Logic cells as basic structures to add/drop WDM information signals

Nowadays, in order to take advantage of fiber optic bandwidth, any optical communications system tends to be WDM. The way to extract a channel, characterized by a wavelength, from the optical fiber is to filter the specific wavelength. This gives the systems a low degree of freedom due to the fact of the static character of most of the employed devices. In this paper we will present a different way to extract channels from an optical fiber with WDM transmission. The employed method is based on an Optically Programmable Logic Cells (OPLC) previously published by us, for other applications as a chaotic generator or as basic element for optical computing. In this paper we will describe the configuration of the OPLC to be employed as a dropping device. It acts as a filter because it will extract the data carried by a concrete wavelength. It does depend, internally, on the wavelength. We will show how the intensity of the signal is able to select the chosen information from the line. It will be also demonstrated that a new idea of redundant information it is the way of selecting the concrete wavelength. As a matter of fact this idea is apparently the only way to use the OPLC as a dropping device. Moreover, based on these concepts, a similar way to route signals to different routes is reported. The basis is the use of photonic switching configurations, namely Batcher or Bayan structures, where the unit switching cells are the above indicated OPLCs.

Laser diode bistability as sensor of optical signals pameters

Laser Diodes have been employed many times as light sources on different kinds of optical sensors. Their main function in these applications was the emission of an optical radiation impinging onto a certain object and, according to the characteristics of the reflected light, some information about this object was obtained. Laser diodes were acting, in a certain way, just as passive devices where their only function was to provide the adequate radiation to be later measured and analyzed. The objective of this paper is to report a new concept on the use of laser diodes taking into account their optical bistable properties. As it has been shown in several places, different laser diodes as, for example, DFB lasers and FP lasers, offer bistable characteristics being these characteristics a function of different parameters as wavelength, light polarization or temperature. Laser Bistability is strongly dependent on them and any small variation of above parameters gives rise to a strong change in the characteristics of its non-linear properties. These variations are analyzed and their application in sensing reported. The dependence on wavelength, spectral width, input power and phase variations, mainly for a Fabry-Perot Laser structure as basic configuration, is shown in this paper.

Processing of ultra-wideband low-frequency signals, for application in Foliage Penetration (FOPEN) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems

Foliage Penetration (FOPEN) radar systems were introduced in 1960, and have been constantly improved by several organizations since that time. The use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) approaches for this application has important advantages, due to the need for high resolution in two dimensions. The design of this type of systems, however, includes some complications that are not present in standard SAR systems. FOPEN SAR systems need to operate with a low central frequency (VHF or UHF bands) in order to be able to penetrate the foliage. High bandwidth is also required to obtain high resolution. Due to the low central frequency, large integration angles are required during SAR image formation, and therefore the Range Migration Algorithm (RMA) is used. This project thesis identifies the three main complications that arise due to these requirements. First, a high fractional bandwidth makes narrowband propagation models no longer valid. Second, the VHF and UHF bands are used by many communications systems. The transmitted signal spectrum needs to be notched to avoid interfering them. Third, those communications systems cause Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) on the received signal. The thesis carries out a thorough analysis of the three problems, their degrading effects and possible solutions to compensate them. The UWB model is applied to the SAR signal, and the degradation induced by it is derived. The result is tested through simulation of both a single pulse stretch processor and the complete RMA image formation. Both methods show that the degradation is negligible, and therefore the UWB propagation effect does not need compensation. A technique is derived to design a notched transmitted signal. Then, its effect on the SAR image formation is evaluated analytically. It is shown that the stretch processor introduces a processing gain that reduces the degrading effects of the notches. The remaining degrading effect after processing gain is assessed through simulation, and an experimental graph of degradation as a function of percentage of nulled frequencies is obtained. The RFI is characterized and its effect on the SAR processor is derived. Once again, a processing gain is found to be introduced by the receiver. As the RFI power can be much higher than that of the desired signal, an algorithm is proposed to remove the RFI from the received signal before RMA processing. This algorithm is a modification of the Chirp Least Squares Algorithm (CLSA) explained in [4], which adapts it to deramped signals. The algorithm is derived analytically and then its performance is evaluated through simulation, showing that it is effective in removing the RFI and reducing the degradation caused by both RFI and notching. Finally, conclusions are drawn as to the importance of each one of the problems in SAR system design.

Speech Signals Feature Extraction Model for a Speaker’s Gender and Age Identification System

Durante el proceso de producción de voz, los factores anatómicos, fisiológicos o psicosociales del individuo modifican los órganos resonadores, imprimiendo en la voz características particulares. Los sistemas ASR tratan de encontrar los matices característicos de una voz y asociarlos a un individuo o grupo. La edad y sexo de un hablante son factores intrínsecos que están presentes en la voz. Este trabajo intenta diferenciar esas características, aislarlas y usarlas para detectar el género y la edad de un hablante. Para dicho fin, se ha realizado el estudio y análisis de las características basadas en el pulso glótico y el tracto vocal, evitando usar técnicas clásicas (como pitch y sus derivados) debido a las restricciones propias de dichas técnicas. Los resultados finales de nuestro estudio alcanzan casi un 100% en reconocimiento de género mientras en la tarea de reconocimiento de edad el reconocimiento se encuentra alrededor del 80%. Parece ser que la voz queda afectada por el género del hablante y las hormonas, aunque no se aprecie en la audición. ABSTRACT Particular elements of the voice are printed during the speech production process and are related to anatomical and physiological factors of the phonatory system or psychosocial factors acquired by the speaker. ASR systems attempt to find those peculiar nuances of a voice and associate them to an individual or a group. Age and gender are inherent factors to the speaker which may be represented in voice. This work attempts to differentiate those characteristics, isolate them and use them to detect speaker’s gender and age. Features based on glottal pulse and vocal tract are studied and analyzed in order to achieve good results in both tasks. Classical methodologies (such as pitch and derivates) are avoided since the requirements of those techniques may be too restrictive. The final scores achieve almost 100% in gender recognition whereas in age recognition those scores are around 80%. Factors related to the gender and hormones seem to affect the voice although they are not audible.

Large aperture antenna arrays with subband delay compensation for reception of wideband satellite signals

Con esta disertación se pretenden resolver algunos de los problemas encontrados actualmente en la recepción de señales de satélites bajo dos escenarios particularmente exigentes: comunicaciones de Espacio Profundo y en banda Ka. Las comunicaciones con sondas de Espacio Profundo necesitan grandes aperturas en tierra para poder incrementar la velocidad de datos. La opción de usar antennas con diámetro mayor de 35 metros tiene serios problemas, pues antenas tan grandes son caras de mantener, difíciles de apuntar, pueden tener largos tiempo de reparación y además tienen una efeciencia decreciente a medida que se utilizan bandas más altas. Soluciones basadas en agrupaciones de antenas de menor tamaño (12 ó 35 metros) son mas ecónomicas y factibles técnicamente. Las comunicaciones en banda Ka tambien pueden beneficiarse de la combinación de múltiples antennas. Las antenas de menor tamaño son más fáciles de apuntar y además tienen un campo de visión mayor. Además, las técnicas de diversidad espacial pueden ser reemplazadas por una combinación de antenas para así incrementar el margen del enlace. La combinación de antenas muy alejadas sobre grandes anchos de banda, bien por recibir una señal de banda ancha o múltiples de banda estrecha, es complicada técnicamente. En esta disertación se demostrará que el uso de conformador de haz en el dominio de la frecuencia puede ayudar a relajar los requisitos de calibración y, al mismo tiempo, proporcionar un mayor campo de visión y mayores capacidades de ecualización. Para llevar esto a cabo, el trabajo ha girado en torno a tres aspectos fundamentales. El primero es la investigación bibliográfica del trabajo existente en este campo. El segundo es el modelado matemático del proceso de combinación y el desarrollo de nuevos algoritmos de estimación de fase y retardo. Y el tercero es la propuesta de nuevas aplicaciones en las que usar estas técnicas. La investigación bibliográfica se centra principalmente en los capítulos 1, 2, 4 y 5. El capítulo 1 da una breve introducción a la teoría de combinación de antenas de gran apertura. En este capítulo, los principales campos de aplicación son descritos y además se establece la necesidad de compensar retardos en subbandas. La teoría de bancos de filtros se expone en el capítulo 2; se selecciona y simula un banco de filtros modulado uniformemente con fase lineal. Las propiedades de convergencia de varios filtros adaptativos se muestran en el capítulo 4. Y finalmente, las técnicas de estimación de retardo son estudiadas y resumidas en el capítulo 5. Desde el punto de vista matemático, las principales contribución de esta disertación han sido: • Sección 3.1.4. Cálculo de la desviación de haz de un conformador de haz con compensación de retardo en pasos discretos en frecuencia intermedia. • Sección 3.2. Modelo matemático de un conformador de haz en subbandas. • Sección 3.2.2. Cálculo de la desviación de haz de un conformador de haz en subbandas con un buffer de retardo grueso. • Sección 3.2.4. Análisis de la influencia de los alias internos en la compensación en subbandas de retardo y fase. • Sección 3.2.4.2. Cálculo de la desviación de haz de un conformador de haz con compensación de retardo en subbandas. • Sección 3.2.6. Cálculo de la ganancia de relación señal a ruido de la agrupación de antenas en cada una de las subbandas. • Sección 3.3.2. Modelado de la función de transferencia de la agrupación de antenas bajo errores de estimación de retardo. • Sección 3.3.3. Modelado de los efectos de derivas de fase y retardo entre actualizaciones de las estimaciones. • Sección 3.4. Cálculo de la directividad de la agrupación de antenas con y sin compensación de retardos en subbandas. • Sección 5.2.6. Desarrollo de un algorimo para estimar la fase y el retardo entre dos señales a partir de su descomposición de subbandas bajo entornos estacionarios. • Sección 5.5.1. Desarrollo de un algorimo para estimar la fase, el retardo y la deriva de retardo entre dos señales a partir de su descomposición de subbandas bajo entornos no estacionarios. Las aplicaciones que se pueden beneficiar de estas técnicas son descritas en el capítulo 7: • Sección 6.2. Agrupaciones de antenas para comunicaciones de Espacio Profundo con capacidad multihaz y sin requisitos de calibración geométrica o de retardo de grupo. • Sección 6.2.6. Combinación en banda ancha de antenas con separaciones de miles de kilómetros, para recepción de sondas de espacio profundo. • Secciones 6.4 and 6.3. Combinación de estaciones remotas en banda Ka en escenarios de diversidad espacial, para recepción de satélites LEO o GEO. • Sección 6.3. Recepción de satélites GEO colocados con arrays de antenas multihaz. Las publicaciones a las que ha dado lugar esta tesis son las siguientes • A. Torre. Wideband antenna arraying over long distances. Interplanetary Progress Report, 42-194:1–18, 2013. En esta pulicación se resumen los resultados de las secciones 3.2, 3.2.2, 3.3.2, los algoritmos en las secciones 5.2.6, 5.5.1 y la aplicación destacada en 6.2.6. • A. Torre. Reception of wideband signals from geostationary collocated satellites with antenna arrays. IET Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 13:2229–2237, September, 2014. En esta segunda se muestran los resultados de la sección 3.2.4, el algoritmo en la sección 5.2.6.1 , y la aplicación mostrada en 6.3. ABSTRACT This dissertation is an attempt to solve some of the problems found nowadays in the reception of satellite signals under two particular challenging scenarios: Deep Space and Ka-band communications. Deep Space communications require from larger apertures on ground in order to increase the data rate. The option of using single dishes with diameters larger than 35 meters has severe drawbacks. Such antennas are expensive to maintain, prone to long downtimes, difficult to point and have a degraded performance in high frequency bands. The array solution, either with 12 meter or 35 meter antennas is deemed to be the most economically and technically feasible solution. Ka-band communications can also benefit from antenna arraying technology. The smaller aperture antennas that make up the array are easier to point and have a wider field of view allowing multiple simultaneous beams. Besides, site diversity techniques can be replaced by pure combination in order to increase link margin. Combination of far away antennas over a large bandwidth, either because a wideband signal or multiple narrowband signals are received, is a demanding task. This dissertation will show that the use of frequency domain beamformers with subband delay compensation can help to ease calibration requirements and, at the same time, provide with a wider field of view and enhanced equalization capabilities. In order to do so, the work has been focused on three main aspects. The first one is the bibliographic research of previous work on this subject. The second one is the mathematical modeling of the array combination process and the development of new phase/delay estimation algorithms. And the third one is the proposal of new applications in which these techniques can be used. Bibliographic research is mainly done in chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to previous work in the field of large aperture antenna arraying. In this chapter, the main fields of application are described and the need for subband delay compensation is established. Filter bank theory is shown in chapter 2; a linear phase uniform modulated filter bank is selected and simulated under diverse conditions. The convergence properties of several adaptive filters are shown in chapter 4. Finally, delay estimation techniques are studied and summarized in chapter 5. From a mathematical point of view, the main contributions of this dissertation have been: • Section 3.1.4. Calculation of beam squint of an IF beamformer with delay compensation at discrete time steps. • Section 3.2. Establishment of a mathematical model of a subband beamformer. • Section 3.2.2. Calculation of beam squint in a subband beamformer with a coarse delay buffer. • Section 3.2.4. Analysis of the influence of internal aliasing on phase and delay subband compensation. • Section 3.2.4.2. Calculation of beam squint of a beamformer with subband delay compensation. • Section 3.2.6. Calculation of the array SNR gain at each of the subbands. • Section 3.3.2. Modeling of the transfer function of an array subject to delay estimation errors. • Section 3.3.3. Modeling of the effects of phase and delay drifts between estimation updates. • Section 3.4. Calculation of array directivity with and without subband delay compensation. • Section 5.2.6. Development of an algorithm to estimate relative delay and phase between two signals from their subband decomposition in stationary environments. • Section 5.5.1. Development of an algorithm to estimate relative delay rate, delay and phase between two signals from their subband decomposition in non stationary environments. The applications that can benefit from these techniques are described in chapter 7: • Section 6.2. Arrays of antennas for Deep Space communications with multibeam capacity and without geometric or group delay calibration requirement. • Section 6.2.6. Wideband antenna arraying over long distances, in the range of thousands of kilometers, for reception of Deep Space probes. • Sections 6.4 y 6.3. Combination of remote stations in Ka-band site diversity scenarios for reception of LEO or GEO satellites. • Section 6.3. Reception of GEO collocated satellites with multibeam antenna arrays. The publications that have been made from the work in this dissertation are • A. Torre. Wideband antenna arraying over long distances. Interplanetary Progress Report, 42-194:1–18, 2013. This article shows the results in sections 3.2, 3.2.2, 3.3.2, the algorithms in sections 5.2.6, 5.5.1 and the application in section 6.2.6. • A. Torre. Reception of wideband signals from geostationary collocated satellites with antenna arrays. IET Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 13:2229–2237, September, 2014. This second article shows among others the results in section 3.2.4, the algorithm in section 5.2.6.1 , and the application in section 6.3.

Transient behavior of a system composed of conductive thin wire structures excited by harmonic and lightning type signals

The transient response of a system of independent electrodes buried in a semi-infinite conducting medium is studied. Using a simple and versatile numerical scheme written by the authors and based on the Electric Field Integral Equation (EFIE), the effect caused by harmonic signals ranging on frequency from Hz to hundred of MHz, and also by lightning type driving signal striking at a remote point far from the conductors, is extensively studied. The value of the scalar potential appearing on the electrodes as a function of the frequency of the applied signal is one of the variables investigated. Other features such as the input impedance at the injection point of the signal and the Ground Potential Rise (GPR) over the electrode system are also discussed

DPSK signals demodulation based on a multimode fiber with a central dip

Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK) modulation format has been shown as a robust solution for next-generation optical transmission systems. One key device enabling such systems is a delay interferometer, converting the phase modulation signal into the intensity modulation signal to be detected by the photodiodes. Usually, a standard Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is used for demodulating a DPSK signal. In this paper, we develop an MZI which is based on all-fiber Multimode Interference (MI) structure: a multimode fiber (MMF) with a central dip, located between two single-mode fibers (SMFs) without any transition zones. The MI based MZI (MI-MZI) is more stable than the standard MZI as the two arms share the same MMF, reducing the impact of the external effects, such as temperature and others. Performance of this MI-MZI is analyzed theoretically and experimentally from transmission spectrum. Experimental results shows that high interference extinction ratio is obtained, which is far higher than that obtained from a normal graded-index based MI-MZI. Finally, by software simulation, we demonstrate that our proposed MI-MZI can be used for demodulating a 40 Gbps DPSK signal. The performance of the MI-MZI based DPSK receiver is analyzed from the sensitivity. Simulation results show that sensitivity of the proposed receiver is about -22.3 dBm for a BER of 10-15 and about -23.8 dBm for a BER of 10-9.

Signwalling: signals derived from arabiopsis cell wall activate specific resistance to pathogens

The cell wall is a dynamic structure that regulates both constitutive and inducible plant defence responses. Different molecules o DAMPs (damage-associated molecular patterns) can be released from plant cell walls upon pathogen infection or wounding and can trigger immune responses. To further characterize the function of cell wall on the regulation of these immune responses, we have performed a biased resistance screening of putative/well-characterized primary/secondary Arabidopsis thaliana cell wall mutants (cwm). In this screening we have identified more than 20 cwm mutants with altered susceptibility/resistance to at least one of the following pathogens: the necrotrophic fungi Plectosphaerella cucumerina, the vascular bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum, the biotrophic oomycete Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis and the powdery mildew fungus Erisyphe cruciferarum. We found that cell wall extracts from some of these cwm plants contain novel DAMPs that activate immune responses and conferred enhanced resistance to particular pathogens when they were applied to wild-type plants. Using glycomic profiling we have performed an initial characterization of the active carbohydrate structures present in these cwm wall fractions, and we have determined the signalling pathways regulated by thesse fractions. . The data generated with this collection of wall mutants support the existence of specific correlations between cell wall structure/composition, resistance to particular type of pathogens and plant fitness. Remarkably, we have identified specific cwm mutations that uncoupled resistance to pathogens from plant trade-offs, further indicating the plasticity of wall structures in the regulation of plant immune responses.

Human activity recognition by inertial signals obtained from a smartphone

Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is an emerging research field with the aim to identify the actions carried out by a person given a set of observations and the surrounding environment. The wide growth in this research field inside the scientific community is mainly explained by the high number of applications that are arising in the last years. A great part of the most promising applications are related to the healthcare field, where it is possible to track the mobility of patients with motor dysfunction as also the physical activity in patients with cardiovascular risk. Until a few years ago, by using distinct kind of sensors, a patient follow-up was possible. However, far from being a long-term solution and with the smartphone irruption, that monitoring can be achieved in a non-invasive way by using the embedded smartphone’s sensors. For these reasons this Final Degree Project arises with the main target to evaluate new feature extraction techniques in order to carry out an activity and user recognition, and also an activity segmentation. The recognition is done thanks to the inertial signals integration obtained by two widespread sensors in the greater part of smartphones: accelerometer and gyroscope. In particular, six different activities are evaluated walking, walking-upstairs, walking-downstairs, sitting, standing and lying. Furthermore, a segmentation task is carried out taking into account the activities performed by thirty users. This can be done by using Hidden Markov Models and also a set of tools tested satisfactory in speech recognition: HTK (Hidden Markov Model Toolkit).

Waves, analytical signals, and some postulates of quantum theory

In this paper we apply the formalism of the analytical signal theory to the Schrödinger wavefunction. Making use exclusively of the wave-particle duality and the rinciple of relativistic covariance, we actually derive the form of the quantum energy and momentum operators for a single nonrelativistic particle. Without using any more quantum postulates, and employing the formalism of the characteristic function, we also derive the quantum-mechanical prescription for the measurement probability in such cases.

Human activity recognition by inertial signals obtained from a smartphone

El Reconocimiento de Actividades Humanas es un área de investigación emergente, cuyo objetivo principal es identificar las acciones realizadas por un sujeto analizando las señales obtenidas a partir de unos sensores. El rápido crecimiento de este área de investigación dentro de la comunidad científica se explica, en parte, por el elevado número de aplicaciones que están surgiendo en los últimos años. Gran parte de las aplicaciones más prometedoras se encuentran en el campo de la salud, donde se puede hacer un seguimiento del nivel de movilidad de pacientes con trastornos motores, así como monitorizar el nivel de actividad física en pacientes con riesgo cardiovascular. Hasta hace unos años, mediante el uso de distintos tipos de sensores se podía hacer un seguimiento del paciente. Sin embargo, lejos de ser una solución a largo plazo y gracias a la irrupción del teléfono inteligente, este seguimiento se puede hacer de una manera menos invasiva, haciendo uso de la gran variedad de sensores integrados en este tipo de dispositivos. En este contexto nace este Trabajo de Fin de Grado, cuyo principal objetivo es evaluar nuevas técnicas de extracción de características para llevar a cabo un reconocimiento de actividades y usuarios así como una segmentación de aquellas. Este reconocimiento se hace posible mediante la integración de señales inerciales obtenidas por dos sensores presentes en la gran mayoría de teléfonos inteligentes: acelerómetro y giróscopo. Concretamente, se evalúan seis tipos de actividades realizadas por treinta usuarios: andar, subir escaleras, bajar escaleras, estar sentado, estar de pie y estar tumbado. Además y de forma paralela, se realiza una segmentación temporal de los distintos tipos de actividades realizadas por dichos usuarios. Todo ello se llevará a cabo haciendo uso de los Modelos Ocultos de Markov, así como de un conjunto de herramientas probadas satisfactoriamente en reconocimiento del habla: HTK (Hidden Markov Model Toolkit).