DOA Estimation for Multiple Sparse Sources with Arbitrarily Arranged Multiple Sensors

This paper proposes a method for estimating the direction of arrival (DOA) of multiple source signals for an underdetermined situation, where the number of sources N exceeds the number of sensors M (M < N). Some DOA estimation methods have already been proposed for underdetermined cases. However, since most of them restrict their microphone array arrangements, their DOA estimation ability is limited to a 2-dimensional plane. To deal with an underdetermined case where sources are distributed arbitrarily, we propose a method that can employ a 2- or 3-dimensional sensor array. Our new method employs the source sparseness assumption to handle an underdetermined case. Our formulation with the sensor coordinate vectors allows us to employ arbitrarily arranged sensors easily. We obtained promising experimental results for 2-dimensionally distributed sensors and sources 3×4, 3×5 (#sensors × #speech sources), and for 3-dimensional case with 4×5 in a room (reverberation time (RT) of 120 ms). We also investigate the DOA estimation performance under several reverberant conditions.     

High‐Sensitivity,Skin‐Attachable,and Stretchable Array of Thermo‐Responsive Suspended Gate Field‐Effect Transistors with Thermochromic Display

The fabrication of a skin‐attachable, stretchable array of high‐sensitivity temperature sensors is demonstrated. The temperature sensor consists of a single‐walled carbon nanotube field‐effect transistor with a suspended gate electrode of poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)‐coated gold grid/poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate and thermochromic leuco dye. The sensor exhibits a very high sensitivity of 6.5% °C^?1 at temperatures between 25 and 45 °C. With increasing temperature, the suspended gate electrode bends due to the deswelling of the PNIPAM, resulting in the reduction of the air gap to increase the drain current under a constant gate voltage. At the same time, the leuco dye coated on top of the transparent gate electrode changes color to visualize changes in temperature. The 4 × 6 integrated temperature sensor array integrated using liquid metal interconnections exhibits mechanical and electrical stability under 50% biaxial stretching and allows for the spatial mapping of temperature with visual color display regardless of wrist movement while attached to the skin of the wrist. This work is expected to be widely useful in the development of skin‐attachable electronics for medical and health‐care monitoring.     

A generic low-noise CMOS readout interface for 64?×?64 imaging array with on-chip ADC

This paper presents a low-noise and high dynamic-range CMOS readout-IC (ROIC) for a 64?×?64 array of opto-electrical sensors. The readout chain comprises a pixel preamplifier array, correlated-double-sampling based switched-capacitor gain blocks, class-AB output buffer for driving off-chip loads and a 12-bit pipeline ADC for on-chip digitization. The pixel preamplifiers array, occupying an area of 30???m?×?30???m per pixel, can either be hybridized to a separate IR or UV sensor or can be used as monolithic visible-light active CMOS pixel-array after exposing (by etching the pad) the embedded photodiode under the bonding pads. The ROIC is designed and fabricated in 0.25???m 1P/5?M CMOS technology with 5?mm?×?5?mm of total dimensions. The integrated readout chain, in integrate-then-read mode, demonstrates a dynamic range of 72?dB for electrically emulated sensor currents from 25?pA to 100?nA. It can support a frame rate of 700?fps, with single fully-differential analog as well as 12-bit digital output, at 10?MHz while consuming 17?mW with on-chip biases.     

Improved de-embedding technique for polysilicon resistor modelling

In this article, accurate de-embedding technique based on transmission line theory is presented and applied to on-wafer polysilicon resistors fabricated in 130-nm SiGe technologies. Compared with the conventional de-embedding methods, not only the top metal layer, but also the under-layer metal parasitics are removed from the on-wafer passives. A systematic method relying exclusively on embedded S-parameters is used for the direct extraction of device circuit elements. This extracted method is characterised by its simplicity and ease of implementation. The proposed de-embedding technique and extraction approach are validated by polysilicon resistors with occupying areas of 20?×?2?µm². Good agreement between the measured and modelled data is obtained from 100?MHz up to 20.1?GHz.     

多晶硅压力传感器的研制

<正> 一、引言 多晶硅作为一种压阻材料,可以通过化学汽相淀积工艺淀积在陶瓷,玻璃,SiO_2,Si_3N4等绝缘材料上,从而制造出一种SOI结构的压力传感器,选种特性为高温压力传感器和更为灵敏的触敏传感器提供可靠的工艺基础。 多晶硅压力传感器避免了扩散型压力传感器的pn结漏电问题,展宽了器件的工作温度范围,高温可达200℃。同时多晶硅电阻的温度系数随掺杂浓度可调,在一定掺杂水平可制造     

Multiplexing of interferometric sensors using phase carrier techniques

This paper demonstrates the multiplexing of fiber-optic interferometric sensors using a CW phase generated carrier technique. The technique employs modulated diode laser sources at different carrier frequencies, nearly balanced interferometers (∼4-cm path difference), and phase generated carrier demultiplexing demodulation. This approach leads to a simple all-passive sensor array which has intrinsically low crosstalk. The system is analyzed in terms of shot noise performance and crosstalk. An experimental all optical implementation of a four sensor array was demonstrated; both the single sensor and multisensor arrays were limited by the laser phase noise to a sensitivity ofsim 18 murad/sqrt{Hz}. Crosstalk between individual channels was better than -60 dB and crosstalk between three sensors and the test sensor was better than -55 dB. In the absence of laser phase noise the demodulator/demultiplexer demonstratedsim 2-murad performance with both single sensor and four element array operation.     

2D Colloidal Array of Glucose‐Conjugative Conductive Microparticles for a Pressure‐Mediated Chemiresistive Sensor Platform

A platform is introduced for pressure‐mediated chemiresistive glucose sensing based on a 2D array of glucose‐conjugating silver nanowire (AgNW)‐deposited conductive microparticles (AgCMPs). Glucose‐conjugating AgCMPs, as transducers of the sensors, are fabricated by decorating the surface of monodisperse polyurethane elastomeric MPs with AgNWs by layer‐by‐layer deposition. Then, the AgNWs are covalently bonded to 4‐mercaptophenylboronic acid (4‐MPBA) to endow them with chemiresistive glucose sensing property against the applied pressure. The 4‐MPBA‐functionalized AgCMPs are positioned with high accuracy on a hole‐patterned stencil film placed between electrodes. Using this sensor system, it is shown that the current induced by the application of constant pressure to the sensor film at a given supply voltage varies linearly with the glucose concentration before and after critical glucose bridging concentration. Notably, the AgCMP‐based chemiresistive sensors could detect glucose over a wide concentration range from 0.56 × 10^?6 m to 56 × 10^?3 m with remarkable sensitivity and selectivity.     

A mathematical programming method for constructing the shortest interconnection VLSI arrays

Mesh-connected processor array is an extensively investigated architecture in parallel processing. Massive studies have addressed the problem of using reconfiguration algorithms to solve the fault tolerance of faulty mesh-connected processor arrays. However, the subarrays generated by the previous studies still contain large interconnection length, which will lead to the increase of capacitance, power dissipation and dynamic communication cost. First, a mathematical model is established for the array reconfiguration. Then, the proposed method treats the interconnections between each PEs as a function with different integer variables, which can be solved by using effective integer programming techniques. Finally, an effective solver is called to find the optimal solution. Simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the interconnection length of the array in the row and column directions simultaneously, thereby generating a subarray with the shortest interconnection length. On a 32 × 32 host array with fault density of 30%, the total interconnection length of the subarray can be reduced by 8.36% compared with state-of-the-art, and the average interconnection length can be reduced by 39.30%, which is more closer to the lower bound.     

Wireless Monitoring of Small Strains in Intelligent Robots via a Joule Heating Effect in Stretchable Graphene–Polymer Nanocomposites

Flexible strain sensors are an important component for future intelligent robotics. However, the majority of current strain sensors must be electrically connected to a corresponding monitoring system via conducting wires, which increases system complexity and restricts the working environment for monitoring strains. Here, stretchable graphene–polymer nanocomposites that act as strain sensors using a Joule heating effect are reported. When the resistance of the sensor changes in response to a strain, the resulting change in temperature is wirelessly detected in an intelligent robot. By engineering and optimizing the surface structure of graphene–polymer nanocomposites, the fabricated strain sensors exhibit excellent stability when subjected to periodic temperature signals over 400 cycles while being periodically strained and deliver a high strain sensitivity of 7.03 × 10^?4 °C^?1 %^?1 for strain levels of 0% to 30%. As a wearable electronic device, the approach provides the capability to wirelessly monitor small strains for intelligent robots at a high strain resolution of ≈0.1%. Moreover, when the strain sensing system operates as a multichannel structure, it allows precise strain detection simultaneously, or in sequence, for each finger of an intelligent robot.     

Performance analysis of M‐APSK generalised spatial modulation with constellation reassignment

Generalised spatial modulation (GSM) is a recently developed multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) technique aimed at improving data rates over conventional spatial modulation (SM) systems. However, for identical antenna array size and configurations (AASC), the bit error rate (BER) of GSM systems in comparison with SM systems is degraded. Recently, a GSM system with constellation reassignment (GSM‐CR) was proposed in order to improve the BER of traditional GSM systems. However, this study focused on M‐ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M‐QAM) schemes. The focus of this paper is the application of a circular constellations scheme, in particular, amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) modulation, to GSM and GSM‐CR systems. An analytical bound for the average BER of the proposed M‐APSK GSM and M‐APSK GSM‐CR systems over fading channels is derived. The accuracy of this bound is verified using Monte Carlo simulation results. A 4 × 4 16‐APSK GSM‐CR system achieves a gain of 2.5 dB at BER of 10^?5 over the traditional 16‐APSK GSM system with similar AASC. Similarly, a 6 × 4 32‐APSK GSM‐CR system achieves a gain of 2 dB at BER of 10^?5 over equivalent 32‐APSK GSM system.     

Aggregate node placement for maximizing network lifetime in sensor networks

Sensor networks have been receiving significant attention due to their potential applications in environmental monitoring and surveillance domains. In this paper, we consider the design issue of sensor networks by placing a few powerful aggregate nodes into a dense sensor network such that the network lifetime is significantly prolonged when performing data gathering. Specifically, given K aggregate nodes and a dense sensor network consisting of n sensors with K ≪ n, the problem is to place the K aggregate nodes into the network such that the lifetime of the resulting network is maximized, subject to the distortion constraints that both the maximum transmission range of an aggregate node and the maximum transmission delay between an aggregate node and its covered sensor are met. This problem is a joint optimization problem of aggregate node placement and the communication structure, which is NP‐hard. In this paper, we first give a non‐linear programming solution for it. We then devise a novel heuristic algorithm. We finally conduct experiments by simulation to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of network lifetime. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms a commonly used uniform placement schema — equal distance placement schema significantly. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy-Efficient Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks with Static Clustering and Dynamic Structure

Data gathering is an essential operation in wireless sensor networks. For periodic data gathering applications, each sensor node has data that must be sent to a distant base station in a round of communication. Due to the limited battery power of sensor nodes, each sensor node transmitting its sensed data to the base station directly significantly consumes its energy. This work presents a hierarchical ring-based data gathering (HRDG) scheme for dense wireless sensor networks. A hierarchical grid structure is constructed, and only some sensor nodes are elected as grid heads for gathering data, subsequently reducing the total energy consumption per round. Grid heads are then organized into hierarchical rings to decrease the transmission delay of a round. The proposed HRDG scheme focuses on reducing the energy × delay cost in a round of data gathering. Moreover, the energy × delay cost of HRDG is analyzed. Simulation results indicate that the proposed HRDG scheme outperforms other data gathering schemes in terms of the number of rounds, the energy × delay cost and coverage ratio.     

Analysis of the structure of a terahertz-band 2D array with sensors on the edge of a superconductor transition

Film detectors on the edge of a Ti or Mo/Cu (T _c ≈ 0.4 K) superconductor transition are included in an N × M 2D array of planar polarization-separated antennas. The detectors are simultaneously sensors and absorbers of the total electric power from an antenna and bias circuits. The detectors are heat-insulated because of weak electron-phonon interaction with the substrate and because of the effect of the Andreev reflection of electrons in Nb electrodes. Readout based on the projection method necessitates only N + M channels in the case when the signal is continuously accumulated for all N × M detectors. Simulation of a 3 × 3 2D array at a frequency of 600 GHz shows that the matching band is ～30%.     

Time-domain addressing of remote fiber-optic interferometric sensor arrays

This paper describes and analyzes a particular application of high duty-cycle time-division multiplexing to the separation and identification of signals from an interferometric sensor array. Using the method discussed here, the coherence length of the laser is no longer a severe design constraint. Also, the source phase-induced intensity noise which limits some other multiplexing methods may be overcome, leading to a higher sensitivity. The arrays of all-passive remote sensors exhibit minimal crosstalk between sensors, and have downlead insensitivity. A synthetic heterodyne demodulation technique prevents environmentally induced signal fading. Analysis includes coupling ratios for all directional couplers in the system, signal and noise spectra, minimum detectable phase shift, and the effect of ac coupling on noise and crosstalk. An experimental all-fiber implementation of a two sensor array has yielded a measured sensitivity of approximately 10 μrad/sqrt{Hz}over a range of signal frequencies, and a crosstalk level of better than 55 dB.     

Resistors and diodes produced by Al-implantation in silicon

Al⁺-ions are implanted to obtain diodes and resistors with a sheet resistivity higher than 100 kΩ/□. Breakdown voltage of the diodes is between 240 V and 300 V. The conductivity of the resistors shows approximately a square root dependence on the implantation dose after a 500°C anneal. The temperature coefficient is α ≈ 3 × 10^?3 K^?1. The values are compared with results of B⁺-ion implantations.     

Beam steering for wireless optical links based on an optical phased array in silicon

The ability to steer optical beams, crucial to the operation of high-speed optical wireless links may be achieved using optical phased array antennas which have significant potential in this application. The beam formed by the phased array antennas is steered by tuning the relative phase difference between the adjacent antenna elements which may be achieved nonmechanically. In this paper, the characteristics and behaviour of two dimensional optical phased arrays with a structure composed of 2?×?2, 4?×?4, and 16?×?16 antenna elements in beam steering are verified. The wavelength beam steering of ?0.16°/nm is measured along the θ direction with a required steering range (between main lobes) of 1.97° within a ?3 dB envelop of 5° extent in the θ direction and 7° extent in the Φ direction. To achieve two-dimensional beam steering, thermo-optic beam steering can be used in Φ direction. It is found that the thermo-optic phase tuning departs the expected quadratic dependence and is well characterised by a quartic dependence upon heater current or voltage.     

Spectral efficiency improvement with SISO and SIMO in M‐QAM over millimeter‐wave links

This paper proposes a spectral efficiency improvement technique for millimeter wave (mmWave) links. The proposed technique provides an efficient utilization of the mmWave link capacity. This technique is applied in three cases the single‐input single‐output (SISO), single‐input multiple‐output (SIMO) with the maximal ratio combining and with the equal gain combining. The M‐ary quadrature amplitude modulation scheme is used in our work. The power series expansion is used for deriving closed‐form expressions for bit error rate (BER) performances in all studied cases. The BER closed‐form expressions are confirmed by the numerical solution of the integral equations. The simulation results show that a high spectral efficiency can be accomplished by the proposed technique. As well as the derived expressions closely match with the numerical solution of integration expressions at different values of modulations order the Rician factor. For instance, the spectral efficiency gain achievement is 8 at signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) equals 34 dB in the case of SISO system whereas in the case of SIMO system, the same gain is achieved at SNR equals 24 dB. As well as the BER performance is enhanced from 1.188 × 10^?4, 7.112 × 10^?4, 4.164 × 10^?3, and 3.286 × 10^?2 to 8.717 × 10^?16, 1.119 × 10^?12, 1.308 × 10^?9, and 4.905 × 10^?6 for M = 4, 16, 64, and 256, respectively, at SNR equals 30 dB.     

Electrical measurements on ion-implanted LPCVD polycrystalline silicon films

The electrical conduction properties of ion implanted polycrystalline silicon films have been studied. The polysilicon films were deposited by pyrolysis of silane at 647°C in LPCVD system onto oxide-coated silicon wafers to a thickness of 0.6 μm. Dopants were itroducd by implanting with boron or phosphorus ions, accelerated to 145 keV; doses ranged from 1 × 10¹² cm^?2 to 1 × 10¹⁵ cm^?2. Film resistivities spanning 8 orders of magnitude were obtained using this doping range. Current-voltage characteristics of polysilicon resistors were measured at temperatures ranging from 24 to 140°C. The associated barrier heights and activation energies were derived. The grain-boundary trapping states density was estimated to be 5 × 10¹² cm^?2. We found that both dopant atom segregation and carrier trapping at the grain boundaries play important roles in polysilicon electrical conduction properties. However, within the dose range studies, the dopant atom segragation is most detrimental to the film conductivity for doses < 1 × 10¹³ cm^?2; as the dose is increased, carrier trapping effects become more pronounced for doses up to 5 × 10¹⁴ cm^?2. For doses ? 5 × 10¹⁴ cm^?2, conduction due to carriers tunneling through the potential barriers at grain boundaries has to be considered.     

Varactor-tuned gunn diode voltage controlled oscillator antenna array

A simple varactor tuned X-band Gunn diode VCO antenna array which is strongly coupled has been demonstrated. These arrays have the advantages of simple biasing circuit, no resistors required to eliminate multimode problem and suitable for monolithic integration circuit. Preliminary results show a maximum tuning range of 47MHz for 1×1 array and 170MHz for 2×2 array. In order to solve power combining heating problem, we move the backside metal forward and it becomes a microstrip form. The measured frequency and radiation patterns of these grid arrays agree very well with theoretical calculations.     

Connectivity properties of large-scale sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks, both nodes and links are prone to failures. In this paper we study connectivity properties of large-scale wireless sensor networks and discuss their implicit effect on routing algorithms and network reliability. We assume a network model of n sensors which are distributed randomly over a field based on a given distribution function. The sensors may be unreliable with a probability distribution, which possibly depends on n and the location of sensors. Two active sensor nodes are connected with probability p _e (n) if they are within communication range of each other. We prove a general result relating unreliable sensor networks to reliable networks. We investigate different graph theoretic properties of sensor networks such as k-connectivity and the existence of the giant component. While connectivity (i.e. k = 1) insures that all nodes can communicate with each other, k-connectivity for k > 1 is required for multi-path routing. We analyze the average shortest path of the k paths from a node in the sensing field back to a base station. It is found that the lengths of these multiple paths in a k-connected network are all close to the shortest path. These results are shown through graph theoretical derivations and are also verified through simulations.