Time-Based All-Digital Technique for Analog Built-in Self-Test

A scheme for built-in self-test of analog signals with minimal area overhead for measuring on-chip voltages in an all-digital manner is presented. The method is well suited for a distributed architecture, where the routing of analog signals over long paths is minimized. A clock is routed serially to the sampling heads placed at the nodes of analog test voltages. This sampling head present at each test node, which consists of a pair of delay cells and a pair of flip-flops, locally converts the test voltage to a skew between a pair of subsampled signals, thus giving rise to as many subsampled signal pairs as the number of nodes. To measure a certain analog voltage, the corresponding subsampled signal pair is fed to a delay measurement unit to measure the skew between this pair. The concept is validated by designing a test chip in a UMC 130-nm CMOS process. Sub-millivolt accuracy for static signals is demonstrated for a measurement time of a few seconds, and an effective number of bits of 5.29 is demonstrated for low-bandwidth signals in the absence of sample-and-hold circuitry.

Measurement of in-plane and out-of-plane displacements and strains using digital holographic moire

The paper proposes a non-destructive method for simultaneous measurement of in-plane and out-of-plane displacements and strains undergone by a deformed specimen from a single moire fringe pattern obtained on the specimen in a dual beam digital holographic interferometry setup. The moire fringe pattern encodes multiple interference phases which carry the information on multidimensional deformation. The interference field is segmented in each column and is modeled as multicomponent quadratic/cubic frequency-modulated signal in each segment. Subsequently, the product form of modified cubic phase function is used for accurate estimation of phase parameters. The estimated phase parameters are further utilized for direct estimation of the unwrapped interference phases and phase derivatives. The simulation and experimental results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Ultrasonic guided wave sensing properties of PVDF thin film with inter digital electrodes

Ultrasonic strain sensing performance of the large area PVDF with Inter Digital Electrodes (IDE) is studied in this work. Procedure to obtain IDE on a beta-phase PVDF is explained. PVDF film with IDE is bonded on a plate structure and is characterized for its directional sensitivity at different frequencies. Guided waves are induced on the IDE-PVDF sensor from different directions by placing a piezoelectric wafer actuator at different angles. Strain induced on the IDE-PVDF sensor by the guided waves in estimated by using a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) and a wave propagation model. Using measured voltage response from IDE-PVDF sensor and the strain measurements from LDV the piezoelectric coefficient is estimated in various directions. The variation of 11 e at different angles shows directional sensitivity of the IDE-PVDF sensor to the incident guided waves. The present study provides an effective technique to characterize thin film piezoelectric sensors for ultrasonic strain sensing at very high frequencies of 200 kHz. Often frequency of the guided wave is changed to alter the wavelength to interrogate damages of different sizes in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications. The unique property of directional sensitivity combined with frequency tunability makes the IDE-PVDF sensor most suitable for SHM of structures.

Signal tracking approach for phase estimation in digital holographic interferometry

In this research work, we introduce a novel approach for phase estimation from noisy reconstructed interference fields in digital holographic interferometry using an unscented Kalman filter. Unlike conventionally used unwrapping algorithms and piecewise polynomial approximation approaches, this paper proposes, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, a signal tracking approach for phase estimation. The state space model derived in this approach is inspired from the Taylor series expansion of the phase function as the process model, and polar to Cartesian conversion as the measurement model. We have characterized our approach by simulations and validated the performance on experimental data (holograms) recorded under various practical conditions. Our study reveals that the proposed approach, when compared with various phase estimation methods available in the literature, outperforms at lower SNR values (i.e., especially in the range 0-20 dB). It is demonstrated with experimental data as well that the proposed approach is a better choice for estimating rapidly varying phase with high dynamic range and noise. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America

A Digital Frequency Multiplication Technique for Energy Efficient Transmitters

A logic gate-based digital frequency multiplication technique for low-power frequency synthesis is presented. The proposed digital edge combining approach offers broadband operation with low-power and low-area advantages and is a promising candidate for low-power frequency synthesis in deep submicrometer CMOS technologies. Chip prototype of the proposed frequency multiplication-based 2.4-GHz binary frequency-shift-keying (BFSK)/amplitude shift keying (ASK) transmitter (TX) was fabricated in 0.13-mu m CMOS technology. The TX achieves maximum data rates of 3 and 20 Mb/s for BFSK and ASK modulations, respectively, consuming a 14-mA current from 1.3 V supply voltage. The corresponding energy efficiencies of the TX are 3.6 nJ/bit for BFSK and 0.91 nJ/bit for ASK modulations.

All Digital Energy Sensing for Minimum Energy Tracking

Minimizing energy consumption is of utmost importance in an energy starved system with relaxed performance requirements. This brief presents a digital energy sensing method that requires neither a constant voltage reference nor a time reference. An energy minimizing loop uses this to find the minimum energy point and sets the supply voltage between 0.2 and 0.5 V. Energy savings up to 1275% over existing minimum energy tracking techniques in the literature is achieved.

Estimation of Aboveground Phytomass of Plantations Using Digital Photogrammetry and High Resolution Remote Sensing Data

The study follows an approach to estimate phytomass using recent techniques of remote sensing and digital photogrammetry. It involved tree inventory of forest plantations in Bhakra forest range of Nainital district. Panchromatic stereo dataset of Cartosat-1 was evaluated for mean stand height retrieval. Texture analysis and tree-tops detection analyses were done on Quick-Bird PAN data. The composite texture image of mean, variance and contrast with a 5x5 pixel window was found best to separate tree crowns for assessment of crown areas. Tree tops count obtained by local maxima filtering was found to be 83.4 % efficient with an RMSE+/-13 for 35 sample plots. The predicted phytomass ranged from 27.01 to 35.08 t/ha in the case of Eucalyptus sp. while in the case of Tectona grandis from 26.52 to 156 t/ha. The correlation between observed and predicted phytomass in Eucalyptus sp. was 0.468 with an RMSE of 5.12. However, the phytomass predicted in Tectona grandis was fairly strong with R-2=0.65 and RMSE of 9.89 as there was no undergrowth and the crowns were clearly visible. Results of the study show the potential of Cartosat-1 derived DSM and Quick-Bird texture image for the estimation of stand height, stem diameter, tree count and phytomass of important timber species.

Digital image analysis around isotropic points for photoelastic pattern recognition

Fringe tracking and fringe order assignment have become the central topics of current research in digital photoelasticity. Isotropic points (IPs) appearing in low fringe order zones are often either overlooked or entirely missed in conventional as well as digital photoelasticity. We aim to highlight image processing for characterizing IPs in an isochromatic fringe field. By resorting to a global analytical solution of a circular disk, sensitivity of IPs to small changes in far-field loading on the disk is highlighted. A local theory supplements the global closed-form solutions of three-, four-, and six-point loading configurations of circular disk. The local theoretical concepts developed in this paper are demonstrated through digital image analysis of isochromatics in circular disks subjected to three-and four-point loads. (C) 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Quick measurement of H-1-F-19 scalar couplings from the complex NMR spectra by real-time spin edition

Most often the measurement of VHF from the conventional 1D H-1 NMR spectrum is severely hindered consequent to similar magnitudes of JHF and JHH couplings and the spectral multiplicity pattern. The present study reports a new 1D NMR technique based on real time spin edition, which removes all JHF and JHH while retaining only VHF of a chosen fluorine. The obtained spectrum is significantly simplified and permits straightforward determination of all possible VHF values of a chosen fluorine. Due to one dimensional nature, the method is much faster compared to 2D GET-SERF by 1-2 orders of magnitude. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Protection of Digital Telecom Exchanges Against Lightning Surges and Earth Faults

Low-power electronic devices used in digital telecom exchanges are vulnerable to surge voltages and currents primarily originating from natural lightning or due to the direct interactions between electric power and telecommunication lines, etc., causing the earth/ground potential rise, neutral potential rise, and faults in the system. The fault currents may flow directly to telecom lines or through the equipment to the customer's premises, causing adequate damage to the equipment and personnel safety. In wireline applications, analog or digital, central office, exchanges, and subscriber sides have to be protected. Decisive protection and protective methods have to be employed for proper functioning of the equipment under overvoltage/overcurrent conditions. Current investigation reports some interesting results obtained on the recently developed high-voltage high-current protection cards used in digital telecom exchanges. The performances of protection cards both for the ring wave and hybrid wave surges are evaluated and presented. The surge generators required for the investigation are developed and fabricated in house as per the relevant telecom standards.

A Method Based on Digital Image Analysis for Measuring the Strain Field of Deformed Sheet

对薄板成形应变场传统的测量方法进行了研究,指出了其不足和误差的来源,提出了数字图像分析法测量薄板成形中的应变场,对测量原理、新的测量方法对传统方法的改进,以及如何降低误差进行了介绍,指出数字图像分析法的前景,提出了改进意见。

Thermal Properties Measurement of Micro-Electromechanical System Sensors by Digital Moire Method

The thermal properties of a micro-electromechanical system sensor were analysed by a novel digital moire method. A double-layer micro-cantilever sensor (60 mu m long, 10 mu m width and 2 mu dm thick) was prepared by focused ion beam milling. A grating with frequency of 5000 lines mm- I was etched on the cantilever. The sensor was placed into a scanning electron microscope system with a high temperature device. The observation and recording of the thermal deformation of the grating were realised in real-time as the temperature rose from room temperature to 300 degrees C at intervals of 50 degrees C. Digital moire was generated by interference of the deformed grating and a digital virtual grating. The thermal properties including strain distribution of the sensor and the linear expansion coefficient of polysilicon were accurately measured by the phase-shifted moire patterns.

Fixed-lag blind equalization and sequence estimation in digital communications systems using sequential importance sampling

We present methods for fixed-lag smoothing using Sequential Importance sampling (SIS) on a discrete non-linear, non-Gaussian state space system with unknown parameters. Our particular application is in the field of digital communication systems. Each input data point is taken from a finite set of symbols. We represent transmission media as a fixed filter with a finite impulse response (FIR), hence a discrete state-space system is formed. Conventional Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques such as the Gibbs sampler are unsuitable for this task because they can only perform processing on a batch of data. Data arrives sequentially, so it would seem sensible to process it in this way. In addition, many communication systems are interactive, so there is a maximum level of latency that can be tolerated before a symbol is decoded. We will demonstrate this method by simulation and compare its performance to existing techniques.