Noise Slope Research Articles

A spectral Doppler ultrasound method for estimation of skeletal muscle velocity

Skeletal muscle velocity is a key indicator of neuromuscular function, and monitoring its changes plays important role in tracking the progression of musculoskeletal diseases, injuries, and fatigue. However, existing methods for non-invasive estimation of skeletal muscle velocity primarily use B- mode ultrasound, often with processing methods that are time-consuming or computationally expensive, with varying accuracy based on tissue structure. Here, we propose a spectral Doppler envelope estimation method designed for skeletal muscle measurements. When compared to the modified signal noise slope intersection (MSNSI) method, our method reduces the overall mean absolute error by 13.9% and the mean absolute zero error by 82.1%. We validated our method using a portable ultrasound system on a benchtop setup that mimics the acoustic properties, measurement angles, and velocity patterns of skeletal muscles. Ex vivo and in vivo muscle velocity estimates of parallel and pennate muscles will be compared to those obtained using the MSNSI method and manual tracking of B-Mode images. Our proposed method could enable automated estimation of skeletal muscle velocities during dynamic activities in unconstrained environments, providing new insight into neuromuscular function and movement biomechanics, with potential applications in monitoring fatigue, disease progression, or injury recovery. [Work supported by the National Science Foundation.]

Fast surface signal extraction method for photon point clouds with strong background noise without prior altitude information.

It is extremely challenging to rapidly and accurately extract target echo photon signals from massive photon point clouds with strong background noise without any prior geographic information. Herein, we propose a fast surface detection method realized by combining the improved density-dimension algorithm (DDA) and Kalman filtering (KF), termed the DDA-KF algorithm, for photon signals with a high background noise rate (BNR) to improve the extraction of surface photon signals from spacecraft platforms. The results showed that the algorithm exhibited good adaptability to strong background noise and terrain slope variations, and had real-time processing capabilities for massive photon point clouds in large-scale detection range without prior altitude information of target. Our research provides a practical technical solution for single-photon lidar applications in deep space navigation and can help improve the performance in environments characterized by strong background noise.

Development of a novel high-performance readout circuit for α and β energy spectrum measurement

A novel high-performance readout circuit with multi-Junction field-effect transistors (Multi-JFETs) and high-speed integrated operational amplifiers as the core was designed. By coupling the circuit to a large area passivated ion injection planar silicon (PIPS) detector, excellent α and β energy spectrum can be obtained. Therefore, it can be applied to radon monitor, radioactive aerosol monitor and other equipment to achieve high precision information on radioactive substances in the environment. The input stage of the circuit adopts the parallel structure of JFETs to achieve the matching between the amplifier circuit with the detector junction capacitance. The bias circuit adopts JFETs to form a constant current source while using the gate-source self-biased parallel structure to obtain large transconductance gain and good amplification linearity. The main amplifier circuit adopts a high-speed and low-noise operational amplifier with the advantages of high open-loop gain and stable quiescent point. The performance of this readout circuit was tested, in which the rise time of the signal is 35 ns, the sensitivity of charge-voltage conversion is better than 0.979 mV/fC when the input capacitance is less than 100 pF, and the equivalent noise charge is 1.55 fC, noise slope is 0.00366 fC/pF. By coupling the readout circuit to a PIPS detector with a sensitive area of 450 mm2, the signal-to-noise ratio of the output signal is 116:1 for the 241Am alpha source and 20:1 for the 90Sr-90Y beta particles. The energy spectrum measurement of the 238Pu source was performed, providing FWHM is 16.90 keV@5499 keV.

A wide swing charge sensitive amplifier for a prototype Si–W EM calorimeter

A wide swing charge sensitive amplifier (CSA) has been developed, as a part of a front-end electronics (FEE) readout ASIC, for a prototype silicon tungsten (Si–W) based electromagnetic (EM) calorimeter. The CSA, designed in 0.35μm N-well CMOS technology using 5V MOS transistors, has a wide linear operating range of 2.6 pC w.r.t the input charge with a power dissipation of 2.3 mW. A noise figure (ENC) of 820 e− at 0 pF of detector capacitance with a noise slope of 25 e−/pF has been achieved (when followed by a CR-RC2 filter of 1.2μs peaking time). This design of CSA provides a dynamic range (ratio of maximum detectable signal to noise floor) of 79 dB for the maximum input charge of 2.6 pC when connected to a silicon detector with a capacitance of 40 pF. Using folded cascode architecture-based input stage and low voltage high swing current mirrors as the load, the CSA provides an enlarged output swing by biasing the output node towards one supply rail and utilizing the voltage range towards the opposite rail. The design philosophy works for both polarities of a large input signal. This paper presents the design of CSA with a wide negative output swing for an anticipated input signal of positive polarity in the target application with a known detector biasing scheme.

Application of spectral-based wind noise reduction method to acoustical measurements

Wind-induced microphone self-noise is a non-acoustic signal that may contaminate outdoor acoustical measurements, particularly at low frequencies, even when using a windscreen. A recently developed method [Cook etal., JASA Express Lett. 1, 063602 (2021)] uses the characteristic spectral slope of wind noise in the inertial subrange for screened microphones to automatically classify and reduce wind noise in acoustical measurements in the lower to middling frequency range of human hearing. To explore its uses and limitations, this method is applied to multiple acoustical measurements collected in both urban and rural environments. The method can be applied to one-third octave band spectral data with different frequency ranges and sampling intervals. By removing the shorter timescale data at frequencies where wind noise dominates the signal, the longer timescale acoustical environment can be more accurately represented. While considerations should be made about the specific applicability of the method to particular datasets, the wind reduction method allows for simple classification and reduction of wind-noise-contaminated data in large, diverse datasets. [Work supported by U.S. Army SBIR.]

Automatic classification and reduction of wind noise in spectral data.

Outdoor acoustic data often include non-acoustic pressures caused by atmospheric turbulence, particularly below a few hundred Hz in frequency, even when using microphone windscreens. This paper describes a method for automatic wind-noise classification and reduction in spectral data without requiring measured wind speeds. The method finds individual frequency bands matching the characteristic decreasing spectral slope of wind noise. Uncontaminated data from several short-timescale spectra can be used to obtain a decontaminated long-timescale spectrum. This method is validated with field-test data and can be applied to large datasets to efficiently find and reduce the negative impact of wind noise contamination.

Electrochemical noise analysis of cavitation erosion corrosion resistance of NbC nanocrystalline coating in a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution

To combat cavitation erosion-corrosion damage inflicted upon mechanical components in marine applications, NbC nanocrystalline coatings were synthesized by a double cathode glow discharge assisted reactive sputtering method. The coating comprised equiaxed B1-NaCl-type NbC grains with an average grain size of ~10 nm and a strong NbC (200)-oriented texture by TEM observation. The electrochemical response of the coating exposed to a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution with and without the influence of cavitation was monitored by electrochemical noise (EN) measurements, in addition to open circuit potential and cyclic polarization. To differentiate the cavitation erosion-corrosion resistance between the NbC coating and a reference Ti-6Al-4V alloy substrate, the EN data were further evaluated, based on a series of analyses, including frequency domain, time-domain, shot noise and wavelet transform. For the Ti-6Al-4V alloy, with increasing output power, the noise resistance (Rn) and slope (k values) of potential and current power spectral density (PSD) decreased, and the average charge in each corrosion event (q) and the total energy of d series crystals increased markedly at the output power levels above 400 W, indicative of a high propensity of pitting corrosion for this alloy. Conversely, the Rn and k values for the NbC coating were found to be almost independent of the output power, and the charge of the corrosion event and the total energy of the d series crystals were much lower than that of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The findings garnered from analyzing the EN signals is in accord with what were uncovered from examining the eroded surface morphologies, suggesting that the EN method might offer a reliable and effective tool to probe the cavitation erosion-corrosion behavior in developing durable material.

An 8.72 µW Low-Noise and Wide Bandwidth FEE Design for High-Throughput Pixel-Strip (PS) Sensors.

The front-end electronics (FEE) of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is needed very low power consumption and higher readout bandwidth to match the low power requirement of its Short Strip application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) (SSA) and to handle a large number of pileup events in the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A low-noise, wide bandwidth, and ultra-low power FEE for the pixel-strip sensor of the CMS has been designed and simulated in a 0.35 µm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process. The design comprises a Charge Sensitive Amplifier (CSA) and a fast Capacitor-Resistor-Resistor-Capacitor (CR-RC) pulse shaper (PS). A compact structure of the CSA circuit has been analyzed and designed for high throughput purposes. Analytical calculations were performed to achieve at least 998 MHz gain bandwidth, and then overcome pileup issue in the High-Luminosity LHC. The spice simulations prove that the circuit can achieve 88 dB dc-gain while exhibiting up to 1 GHz gain-bandwidth product (GBP). The stability of the design was guaranteed with an 82-degree phase margin while 214 ns optimal shaping time was extracted for low-power purposes. The robustness of the design against radiations was performed and the amplitude resolution of the proposed front-end was controlled at 1.87% FWHM (full width half maximum). The circuit has been designed to handle up to 280 fC input charge pulses with 2 pF maximum sensor capacitance. In good agreement with the analytical calculations, simulations outcomes were validated by post-layout simulations results, which provided a baseline gain of 546.56 mV/MeV and 920.66 mV/MeV, respectively, for the CSA and the shaping module while the ENC (Equivalent Noise Charge) of the device was controlled at 37.6 e− at 0 pF with a noise slope of 16.32 e−/pF. Moreover, the proposed circuit dissipates very low power which is only 8.72 µW from a 3.3 V supply and the compact layout occupied just 0.0205 mm2 die area.

Windkessel Model-Based Cuffless Blood Pressure Estimation Using Continuous Wave Doppler Ultrasound System

Blood pressure (BP) measurement plays an essential role in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Studies have demonstrated Ultrasound (US) based BP analysis method combining with peripheral components of the circulatory system. In this paper, a cuffless BP measurement technique has been proposed using a portable continuous wave Doppler US system which consumes < 4 Watt of power. The US blood flow signal acquired utilizing 8 MHz pencil transducer probe from the brachial artery is denoised using soft thresholding method. The spectrogram envelope of maximum frequency is obtained by an adaptive signal noise slope intersection (SNSI) method to extract hemodynamic features. In the proposed method, 2-element Windkessel (WK) model consisting of peripheral resistance and arterial compliance is employed for BP estimation. Based on the extracted features, a machine learning algorithm determines the WK model parameters. From the experiments conducted on 85 subjects, it has been observed that both systolic and diastolic BP achieve Grade B and Grade C for British Hypertension Society (BHS) and IEEE Std. 1708 protocols, respectively. Regarding Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standard, diastolic BP estimation error is within an acceptable limit. The robustness of the approach is examined using pre-exercise and post-exercise performance of 10 subjects. Moreover, the effect on arterial compliance for increased BP and aging is observed to characterize the dynamic property of arterial system. The proposed method is non-invasive, non-occlusive, independent of any additional interfaces, operates with a small dataset and worthy of implementation as a portable system for point-of-care application.

Subspace-Based Blood Power Spectral Capon Combined with Wiener Postfilter to Provide a High-Quality Velocity Waveform with Low Mathematical Complexity

In Doppler analysis, the power spectral density (PSD), which accounts for the axial velocity distribution of the blood scatterers, is estimated. The conventional spectral estimator is Welch's method, which suffers from frequency leakage at small observation window length. The performance of adaptive techniques such as blood power Capon (BPC) has been promising at the cost of higher computation complexity. Reducing the computational complexity while retaining the benefits of BPC would be necessary for real-time implementation. The purpose of the work described here was to investigate whether it is possible to decrease the computation load in BPC and still obtain acceptable results. The computation complexity in BPC is owing primarily to the matrix inversion required for computing the PSD estimate. We here propose the subspace blood power Capon technique, which employs a data covariance matrix with reduced number of rows in estimation of the weight vector. In maximum velocity estimation in the spectra, the signal noise slope intersection envelop estimator that makes use of the integrated power spectrum is employed. The evaluations are made based on both simulated and in vivo data. The results indicate that it is possible to reduce the order of complexity to almost 12.25% at the cost of 2.31% and 2.24% increases in the relative standard deviation and relative bias of the estimates. Moreover, the Wiener post-filter as a post-weighting factor, which will be multiplied by the final weight vector of the spectral estimator, estimates the power of the desired signal and the power of the interference plus noise to improve the contrast. The proposed estimator has exhibited a promising performance at beam-to-flow angles of 45°, 60° and 75°. Furthermore, the robust performance of the proposed estimator against variation in the flow rate is also documented.

Energy spectrum response of a CsI(Tl) detector read out by an APD

To study the energy spectrum response of a CsI(Tl) detector, we fabricated a new scintillation detector by coupling a CsI (Tl) crystal with an avalanche photodiode (APD) . Then, we designed a new low-noise readout circuit for the detector. Finally, we analyzed the effects of both temperature and bias voltage on the energy spectrum response and evaluated the capability to identify nuclides by connecting the detector to the readout circuit. The research showed that the noise of the readout circuit was 608e, with the noise slope being 5.71e/pF . At 20̂C, the detector achieved an excellent bias stability, the energy resolution reached an optimal value of 5.24% at a bias voltage of 370 V, thus proving a satisfactory performance. The signal-noise ratio reached 19:1 and the rise time of the output signals was 84 ns. The detector achieved an excellent energy spectrum response to 137Cs, 152Eu and 226Ra radioactive sources, demonstrating a strong capability of nuclide recognition distinguishing clearly each energy peak.

A 0.35μm Low-Noise Stable Charge Sensitive Amplifier for Silicon Detectors Applications

The Charge Sensitive Amplifier (CSA) is the key module of the front-end electronics of various types of Silicon detectors and most radiation detection systems. High gain, stability, and low input noise are the major concerns of a typical CSA circuit in order to achieve amplified susceptible input charge (current) for further processing. To design such a low-noise, stable, and low power dissipation solution, a CSA is required to be realized a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology with a compact design. This research reports a low-noise highly stabile CSA design considerations for Silicon detectors applications, which has been designed and validated in TSMC 0.35um CMOS process. In a typical CSA design, the detector capacitance and the input transistor’s width are the most dominating parameters for achieving low noise performance. Therefore, the Equivalent Noise Charge (ENC) with respect to those parameters has been optimized, for a set of detector capacitance from 0.2pF – 2pF. However, the parallel noise of the feedback was removed by adopting a voltage-controlled NMOS resistor, which in turn helped to achieve high stability of the circuit. The simulation results provided a baseline gain of 9.92mV/fC and show that ENC was found to be 42.5e – with 3.72 e – /pF noise slope. The Corner frequency exhibited by the CSA is 1.023GHz and the output magnitude was controlled at -56.8dB; it dissipates 0.23mW from with a single voltage supply of 3.3V with an active die area of 0.0049 mm 2 .

Short-term Variability of Evolved Massive Stars with TESS

Abstract We present the first results from a study of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Sector 1 and 2 light curves for eight evolved massive stars in the LMC: six yellow supergiants (YSGs) and two luminous blue variables (LBVs), including S Doradus. We use an iterative prewhitening procedure to characterize the short-timescale variability in all eight stars. The periodogram of one of the YSGs, HD 269953, displays multiple strong peaks at higher frequencies than its fellows. While the field surrounding HD 269953 is quite crowded, it is the brightest star in the region, and has infrared colors indicating it is dusty. We suggest HD 269953 may be in a post-red supergiant evolutionary phase. We find a signal with a period of ∼5 days for the LBV HD 269582. The periodogram of S Doradus shows a complicated structure, with peaks below frequencies of 1.5 cycles per day. We fit the shape of the background noise of all eight light curves, and find a red noise component in all of them. However, the power-law slope of the red noise and the timescale over which coherent structures arise changes from star to star. Our results highlight the potential for studying evolved massive stars with TESS.

An optical fiber-based flexible readout system for micro-pattern gas detectors

This paper presents an optical fiber-based readout system that is intended to provide a general purpose multi-channel readout solution for various Micro-Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGDs). The proposed readout system is composed of several front-end cards (FECs) and a data collection module (DCM). The FEC exploits the capability of an existing 64-channel generic TPC readout ASIC chip, named AGET, to implement 256 channels readout. AGET offers FEC a large flexibility in gain range (4 options from 120 fC to 10 pC), peaking time (16 options from 50 ns to 1 us) and sampling freqency (100 MHz max.). The DCM contains multiple 1 Gbps optical fiber serial link interfaces that allow the system scaling up to 1536 channels with 6 FECs and 1 DCM. Further scaling up is possible through cascading of multiple DCMs, by configuring one DCM as a master while other DCMs in slave mode. This design offers a rapid readout solution for different application senario. Tests indicate that the nonlinearity of each channel is less than 1%, and the equivalent input noise charge is typically around 0.7 fC in RMS (root mean square), with a noise slope of about 0.01 fC/pF. The system level trigger rate limit is about 700 Hz in all channel readout mode. When in hit channel readout mode, supposing that typically 10 percent of channels are fired, trigger rate can go up to about 7 kHz. This system has been tested with Micromegas detector and GEM detector, confirming its capability in MPGD readout. Details of hardware and FPGA firmware design, as well as system performances, are described in the paper.

Research and development of a high-performance differential-hybrid charge sensitive preamplifier

A differential-hybrid charge sensitive preamplifier (CSP) was designed by taking a monolithic dual N-Channel Junction Field-effect Transistor (JFET) and a high-speed, low-noise, operational amplifier as the core parts. Input-stage of the circuit employs low-noise differential dual JFET, which ensures high input impedance and low noise. The differential dual transistor makes the quiescent point of the first-stage differential output stable, which is convenient for connecting with the post stage high-speed operational amplifier. Broadband could be amplified by connecting to the double differential dual transistors through the folded cascode-bootstrap. The amplifying circuit which replaces the interstage and post stage discrete components of a traditional CSP with integrated operational amplifier is simpler and more reliable. It simplifies the design of the quiescent point, gives full play to advantages of releasing large open-loop gain, and improves charge-voltage conversion gain stability. Particularly, the charge-voltage conversion gain is larger under a smaller feedback capacitor, thus enabling to gain better signal-noise ratio. The designed CSP was tested, reporting 3.3×1013 V/C charge sensitivity, about 90ns rise time of signals, 35:1 signal-noise ratio to gamma-rays of 137Cs (662keV) and a 0.023 fC/pF noise slope. Gamma-rays of 241Am (59.5keV) were measured by the BPX66 detector and the designed CSP under room temperature, providing 1.97% energy resolution.

A 24.7 mW 65 nm CMOS SAR-Assisted CT $\Delta\Sigma $ Modulator With Second-Order Noise Coupling Achieving 45 MHz Bandwidth and 75.3 dB SNDR

A continuous-time (CT) sixth-order $\Delta \Sigma $ modulator, employing a 4 bit asynchronous successive-approximation-register (ASAR) quantizer, incorporates second-order noise coupling (NC) and excess-loop-delay compensation, all are tightly integrated into the switched-capacitor (SC) SAR digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The mixed-mode second-order NC structure is implemented in both discrete-time (DT) and CT domains. Clocked at 900 MHz, the 65 nm CMOS prototype measures a 120 dB/decade shaped noise slope and a peak 75.3 dB SNDR at an over-sampling ratio (OSR) of 10, yielding a Schreier FoM of 167.9 dB and a Walden FoM of 57.7 fJ/conversion-step. The modulator occupies an active area of 0.16 mm2 and consumes 24.7 mW.

Adaptive Spectral Envelope Estimation for Doppler Ultrasound.

Estimation of accurate maximum velocities and spectral envelope in ultrasound Doppler blood flow spectrograms are both essential for clinical diagnostic purposes. However, obtaining accurate maximum velocity is not straightforward due to intrinsic spectral broadening and variance in the power spectrum estimate. The method proposed in this paper for maximum velocity point detection has been developed by modifying an existing method-signal noise slope intersection, incorporating in it steps from an altered version of another method called geometric method. Adaptive noise estimation from the spectrogram ensures that a smooth spectral envelope is obtained postdetection of these maximum velocity points. The method has been tested on simulated Doppler signal with scatterers possessing a parabolic flow velocity profile constant in time, steady and pulsatile string phantom recordings, as well as in vivo recordings from uterine, umbilical, carotid, and subclavian arteries. The results from simulation experiments indicate a bias of less than 2.5% in maximum velocities when estimated for a range of peak velocities, Doppler angles, and SNR levels. Standard deviation in the envelope is low-less than 2% in the case of experiments done by varying the peak velocity and Doppler angle for steady phantom and simulated flow, and also less than 2% in the case of experiments done by varying SNR but keeping constant flow conditions for in vivo and simulated flow. Low variability in the envelope makes the prospect of using the envelope for automated blood flow measurements possible and is illustrated for the case of pulsatility index estimation in uterine and umbilical arteries.

The UCLA voice synthesizer, version 2.0

Based on our psychoacoustic model of voice quality, the UCLA voice synthesizer allows users to copy synthesize nearly any steady-state voice sample or to create stimuli that systematically vary in specific acoustic dimensions. This new release contains a number of significant improvements from earlier versions. The vocal tract model now includes three spectral zeros with adjustable bandwidths. The precise spectral shape of the harmonic and inharmonic sources can be modified at will, either by adjusting the heights of the harmonics or the noise amplitude in a selected frequency range or by specifying the desired spectral or noise slope in a range. Any number of ranges of any size can be specified. Synthesizer variables can be individually saved and copied between cases. Additional changes increase control of analysis parameters and the ease with which series of stimuli can be created. The synthesizer is fully documented and is freely available for download from headandnecksurgery.ucla.edu/glottalaffairs. Copies will also be available at the conference. [Research supported by NIH.]

On the Space-Time Correlation of Heat Release Rate in Turbulent Premixed Flames

ABSTRACTThe spectral characteristics of combustion noise is dictated by the temporal correlation of the heat release rate fluctuation. This article investigates the two-point space-time correlation of heat release rate fluctuations by analyzing recent direct numerical simulation data of turbulent premixed flames. The results show that this correlation decays rapidly in both space and time due to the abrupt fluctuation of the heat release rate. The two-point space-time correlation can be modeled by Gaussian-type functions including the streamwise direction with strong convection. A flat low-frequency dependence is observed for the spectrum of the correlation function, which will allow the modeling of the spectral peak and the low-frequency spectral slope of combustion noise when multiplying the term ω2 (ω is the angular frequency). This exploratory work shows the potential of this correlation function for capturing the spectral shape of combustion noise.

Reset charge sensitive amplifier for NaI(Tl) gamma-ray spectrometer

The time constant of the output signal of the front-end readout circuit of a traditional gamma-ray spectrometer with a NaI(Tl)+PMT structure is affected by temperature, measurement environment and the signal transmission cable, so it is difficult to get a good resolution spectrum, especially at higher counting rates. In this paper, a reset charge sensitive amplifier (RCSA) is designed for the gamma-ray spectrometer with a NaI(Tl)+PMT structure. The designed RCSA outputs a step signal, thus enabling the acquisition of double-exponential signals with a stable time constant by using the next stage of a CR differentiating circuit. The designed RCSA is mainly composed of a basic amplifying circuit, a reset circuit and a dark current compensation circuit. It provides the output step signal through the integration of the PMT output charge signal. When the amplitude of the step signal exceeds a preset voltage threshold, it triggers the reset circuit to generate a reset pulse (about 5µs pulse width) to reset the output signal. Experimental results demonstrated that the designed RCSA achieves a charge sensitivity of 4.26×1010V/C, with a zero capacitance noise of 51.09fC and a noise slope of 1.98fC/pF. Supported by the digital shaping algorithm of the digital multi-channel analyzer (DMCA), it can maintain good energy resolution with high counting rates up to 150kcps and with a temperature range from −19°C to 50°C.