and gouging

We generate cutter paths free of interference and gouging for manufacturing model propellers using a five-axis numerical control (NC) machine. Our approach is faster than using a general-purpose computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) system. A roughing cut is made using only three axes for efficiency, and the finishing cut is made using all five axes to avoid collisions. Elements of the cutter path that might produce gouging are eliminated and the pose of the cutter is adjusted to eliminate interference. A number of models, including surface-piercing propellers, have been manufactured.

Bio-Microfluidics Real-Time Monitoring Using CNN Technology

A new non-invasive real-time system for the monitoring and control of microfluidodynamic phenomena involving transport of particles and two phase fluids is proposed. The general purpose design of such system is suitable for in vitro and in vivo experimental setup and, therefore, for microfluidic applications in the biomedical field, such as lab-on-chip and for research studies in the field of microcirculation. The system consists of an ad hoc optical setup for image magnification providing images suitable for acquisition and processing. The main feature of the optical system is the accessibility of the information at any point of the optical path. It was designed and developed using discrete opto-mechanic components mounted on a breadboard. The optical sensing, acquisition, and processing were all performed using an integrated vision system based on cellular nonlinear networks (CNNs) analogic (analog plus logic) technology called focal plane processor (FPP, Eye-RIS, Anafocus) that was inserted in the optical path. Ad hoc algorithms were implemented for the real-time analysis and extraction of fluidodynamic parameters in micro-channels. They were firstly tested on sequences of images recorded during in vivo microcirculation experiments on hamsters and then applied on images acquired and processed in real-time during in vitro experiments on two-phase fluid flow in a continuous microfluidic device (serpentine mixer, ThinXXS).

An Experimental Study on High-Frequency Substrate Noise Isolation in BiCMOS Technology

In this letter, four substrate noise isolation structures in standard 0.18-mum SiGe bipolar CMOS technology were investigated using S-parameter measurements. The experimental and simulated results on different isolation structures, such as triple-well p-n junction isolated walls, deep trench isolation, and double P+ guard-ring structures, are presented. Each element in the equivalent circuits has been calculated or fitted based on the parasitic resistance, capacitance, and physical dimensions using the device simulator MEDICI and the measured results of the test patterns. The proposed structure B significantly reduced substrate noise below -70 dB up to 20 GHz. The proposed structure C with an extra triple-well junction achieved the best isolation at the lower frequency range, in which |S21| was less than -71 dB from 50 MHz to 10.05 GHz, and -56 dB from 10.05 to 20.05 GHz. The measured results showed an excellent agreement with the calculations. Structure B is good enough and is recommended for a general-purpose RF circuit design, whereas structure C can be used in a highly sensitive RF circuit block below 10 GHz.