Energy Detector in Ultra Wideband Systems Using Phase Compensation Technique

Energy detectors have the advantage of simple structure and inexpensive price. Due to the low signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the received signal in ultra-wideBand (UWB) system, these desirable advantages can be achieved at the expense of non-trivial performance degradation. This paper presents a phase compensation (PC) technique to improve the performance of energy detector in UWB systems. In PC-UWB, the frequency dependent phase of the system response at the transmitter is extracted and its opposite spectral phase is used as prefilter. Because of Low complexity, cost and energy consumption of energy detectors, PC techniques has extensive potential for future of UWB communication systems. Measurement results show that the use of PC-UWB leads to signal power concentration at the receiver, which reduces the number of RAKE fingers required in coherent detection as well as achieves a higher data rate with less intersymbol interference. However time reversal UWB can achieve secure data transmission, but its performance is worse than PC-UWB. Simulation results show that phase compensation reduces the inter symbol interference impacts. Therefore it is possible to use a simple receiver with insignificant performance degradation. It is also shown that PC-UWB considerably outperforms TR-UWB and has satisfying performance in SNR greater than 13 dB.     

Low-Power Symmetrical Rectifier for Passive UHF RFID Transponder

Rectifier design is one of the challenging issues in passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. Differential structures are good candidates as rectifiers to their high conversion efficiencies. In this paper, a novel structure is proposed to produce symmetrical power-supply utilizing differential circuit configuration simulated in 130nm CMOS technology. The proposed rectifier can provide 1.34 V DC power with 382% voltage conversion efficiency, thus demonstrated its higher performance over existing designs.     

A Novel Evolutionary-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Mechanism for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is considered as a feasible intelligent technology for 4G wireless networks or self-organization networks and envisioned as a promising paradigm of exploiting intelligence for enhancing efficiency of underutilized spectrum bands. In CR, one of the main concerns is to reliably sense the presence of primary users, to attain protection against harmful interference caused by the potential spectrum access of secondary users (SUs). In this paper, evolutionary algorithms, namely, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are investigated. An imperialistic competitive algorithm (ICA) is proposed to minimize error detection at the common soft data fusion (SDF) center for structurally centralized cognitive radio network (CRN). By using these techniques, evolutionary operations are invoked to optimize the weighting coefficients applied on the sensing measurement components received from multiple cooperative SUs. The proposed method is compared with other evolutionary algorithms, as well as other conventional deterministic, such as maximal ratio combining- (MRC-), modified deflection coefficient- (MDC-), normal deflection coefficient- (NDC-) based SDF schemes and OR-rule HDF based. MATLAB simulations confirm the superiority of the ICA-based scheme over the PSO-, GA-based and other conventional schemes in terms of detection performance. In addition, the ICA-based scheme also shows promising convergence and time running performance as compared to other iterative-based schemes. This makes ICA an adequate solution to meet real-time requirements.     

Signal Detection Performance of Overlapped FFT Scheme with Additional Frames Consisting of Non-continuous Samples in Indoor Environment

Overlapped FFT has been proposed as a signal detection scheme in dynamic spectrum access to reduce the variance of the noise and improve the detection probability. However, the improvement of the detection probability in the conventional overlapped FFT is bounded with the upper limit of the overlap ratio. This paper proposes a new overlapped FFT scheme using additional frames. In the proposed scheme, in addition to the original FFT frames, new frames that consist of multiple subframes with non-continuous samples are constructed and included. It can realize the increase of the number of the FFT frames and the improvement of the detection probability compared with the conventional scheme. Numerical results through computer simulation show that the proposed scheme improves the detection probability by up to 0.07. On indoor channel models the proposed scheme also improves the detection probability. In addition, it is clarified that as the delay spread increases the detection probability reduces due to the correlation between the frames.     

Simulation-Based Traceability Analysis of RFID Authentication Protocols

Nowadays low-cost RFID systems have moved from obscurity into mainstream applications which cause growing security and privacy concerns. The lightweight cryptographic primitives and authentication protocols are indispensable requirements for these devices to grow pervasive. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in intuitive analysis of RFID protocols. This concept has recently been challenged by formal privacy models. This paper investigates how to analyse and solve privacy problems in formal model. First, we highlight some vague drawbacks especially in forward and backward traceability analysis and extend it in the simulation-based privacy model family. Then, the privacy weaknesses of three new-found RFID authentication protocols are analysed in formal privacy models and three improved protocols are proposed to prevent the aforementioned attacks.     

A Low Complexity Suboptimal Energy-Based Detection Method for SISO/MIMO Channels

In this paper, we propose an actually novel and simple method for detection of transmitted symbols in MIMO channels. This method is based on the energy level of the received signals. At the receiver, we assume the knowledge of channel state information which can be estimated by different methods, e.g. by sending pilots. So, we can determine all possible levels of energy. This computation of energy levels is done only once for the quasi-static channels. Energy of the received signals is a criterion by which we can estimate the transmitted symbols. Detection of transmitted signal is made based on the nearest energy level and the points which lie on it. In other words, we have restricted our search space to a new smaller space with different levels of energy. Simulation results confirm approximately the same performance between the maximum-likelihood detector and the proposed approach especially in high signal-to-noise ratios with a remarkable reduction in the computational complexity.     

A Comprehensive Framework for Counterfeit Defect Coverage Analysis and Detection Assessment

The increasing threat of counterfeit electronic components has created specialized service of testing, detection, and avoidance of such components. However, various types of counterfeit components – recycled, remarked, overproduced, defective, cloned, forged documentation, and tampered – pose serious threats to supply chain. Over the past few years, standards and programs have been put in place throughout the supply chain that outline testing, documenting, and reporting procedures. However, there is little uniformity in the test results among the various entities. Currently, there are no metrics for evaluating these counterfeit detection methods. In this paper, we have developed a detailed taxonomy of defects present in counterfeit components. Based on this taxonomy, a comprehensive framework has been developed to find an optimum set of detection methods considering test time, test cost, and application risks. We have also performed an assessment of all the detection methods based on the newly introduced metrics – counterfeit defect coverage, under-covered defects, and not-covered defects.     

Dynamic analysis of carbon nanotubes under electrostatic actuation using modified couple stress theory

Modified couple stress theory is a size-dependent theorem capturing the micro/nanoscale effects influencing the mechanical behaviors of the micro- and nanostructures. In this paper, it is applied to investigate the nonlinear vibration of carbon nanotubes under step DC voltage. The vibration, natural frequencies and dynamic pull-in characteristics of the carbon nanotubes are studied in detail. Moreover, the effects of various boundary conditions and geometries are scrutinized on the dynamic characteristics. The results reveal that application of this theory leads to the higher values of the natural frequencies and dynamic pull-in voltages.     

Controlling foam morphology of polystyrene via surface chemistry,size and concentration of nanosilica particles

Controlling cell morphologies of polymeric foams is an important part of controlling foam properties. In this study, the effects of particle size, particle content, and particle surface chemistry on cell nucleation in nanosilica/polystyrene (PS) composites are investigated. A theoretical hypothesis on the effect of nanoparticle size on cell nucleation in PS matrix foam was examined. The surface chemistry of nanosilica particles was studied by modifying them with Vinyltriethoxysilane (VTES) silane coupling agent. The microcellular porous materials of neat and composite PS were prepared by batch foaming technique (pressure quench) using supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO₂) as a blowing agent. It was found that the size of the pores decreases and the cell density increases with the decrease in nanosilica size and the increase of silica loading. It was also observed that the surface treatment of the nanosilica particles have substantial effect on the decrease of the cell size and the increase of the cell density.     

Preparation,characterization, viscosity,and thermal conductivity of nitrogen-doped graphene aqueous nanofluids

Nanofluids perform a crucial role in the development of newer technologies ideal for industrial purposes. In this study, Nitrogen-doped graphene (NDG) nanofluids, with varying concentrations of nanoparticles (0.01, 0.02, 0.04, and 0.06 wt%) were prepared using the two-step method in a 0.025 wt% Triton X-100 (as a surfactant) aqueous solution as a base. Stability, zeta potential, thermal conductivity, viscosity, specific heat, and electrical conductivity of nanofluids containing NDG particles were studied. The stability of the nanofluids was investigated by UV–vis over a time span of 6 months and concentrations remain relatively constant while the maximum relative concentration reduction was 20 %. The thermal conductivity of nanofluids was increased with the particle concentration and temperature, while the maximum enhancement was about 36.78 % for a nanoparticle loading of 0.06 wt%. These experimental results compared with some theoretical models including Maxwell and Nan’s models and observed a good agreement between Nan’s model and the experimental results. Study of the rheological properties of NDG nanofluids reveals that it followed the Newtonian behaviors, where viscosity decreased linearly with the rise of temperature. It has been observed that the specific heat of NDG nanofluid reduced gradually with the increase of concentration of nanoparticles and temperature. The electrical conductivity of the NDG nanofluids enhanced significantly due to the dispersion of NDG in the base fluid. This novel type of fluids demonstrates an outstanding potential for use as innovative heat transfer fluids in medium-temperature systems such as solar collectors.