Signal Bandwidth Research Articles

Fading of Wideband Signals Due to Propagation Through Equatorial Plasma Bubbles and Diversity Mitigation Effects

Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPBs) and their ionospheric density irregularities exhibit structures with scale sizes that can vary from several hundred kilometers to tens of meters. These random irregularities degrade both the performance and the availability of space-based communication and navigation systems, in different ways. As examples of effects to be analyzed, wideband UHF (360 MHz – 380 MHz) transmissions received by Ascension Island (7.93°S, 14.25°W) monitors during an observational campaign in October 2016 displayed flat-fading and frequency-selective fading conditions. In this report, the ionospheric structures that are responsible for the harmful observed behavior (flat and frequency-selective fading) will initially be identified, through the application of a discrete version of the single phase-screen formulation to low-and high-resolution in-situ ion density data recorded by the Planar Langmuir Probe (PLP) onboard the Communications/ Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite. Next, the resulting hypothesis will be confirmed, by the application of the continuous version of the same formulation to single-scale irregularities with different scale sizes. Finally, mitigation effects from space and frequency diversity on the observed behavior will be discussed, with basis on the application of the initial formulation to the high-resolution C/NOFS PLP data.

Increasing the power and spectral efficiencies of an OFDM-based VLC system through multi-objective optimization.

The nonlinearity induced by light-emitting diodes in visible light communication (VLC) systems presents a challenge to the parametrization of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The goal of the multi-objective optimization problem presented in this study is to maximize the transmitted power (superimposed LED bias-current and signal amplification) for both conventional and constant envelope (CE) OFDM while also maximizing spectral efficiency. The bit error rate (BER) metric is used to evaluate the optimization using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II. Simulation results show that for a BER of 1×10-3, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required decreases with the guard band due to intermodulation distortions. In contrast to SNR values of approximately 13 and 25dB achieved by traditional OFDM-based systems, the VLC system with CE signals achieves a guard band of 6% of the signal bandwidth with required SNR values of approximately 10.8 and 24dB for 4-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and 16-QAM modulation orders, respectively.

Performance Limit of Fiber-Longitudinal Power Profile Estimation Methods

This paper presents analytical results on longitudinal power profile estimation (PPE) methods, which visualize signal power evolution in optical fibers at a coherent receiver. The PPE can be formulated as an inverse problem of the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, where the nonlinear coefficient (and thus signal power) is reconstructed from boundary conditions, i.e., transmitted and received signals. Two types of PPE methods are reviewed and analyzed, including correlation-based methods (CMs) and minimum-mean-square-error-based methods (MMSEs). The analytical expressions for their output power profiles and spatial resolution are provided, and thus the theoretical performance limits of the two PPE methods and their differences are clarified. The derived equations indicate that the estimated power profiles of CMs can be understood as the convolution of a true power profile and a smoothing function. Consequently, the spatial resolution and measurement accuracy of CMs are limited, even under noiseless and distortionless conditions. Closed-form formulas for the spatial resolution of CMs are shown to be inversely proportional to the product of a chromatic dispersion coefficient and the square of signal bandwidth. With MMSEs, such a convolution effect is canceled out and the estimated power profiles approach a true power profile under a fine spatial step size.

A 24-kHz BW 90.5-dB SNDR 96-dB DR continuous-time delta-sigma modulator using FIR DAC feedback

This paper presents a single bit continuous time delta-sigma modulator (CTDSM) with finite impulse response (FIR) feedback DAC designed for audio applications. By using FIR feedback in the input stage, the linearity requirements of the first integrator are relaxed, and the clock jitter sensitivity is reduced, as seen in a multi-bit quantizers. The choppers, working in conjunction with the FIR DAC, effectively suppresses in-band aliasing noise generated by the chopper in the first integrator. A fast comparator serves as a single-bit quantizer, and the 9.2% TS loop delay eliminates the need for excess loop delay compensation in the modulator. Energy efficient integrators are implemented using the current-starved OTA. The CTDSM prototype was fabricated using a 180-nm CMOS process, achieving a 90.5 dB SNDR and 96 dB DR with a 24 kHz signal bandwidth. The power consumption is 210 μ W, corresponding to a Schreier figure-of-merit value of 171.1 dB.

Flexible channel selection method based on optical combs for broadband signals receiving.

A flexible channel selection method based on optical combs is proposed for reconfigurable optical channels in this paper. Optical-frequency combs with a large frequency interval are used to modulate broadband radio frequency (RF) signals, and an on-chip reconfigurable optical filter [Proc. of SPIE, 11763, 1176370 (2021).10.1117/12.2587403] is used to perform periodic carrier separation of wideband and narrowband signals and channel selection. In addition, flexible channel selection is achieved by presetting the parameters of a fast-response programmable wavelength-selective optical switch and filter device. Channel selection only relies on the combs through the Vernier effect of the combs and the passbands for different periods and does not require the use an additional switch matrix. Finally, flexible switching between and selection of specific channels for 13 GHz and 19 GHz broadband RF signals are experimentally verified.

Explicit bounds for joint range and direction-of-arrival estimation in MIMO radar

Bayesian bounds, such as the Ziv–Zakai bound (ZZB), can provide a tight baseline for the performance of estimators or an accurate prediction for the performance limit of radar systems under all signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. However, there exists very limited literature that deals with the explicit bound for joint estimation of multi-parameters in radar systems. In this paper, we employ the thought of Shannon’s information theory to propose a tight bound with closed-form expression for joint range and direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation in multiple-input multiple-output radar. Based on the joint a posteriori probability density function, we define range-DOA entropy error (RDEE) as the entropy power of range and DOA. With normalized a posteriori entropies in low and high SNRs, the closed-form approximation for RDEE is derived. The explicit RDEE is comprehensive and captures the effect of the SNR, the number of array elements, and the ratio of the signal bandwidth to the carrier frequency. RDEE is compared with the ZZB by a numerical simulation and the result shows RDEE and ZZB are almost identical in low and high SNRs.

Expectancy or Salience?-Replicating Senders' Dial-Monitoring Experiments With a Gaze-Contingent Window.

In the 1950s and 1960s, John Senders carried out a number of influential experiments on the monitoring of multidegree-of-freedom systems. In these experiments, participants were tasked with detecting events (threshold crossings) for multiple dials, each presenting a signal with different bandwidth. Senders' analyses showed a nearly linear relationship between signal bandwidth and the amount of attention paid to the dial, and he argued that humans sample according to bandwidth, in line with the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. The current study tested whether humans indeed sample the dials based on bandwidth alone or whether they also use salient peripheral cues. A dial-monitoring task was performed by 33 participants. In half of the trials, a gaze-contingent window was used that blocked peripheral vision. The results showed that, without peripheral vision, humans do not effectively distribute their attention across the dials. The findings also suggest that, when given full view, humans can detect the speed of the dial using their peripheral vision. It is concluded that salience and bandwidth are both drivers of distributed visual attention in a dial-monitoring task. The present findings indicate that salience plays a major role in guiding human attention. A subsequent recommendation for future human-machine interface design is that task-critical elements should be made salient.

Weak Light‐Stimulated Synaptic Transistors Based on MoS2/Organic Semiconductor Heterojunction for Neuromorphic Computing

Photonic synapses are expected to play an important role in implementing brain‐like computing owing to the wide bandwidth and low mutual interference of optical signals. Herein, photonic synaptic transistors based on inorganic semiconductor molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and organic semiconductor heterojunction with adjustable short‐term/long‐term plasticity are proposed. Benefitting from the outstanding photosensitive characteristics originating from the heterojunction, the devices have the capability of weak light detection and can exhibit distinct synaptic responses even under an ultraweak light intensity of 40 nW cm−2, which is considerably lower than that of most previously reported photonic synaptic transistors. Furthermore, a low energy consumption of 0.4 fJ per synaptic event can be obtained at a low operating voltage of 0.001 V, lower than that required for a single synaptic event observed in human brains. In addition, the devices can implement high‐pass filtering function and illustrate the potential in image sharpening processing. More significantly, logic functions as well as associative learning behavior are dramatically simulated through all‐optical stimulation. This work demonstrates a feasible approach to developing multifunctional photonic synaptic transistors based on inorganic/organic semiconductor heterojunction for neuromorphic computing.

A Novel Wide-Band Directional MUSIC Algorithm Using the Strength Proportion.

The directional multiple signal classification (Dir-MUSIC) algorithm based on the antenna gain array manifold has been proposed to find the direction of the partial discharge (PD) source in substations. However, PD signals are wideband signals and the antenna gain pattern functions are always different at different frequencies; therefore, the accuracy can be improved using a wideband Dir-MUSIC algorithm. In this paper, wideband Dir-MUSIC algorithms are discussed and a novel wideband Dir-MUSIC algorithm using the strength proportion (DirSP) is proposed. This algorithm estimates a focusing PD signal at a certain frequency using the strength proportion among different directions, and then the Dir-MUSIC algorithm can process the focusing PD signal at this frequency. In simulations, when the antenna gain functions among different frequency bins are quite different, the Dir-MUSIC algorithm loses accuracy; meanwhile, DirDP performs very well. In the experiments, we deal with six sets of samples, and the mean error and standard deviation are both smaller than 4° better than other methods.

Multiple Signal TDOA/FDOA Joint Estimation with Coherent Integration

Passive localization relies significantly on the estimation of the Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Frequency Difference of Arrival (FDOA) to accurately determine the location of a target. The precision of TDOA and FDOA estimation is affected by signal parameters of time and frequency distribution. In case of multiple signals arising at different frequency bands and intercepted simultaneously by spatially separate sensors covering a wide frequency band, the traditional method is first to separate the signals from the mixed wideband signal through digital down conversion (DDC), which brings multiple narrowband signals, and then the estimation of TDOA and FDOA of each narrowband signal can be performed using cross ambiguity function (CAF). The paper introduces a novel approach for estimating TDOA and FDOA of multiple signals simultaneously, which employs a coherent integration method. First, the cross ambiguity function for each signal is realized with the narrowband signal as the same as the traditional method. Next, the phase relation of each CAF is analyzed, then the joint CAF can be obtained with phase compensation, from which multiple signal TDOA and FDOA estimations will be implemented simultaneously. Numerical simulations are performed to compare the two methods, and the results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Real-time Fourier-domain optical vector oscilloscope

To meet the constant demands of high-capacity telecommunications infrastructure, data rates beyond 1 terabit per second per wavelength channel and optical multiplexing are widely applied. However, these features pose challenges for existing data acquisition and optical performance monitoring techniques because of bandwidth limitation and signal synchronization. We designed an approach that would address these limitations by optically converting the frequency limit to an unlimited time axis and combining this with a chirped coherent detection to innovatively obtain the full-field spectrum. With this approach, we demonstrated a real-time Fourier-domain optical vector oscilloscope, with a 3.4-terahertz bandwidth and a 280-femtosecond temporal resolution over a 520-picosecond record length. In addition to on-off keying and binary phase-shift keying signals (128 gigabits per second), quadrature phase-shift keying wavelength division-multiplexed signals (4 × 160 gigabits per second) are simultaneously observed. Moreover, we successfully demonstrate some high-precision measurements, which indicate them as a promising scientific and industrial tool in high-speed optical communication and ultrafast optical measurement.

28 GHz over-the-air measurement using an OTFS multi-user distributed MIMO under Doppler effect

AbstractThis paper describes the experimental investigation of orthogonal time-frequency space (OTFS) modulation using a 28 GHz multi-user distributed multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) testbed in over-the-air (OTA) and mobility environments to enhance cell throughput in a millimeter-wave band. We build the D-MIMO testbed having newly developed OTFS modulator and demodulator, and measured OTFS signals and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals with up to four user simultaneous connections on an actual office floor. Additionally, the Doppler effect on OTFS signals is mathematically analyzed and is confirmed in the measurements. OTFS indicates higher robustness in time-variant channels than OFDM. The error vector magnitude (EVM) and system throughput of OTFS are −22 dB and 1.9 Gbps with 100 MHz signal bandwidth, respectively. To our knowledge, this is a first paper describing the OTA measurements of EVM, throughput, and spectral efficiency using OTFS modulation on the 28 GHz coherent beamforming system.

Estimation and interpreting instantaneous frequency of signals in non-stationary measurement sensor systems: An overview

The basic concepts and methods of joint time-frequency distributions are discussed. The primary purpose is to demonstrate how a signal's spectral composition alters over time as well as to modify the underlying physical and mathematical concepts of a time-varying spectrum. Main intent is to generate energy or intensity of signal distribution which was represented in both time and frequency. Over last 40 years, fundamental ideas have been developed steadily so that significant advances have occurred. The variety of ideas and motivations that have led to the development of the concepts are highlighted in this review, which is written with non-specialists in mind. An overview of several attempts to determine instantaneous frequency (IF) was given. Numerous characteristics, including the product of bandwidth time (BT), analytic signal as well as the link between time frequency distribution and IFs are explored. Finally, discussions of mono-component, multi-component, and instantaneous bandwidth signals are presented. It is shown that the context of the put forth theory adequately describes each of these ideas. These estimation and interpreting schemes find immediate applications like biomedical signal analysis, speech processing, health care sensor systems.

Enhancing underwater VLC with spatial division transmission and pairwise coding.

In this paper, we propose and evaluate two spatial division transmission (SDT) schemes, including spatial division diversity (SDD) and spatial division multiplexing (SDM), for underwater visible light communication (UVLC) systems. Moreover, three pairwise coding (PWC) schemes, including two one-dimensional PWC (1D-PWC) schemes, i.e., subcarrier PWC (SC-PWC) and spatial channel PWC (SCH-PWC), and one two-dimensional PWC (2D-PWC) scheme are further applied for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) imbalance mitigation in the UVLC systems using SDD and SDM with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. The feasibility and superiority of applying SDD and SDM with various PWC schemes in a practical bandlimited two-channel OFDM-based UVLC system have been verified through both numerical simulations and hardware experiments. The obtained results show that the performance of SDD and SDM schemes are largely determined by both the overall SNR imbalance and the system spectral efficiency. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrate the robustness of SDM with 2D-PWC against bubble turbulence. Specifically, SDM with 2D-PWC can obtain bit error rates (BERs) under the 7% forward error correction (FEC) coding limit of 3.8 × 10-3 with a probability higher than 96% for a signal bandwidth of 70 MHz and a spectral efficiency of 8 bits/s/Hz, achieving an overall data rate of 560 Mbits/s.

A Methodology for the Design of Fault Tolerant Parallel Digital Channelizers on SRAM-FPGAs

Digital channelizers (DCs) based on the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and polyphase filter banks are widely used in on-board processing (OBP) platforms to extract narrowband sub-channels from a wideband signal efficiently. In high-capacity communication satellite platforms there are always multiple DCs extracting narrowband signals from multiple wideband signals in parallel. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a popular option for the implementation of DCs due to their parallel computing capabilities and good re-configurability, but FPGAs suffer single-event upsets (SEUs) on the space platform. This paper focuses on the efficient protection of parallel DCs with enhanced coding techniques. We first prove that a linear relationship between parallel DCs can be introduced and maintained among the multiple outputs. However, traditional coding schemes cannot be directly applied for the detection of faulty DCs due to the quantization noise introduced by fixed point implementations. To address this issue, we propose an enhanced coding scheme by averaging in the space and time domains to minimize the effect of quantization noise, introducing thresholds and a majority voter to further improve the detection probability. Both theoretical analysis and fault injection experiments prove the effectiveness of the proposed protection scheme. Experimental results show that all the SEUs that cause an SNR lower than 20dB can be detected and recovered, and the resource overheads are about 1.6 times and 1.3 times of that of the unprotected DCs for systems with 8 DCs and 16 DCs, respectively.

Target Measurement in Radio Frequency Simulation Using Code-Interrupted Transmitting and Receiving of Pulse Signals

The interrupted transmitting and receiving (ITR) has been utilized in radio frequency simulation to conduct target measurement with pulse signal. Because the ITR results in partly missing of pulse signal, the spectrum aliasing occurs and the target range profile is difficult to be obtained. Therefore, frequency domain filtering and sparse reconstruction are proposed to recover the target range profile. However, frequency domain filtering is ineffective when wideband signal is utilized. The calculation of sparse reconstruction is complex and the reconstruction performance may be poor for some cases of ITR parameters. To solve this problem, the code-interrupted transmitting and receiving (code-ITR) of pulse signal is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the ITR sequences is coded according the duty ratio of each sub-pulse. Secondly, the echo combination and cancellation are processed to eliminate the false peaks in the range profile of ITR echo. By using the code-ITR and echo processing method, the range profile can be obtained for target measurement. Simulations and experiments are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Optical link as an alternative for MRI receive coils: toward a passive approach.

The objective of this work was to propose an alternative solution to NMR signal transmission by replacing the coaxial cables of the receiver radiofrequency (RF) coil in the context of MRI so as to improve safety. Starting from the analysis of previous studies and reports on the topic, the difficulty of supplying power wirelessly to an RF coil was identified. To avoid this difficult task, the development of a passive analog optical link was studied. In order to quantify the requirements for achieving an analog conversion, the performance of the link was evaluated based on the input NMR signal amplitude and the optical power and compared with that of a galvanic link. Acquisitions were performed on a 7-T preclinical MRI system with a doped saline solution as phantom. A passive and MRI-compatible polarization-state custom-made modulator was tested as well as a commercial Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The conversion was not sensitive enough to keep similar SNRs, but the main source of noise was identified along with parameters for improvement. Optical power emitted by the laser, insertion loss, and full-phase inversion voltage of the modulators were found to be crucial characteristics for the application. These data indicate that custom application devices are required since the frequency, bandwidth, and amplitude of NMR signals are quite different to usual telecommunication signals. An electro-optic modulation and a transmission channel were successfully conceived and tested. Images were reconstructed with some significant SNR drawbacks that are expected to be compensated with an appropriate modulator. While technical challenges remain, our approach to a two-decades-long problem could solve a major issue of MRI safety by removing the need for supplying on-coil electrical current.

Divisional Load-Modulated Balanced Amplifier With Extended Dynamic Power Range

With the prevalence of complex modulated signals, it is of utmost significance to research the extension of the dynamic power range of radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs). This article proposes a divisional load-modulated balanced amplifier (DLMBA) for extending the high-efficiency power range. The proposed DLMBA is composed of a local modulated Doherty PA (DPA) and a class-C biased balanced PA (BPA) pair. The output signal of the local DPA is fed into the isolation port of the output coupler of the BPA pair, forming a global load modulation. The design parameters of the DLMBA are derived after a comprehensive analysis. It is illustrated that the dynamic power range of the DLMBA can be extended beyond 12 dB by combining a local DPA and a BPA pair. Meanwhile, each subamplifier of the DLMBA is presented with a modulated impedance over the whole dynamic power range, avoiding voltage oversaturation. As a validation, a DLMBA operating over 1.85–2.05 GHz is fabricated and measured in this article. The fabricated DLMBA delivers a maximum output power of more than 44.8 dBm, a saturation drain efficiency (DE) of more than 53%, and a 13 dB back-off DE of more than 44% in the interested frequency band. Meanwhile, when the DLMBA is excited by a 20-MHz wideband signal with a peak-to-average ratio of 10.2 dB, the measured adjacent channel leakage ratio reaches <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$-$</tex-math> </inline-formula> 47.4 dBc after digital predistortion.

A 14-Bit Oversampled SAR ADC With Mismatch Error Shaping and Analog Range Compensation

DAC mismatch is a major challenge for high-resolution ADCs. This paper proposes an analog-detection-based input range compensation technique for high-resolution ADCs with mismatch error shaping (MES). By applying a pre-comparison and suitably switching the DAC MSB, the input loss caused by MES is compensated. By adopting a flying-capacitor sampling technique, the prediction errors found in prior solutions are avoided. The prototype 14-bit SAR ADC achieves 80.4 dB SNDR and 93 dB SFDR in a 4 kHz signal bandwidth with an OSR of 16. It only occupies 0.0034 mm and consumes 0.656 μW under a 0.8 V supply, leading to a Schreier figure-of-merit of 178.3 dB. These features make it suitable for miniaturized high-performance IoT and biomedical systems.

USE OF SIMILARITY METRICS IN ROBUST TIME DELAY ESTIMATION

This paper addresses the task of time delay and direction of arrival estimation for a source of the wideband signal using two sensors with fixed displacement. The peculiarity of the task statement is that a limited time of signal observation is supposed and additive noise is assumed non-Gaussian with a heavy-tail distribution. This leads to a high probability of abnormal estimates for the conventional signal processing method based on cross-correlation. To decrease this probability, it is proposed to reformulate the task of cross-correlation processing to the task of similarity estimation between two data arrays. This allows using different similarity metrics, particularly those that have less sensitivity to outliers in data (impulse noise), and, thus, provide better robustness for non-Gaussian environments typical for several applications of time delay estimation. More than ten different similarity metrics are considered for the model of the symmetric α-stable distribution describing noise properties. It is shown that some metrics including cosine distance, Hellinger, and some others are able to provide sufficiently better accuracy of time delay estimation both in the sense of less RMSE of normal estimates and probability of abnormal estimates for typical values of α and a wide range of γ values for symmetric α-stable distribution.