The future voltage regulator module (VRM) challenges of high bandwidth control with fast transient response, high current output, simple implementation, and efficient 48V solution are tackled in this dissertation. With the push for control bandwidth to meet design specifications for microprocessor VRM with larger and faster load transients, control can be saturated and lost for a significant period of time during transient. During this time, undesirable transient responses such as large undershoot and ringback occurs. Due to the loss of control, the existing tools to study the dynamic behavior of the system, such as small signal model, are insufficient to analyze the behavior of the system during this time. In order to have a better understanding of the system dynamic performance, the operation the VRM is analyzed in the state-plane for a clear visual understanding of the steady-state and transient behaviors. Using the state-plane, a simplified state-plane trajectory control is proposed for constant on-time (COT) control to achieve the best transient possible for applications with adaptive voltage positioning (AVP). When the COT control is lost during a load step-up transient, the state-plane trajectory control will extend on-time to provide the a near optimal transient response. By observing the COT control law in the state-plane, a simplified state-plane trajectory control with analog implementation is proposed to achieve the best transient possible with smooth transitions in and out of the steady-state COT control. The concept of the simplified state-plane trajectory control is then extended to multiphase COT. For multiphase operation, additional operating behavior, such as phase overlapping during transient and interleaving during steady-state, need to be taken into consideration to design the desired state-plane trajectory control. A simple state-plane trajectory control with improved Ton extension is proposed and verified using multiphase COT control. After tackling the state-plane trajectory control for current mode COT, the idea is then extended to V2 COT. V2 COT is a more advanced current mode control which requires a more advanced state-plane trajectory control to COT. By calculating the intersection of the extended on-stage trajectory during transient and the ideal off trajectory in the form of a current limiting wall, a near optimal transient response can be achieved. For V2 COT with state-plane trajectory control, implementations using inductor vs. capacitor current, effect of component tolerance, and effect of IC delay are studied. The proposed state-plane trajectory control is then extended to enhanced V2 COT. Aside from tackling existing VRM challenges, the future datacenter 48V VRM challenge of a high efficiency, high power density solution to meet the VRM specifications is studied. The sigma converter is proposed for the 48V VRM solution due to exhibition of high efficiency and high-power density from hardware evaluation. An accurate model for the sigma converter is derived using the new modeling approach of modularizing the small signal components. Using the proposed model, the sigma converter is shown to naturally have very low output impedance, making the sigma converter suitable for microprocessor applications. The sigma converter is designed and optimized to achieve AVP and very fast transient response using both voltage-mode and current-mode controls. / Doctor of Philosophy / Microprocessors, such as central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) are the basis of today's electronics. In the recent decades, the demand for more powerful and faster data processing lead to a significant increase in power consumption by these microprocessors. Even with the introduction of multi-core processors and adaptive voltage positioning (AVP) to reduce the average power provided by the power supplies, the microprocessor can still draw a large amount of instantaneous power in a short period of time. With the microprocessors demanding high amount of current at fast slew-rate, the challenges for the next generation of microprocessor power supply, or voltage regulator modules (VRM), are fast response speed to ensure proper operation of the microprocessors, and high efficiency VRM to minimize the overall system power consumption. The challenge of a VRM with fast response speed is tackled first. To meet the AVP and transient requirements of microprocessor, the VR need to utilize high-bandwidth control methods. Of the control methods used by the industry, high control bandwidth can be easily achieved using constant on-time (COT) control. With the ever-increasing output current level and transient slew-rate requirements, COT control can saturate and lose its steady-state control for a period of time during load step-up transient. During this time, the system will operate with a fixed frequency control until COT control is recovered. Although the method is widely used in the industry, the method is too slow to meet the transient requirements. Many state-of-art methods have been proposed to resolve the load step-up transient issue of COT. However, of the methods proposed, it is difficult to optimize the transient improvement while having a simple analog implementation to ensure a fast response for the wide operating range and aggressive transient conditions observed in microprocessor VRM application. In this dissertation, COT control is studied using the state-plane to provide a clear visual understanding of the transient behavior of the control. Using the state-plane, a state-plane trajectory control is proposed to achieve near optimal load step-up transient response. The concept is then extended to multiphase VRM, which is typically used for high current applications. The state-plane trajectory control concept is then further extended to V2 COT control for VRM without AVP, such as those used by GPU and smartphone CPU. For the proposed state-plane trajectory controls, hardware implementation, evaluation, and experimental results are provided. After tackling the challenge of a VRM with fast response speed, the challenge of an efficient VRM is then tackled. In recent years, a significant amount of research has been put into studying VRM for a power delivery architecture which uses a 48V bus instead of the 12V bus. By using the 48V bus, less redundancy in the power delivery path can greatly increase the overall system efficiency if the VRM stage retains its efficiency. However, the increase in input voltage for the VRM provides an additional challenge to maintain high efficiency for the VRM stage itself. To maintain good efficiency, it is difficult to increase converter switching frequency beyond 300kHz. This limitation on switching frequency will limit the ability to achieve high bandwidth design and fast transient requirements. A 48V VRM using a different topology, the sigma converter, has demonstrated high-efficiency and high-power density, but the converter behavior and control methodology for VRM application is unclear. In this dissertation, the modeling and control of the sigma converter are studied using the proposed small-signal model. By evaluating the proposed small-signal model, the sigma converter can naturally have very low output impedance, making it an ideal candidate for 48V VRM. Then, the design guideline of the sigma converter with current-mode control is provided. With the work discussed in this dissertation, further study of the sigma converter with COT and state-plane trajectory control can be conducted in the future.

Yes / The paper demonstrates an effective technique to significantly enhance the bandwidth and radiation gain of an otherwise narrowband composite right/left-handed transmission-line (CRLH-TL) antenna using a non-Foster impedance matching circuit (NF-IMC) without affecting the antenna's stability. This is achieved by using the negative reactance of the NF-IMC to counteract the input capacitance of the antenna. Series capacitance of the CRLH-TL unit-cell is created by etching a dielectric spiral slot inside a rectangular microstrip patch that is grounded through a spiraled microstrip inductance. The overall size of the antenna, including the NF-IMC at its lowest operating frequency is 0.335λ0 × 0.137λ0 × 0.003λ0, where λ0 is the free-space wavelength at 1.4 GHz. The performance of the antenna was verified through actual measurements. The stable bandwidth of the antenna for |S11|≤ - 18 dB is greater than 1 GHz (1.4-2.45 GHz), which is significantly wider than the CRLH-TL antenna without the proposed impedance matching circuit. In addition, with the proposed technique the measured radiation gain and efficiency of the antenna are increased on average by 3.2 dBi and 31.5% over the operating frequency band. / This work is partially supported by RTI2018-095499-B-C31, Funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Gobierno de España (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE), and innovation programme under grant agreement H2020-MSCA-ITN-2016 SECRET-722424 and the financial support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant EP/E022936/1.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Advances in spectrally efficient Feher’s Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (FQPSK) and Feher‘s Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (FQAM) patented technologies, commercial and government “dual-use” FQPSK products and Test & Evaluation (T&E) results are highlighted in this overview paper. US and international customer requirements/systems, programs and recent deployments and standardization programs are also described. FQPSK doubles the spectral efficiency of PCM/FM Telemetry and of Feher patented Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK or FGMSK) and of alternatives, while FQAM quadruples the spectral efficiency of these systems. The predominant focus of this presentation is on an overview and advances of IRIG 106-00 standardized FQPSK technologies. FQAM systems will also be described. Use of FQPSK for applications such as telemetry, data links, clear mode, TDMA ,CSMA and CDMA, OCDMA, WCDMA as well as OFDM – COFDM will be included in the presentation.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Range to an orbiting satellite from a ground reference point (ground station) can be determined by measuring the round trip time for a waveform transmitted to the satellite and returned to the ground station (Turnaround Ranging) and more recently by using the Global Positioning System (GPS). This paper first summarizes and compares the two approaches. The paper then describes and analyzes a new turn-around ranging system which uses a flexible ranging waveform that provides spectral compatibility with existing Military, NASA, and Commercial satellite uplink/downlink signals.

The Quality of Service (QoS) routing approach is gaining an increasing interest in the Internet community due to the new emerging Internet applications such as real-time multimedia applications. These applications require better levels of quality of services than those supported by best effort networks. Therefore providing such services is crucial to many real time and multimedia applications which have strict quality of service requirements regarding bandwidth and timeliness of delivery. QoS routing is a major component in any QoS architecture and thus has been studied extensively in the literature. Scalability is considered one of the major issues in designing efficient QoS routing algorithms due to the high cost of QoS routing both in terms of computational effort and communication overhead. Localized quality of service routing is a promising approach to overcome the scalability problem of the conventional quality of service routing approach. The localized quality of service approach eliminates the communication overhead because it does not need the global network state information. The main aim of this thesis is to contribute towards the localised routing area by proposing and developing some new models and algorithms. Toward this goal we make the following major contributions. First, a scalable and efficient QoS routing algorithm based on a localised approach to QoS routing has been developed and evaluated. Second, we have developed a path selection technique that can be used with existing localized QoS routing algorithms to enhance their scalability and performance. Third, a scalable and efficient hierarchical QoS routing algorithm based on a localised approach to QoS routing has been developed and evaluated.

This thesis describes the use of a multi-amplitude minimum shift keying (MAMSK) signal in various types of wireless communication system. A MAMSK signal is a bandwidth efficient modulation scheme obtained by superimposing ℳ minimum shift keying (MSK) signals with unequal amplitudes. The overall phase of a MAMSK signal is controlled by the phase of the largest component MSK signal which allows the use of a low-complexity differential detector. A closed form expression for the average bit error rate (BER) for coherent detection of an MAMSK in AWGN is derived and is shown to achieve the same BER as that of square constellation quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) with the same average transmit power. We describe the design and implementation of a STBC-based MIMO radio system in conjunction with MAMSK modulation. The proposed system provides high capacity data transmission by carrying information not only in the phases but also in the amplitude. Despite using a simple MAMSK differential receiver the system achieves performance within 1 dB of coherent detection. The existing MSK modems in conjunction with STBC could easily be modified to construct the proposed system. The MAMSK modulation scheme is extended to a multiuser relaying network where two nodes cooperate in a half-duplex environment to achieve diversity gain. The cooperative scheme is based on superposition modulation using a decode-and-forward (DF) strategy. In the proposed scheme, each node simultaneously transmits its own and the relayed signals by superimposing one on the other. A MAMSK signal is an excellent choice for this type of cooperative communication due its being obtained by a superposition technique. The proposed system exploits the overall phase of a MAMSK signal which allows differential detection and as a result it provides the lowest decoding complexity and memory requirements among the existing superposition based cooperation schemes. The performance of the system is evaluated by simulation, where it is shown that the MAMSK cooperative system outperforms a conventional DF scheme in terms of both power and bandwidth efficiency.

With the advent of the internet and advances in computing power, the collection of very large high-dimensional datasets has become feasible { understanding and modelling high-dimensional data has thus become a crucial activity, especially in the field of pattern recognition. Since non-parametric density estimators are data-driven and do not require or impose a pre-defined probability density function on data, they are very powerful tools for probabilistic data modelling and analysis. Conventional non-parametric density estimation methods, however, originated from the field of statistics and were not originally intended to perform density estimation in high-dimensional features spaces { as is often encountered in real-world pattern recognition tasks. Therefore we address the fundamental problem of non-parametric density estimation in high-dimensional feature spaces in this study. Recent advances in maximum-likelihood (ML) kernel density estimation have shown that kernel density estimators hold much promise for estimating nonparametric probability density functions in high-dimensional feature spaces. We therefore derive two new iterative kernel bandwidth estimators from the maximum-likelihood (ML) leave one-out objective function and also introduce a new non-iterative kernel bandwidth estimator (based on the theoretical bounds of the ML bandwidths) for the purpose of bandwidth initialisation. We name the iterative kernel bandwidth estimators the minimum leave-one-out entropy (MLE) and global MLE estimators, and name the non-iterative kernel bandwidth estimator the MLE rule-of-thumb estimator. We compare the performance of the MLE rule-of-thumb estimator and conventional kernel density estimators on artificial data with data properties that are varied in a controlled fashion and on a number of representative real-world pattern recognition tasks, to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of these estimators in high-dimensional spaces and to determine whether these estimators are suitable for initialising the bandwidths of iterative ML bandwidth estimators in high dimensions. We find that there are several regularities in the relative performance of conventional kernel density estimators across different tasks and dimensionalities and that the Silverman rule-of-thumb bandwidth estimator performs reliably across most tasks and dimensionalities of the pattern recognition datasets considered, even in high-dimensional feature spaces. Based on this empirical evidence and the intuitive theoretical motivation that the Silverman estimator optimises the asymptotic mean integrated squared error (assuming a Gaussian reference distribution), we select this estimator to initialise the bandwidths of the iterative ML kernel bandwidth estimators compared in our simulation studies. We then perform a comparative simulation study of the newly introduced iterative MLE estimators and other state-of-the-art iterative ML estimators on a number of artificial and real-world high-dimensional pattern recognition tasks. We illustrate with artificial data (guided by theoretical motivations) under what conditions certain estimators should be preferred and we empirically confirm on real-world data that no estimator performs optimally on all tasks and that the optimal estimator depends on the properties of the underlying density function being estimated. We also observe an interesting case of the bias-variance trade-off where ML estimators with fewer parameters than the MLE estimator perform exceptionally well on a wide variety of tasks; however, for the cases where these estimators do not perform well, the MLE estimator generally performs well. The newly introduced MLE kernel bandwidth estimators prove to be a useful contribution to the field of pattern recognition, since they perform optimally on a number of real-world pattern recognition tasks investigated and provide researchers and practitioners with two alternative estimators to employ for the task of kernel density estimation. / PhD (Information Technology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The high demands on data processing and bandwidth in wireless/wireline communication and aerospace systems have been pushing forward circuit design techniques to their limitations to obtain maximum performances with respect to high operating frequency, low noise, small area, and low power consumption. Clock generators are essential components in numerous circuits, for instance, frequency synthesizers for high speed transceivers, clock sources for microprocessors, noise suppressed zero-delay buffers in system-on-chips (SOCs), and clock and data recovery (CDR) systems. Furthermore, clock generators are required to provide low jitter and high precision clocks in fully integrated image reject receivers and an ultra-wide tunability in time-interleaved applications. We explore several circuit design techniques and implementations of low jitter clock generator in this thesis. Firstly, a low jitter and wide range digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) operating 8 ~ 16 GHz is illustrated using a dual path digital loop filter (DLF). In order to mitigate the phase jitter in the phase detector (PD), we implement the separate loop filter and the output is not affected by the proportional path. For the stable operation, a 4 ~ 8 GHz linear phase interpolator (PI) is implemented in the proportional path. In addition, we design a low phase noise digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) using inductive tuning technique based on switched mutual coupling for wide operating range. The proposed DPLL implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology shows an outstanding figure-of-merit (FOM) over other state-of-art DPLLs in term of root mean square (RMS) and deterministic jitter (DJ). Secondly, we discuss a radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) PLL using a feedback voltage-controlled oscillator (FBVCO) in order to reduce DJ due to the radiation attack on the control voltage. Different from a conventional open loop VCO, the proposed FBVCO has a negative control loop and is composed of an open loop VCO, an integrator and a switched-capacitor resistor. Since the input to output of the FBVCO has a low-pass characteristic, any disturbance on the control voltage should be filtered and cannot affect the output phase. We are able to reduce the output frequency variation approximately 75% compared to the conventional PLL when the radiation pulse strikes on the control voltage. The proposed RHBD PLL is implemented in 130 nm and consumes 6.2 mW at 400 MHz operating frequency. Thirdly, a novel adaptive-bandwidth PLL is illustrated to optimize the jitter performance in a wide operating frequency range. We achieve a constant ratio of bandwidth and reference frequency with a closed loop VCO and an overdamping system with a charge pump (CP) current proportional to the VCO frequency for the adaptive-bandwidth technique. The proposed adaptive-bandwidth PLL presents 0.6% RMS jitter over the entire frequency range from 320 MHz to 2.56 GHz, which is 70% smaller than the conventional fixed-bandwidth PLL. Finally, we have developed a new feedback DCO to achieve a linear gain of DCO so that the DPLL can provide stability and a wide operating range in different process variations. Due to the negative feedback loop of the proposed DCO, the feedback DCO presents a linear gain from an input digital word to an output frequency. Moreover, we can control the bandwidth of the feedback DCO to optimize the total output phase noise in DPLL. In simulation, we can obtain 17 MHz/LSB of the peak-to-peak gain of the feedback DCO, which is reduced 96% over the conventional DCO.

Le but de cette thèse est de proposer des mécanismes efficaces pour l'ordonnancement des chunks et l'allocation de la bande passante dans le contexte de la transmission vidéo sur les réseaux P2P,afin d'offrir une meilleure qualité de service pour l'utilisateur final. Dans un premier temps nousavons proposé un mécanisme d'ordonnancement des chunks pour la transmission de vidéomulticouche dans les réseaux P2P. Le mécanisme proposé est basé sur une nouvelle technique quipermet de sélectionner les chunks adéquats et les demander des pairs les plus appropriés. Ensuitenous avons proposé un mécanisme d'allocation de la bande passante, toujours dans le cadre detransmission de vidéo multicouche dans les réseaux P2P. Le pair émetteur organise une enchère pour«vendre » sa bande passante. L'allocation tient en considération la priorité des pairs et l'importancedes couches demandées. Finalement nous avons proposé un mécanisme d'adaptation lisse « smooth» d'une vidéo multicouche transportée sur un réseau P2P.Après une introduction, nous présentons dans le chapitre 2 les motivations du travail le but du travailet les problèmes recherche qui demeurent. Dans ce chapitre nous présentons les composants dessystèmes P2P et tout particulièrement la distribution et l'adaptation de contenus. Dans ce cadre,nous proposons une classification des applications de streaming vidéo P2P ainsi que des mécanismesd'allocation de bande passante et d'ordonnancement pour le streaming pair-à-pair. Nous nousintéressons également aux techniques d'adaptation de la qualité en se focalisant plusparticulièrement sur la norme SVC (Scalable Video Coding).Le chapitre 3 propose des mécanismes de priorisation pour la planification de streaming P2P multicouches.Nous proposons une heuristique pour résoudre un problème général d'affectationgénéralisé (Generalized Assignment Problem – GAP). La solution présentée est ensuite adaptée aucas du streaming non multicouches. Les résultats issus des simulations montrent que les solutionsproposées donnent de meilleurs résultats que les solutions traditionnelles.Le chapitre 4 décrit un mécanisme d'allocation dynamique de la bande passante pour les réseaux destreaming P2P multicouches qui se base sur l'allocation d'une bande passante aux pairs tout enassurant un minimum de qualité de service à l'ensemble des pairs. Les bonnes performances desmécanismes proposés, qui sont détaillées à travers l'étude du ratio concernant l'utilisation de labande passante ainsi que du niveau de satisfaction des pairs, montrent que ces derniers permettentd'obtenir une utilisation optimale de la bande passante.Le chapitre 5 porte sur le lissage du streaming multicouches dans les réseaux P2P en se basant sur lesmétriques liées à la variation de la fréquence et de l'amplitude. Les mécanismes proposés ont étéimplémentés dans un banc d'essai réel et l'évaluation des performances montrent l'efficacité desmécanismes pour le lissage du streaming.Dans le chapitre 6 (conclusion and perspectives), nous résumons les contributions proposées danscette thèse ainsi qu’une ouverture sur les travaux futures / Recently we witnessed an increasing demand for scalable deployment of real-time multimediastreaming applications over Internet. In this context, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks are playing asignificant role for supporting large-scale and robust distribution of multimedia content to end-users.However, due to peers’ dynamicity, heterogeneity of terminals and access networks, the deploymentof real-time video streaming applications over P2P networks arises lot of challenges. Indeed, animportant issue in P2P overlays is the capacity to self-organize in the face of the dynamic behavior ofpeers in order to ensure content availability and continuity. In addition, the heterogeneity in networks,terminals, and P2P characteristics make the situation more challenging. In this context, layered videostreaming in P2P networks has drawn great interest to overcome these challenges, since it can notonly accommodate large numbers of users, but also handle heterogeneity of peers. However, there isstill a lack of comprehensive studies on video data blocks (chunks) scheduling and bandwidthallocation for the smooth playout in layered streaming over P2P networks.The aim of this thesis is to analyze these concerns and to propose an efficient real-time chunksscheduling and bandwidth allocation mechanisms for QoS provisioning of layered streamingapplications over P2P networks. Our contributions in this thesis are threefold. First, we propose ascheduling mechanism for layered P2P streaming. The proposed mechanism relies on a novelscheduling algorithm that enables each peer to select appropriate stream layers, along withappropriate peers to provide them. The presented mechanism makes efficient use of networkresources and provides high system throughput. Second, we propose a bandwidth allocation modelfor P2 layered streaming systems based on auction mechanisms to optimize the allocation of senderpeers’ uploads bandwidth. The upstream peers organize auctions to “sell” theirs items (links’bandwidth) according to bids submitted by the downstream peers taking into consideration the peerspriorities and the requested layers importance. The ultimate goal is to satisfy the quality levelrequirement for each peer, while reducing the overall streaming cost. Finally, we present a smoothingmechanism for layered streaming in P2P networks. The mechanism aims to reduce the number oflayer changes under varying network conditions, and ensure a smooth playout for the end-user.

Call quality has been crucial from the inception of telecommunication networks. Operators need to monitor call quality from the end-user's perspective, in order to retain subscribers and reduce subscriber 'churn'. Operators worry not only about call quality and interconnect revenue loss, but also about network connectivity issues in areas where mobile network gateways are prevalent. Bandwidth quality as experienced by the end-user is equally important in helping operators to reduce churn. The parameters that network operators use to improve call quality are mainly from the end-user's perspective. These parameters are usually ASR (answer seizure ratio), PDD (postdial delay), NER (network efficiency ratio), the number of calls for which these parameters have been analyzed and successful calls. Operators use these parameters to evaluate and optimize the network to meet their quality requirements. Analysis of speech quality is a major arena for research. Traditionally, users' perception of speech quality has been measured offline using subjective listening tests. Such tests are, however, slow, tedious and costly. An alternative method is therefore needed; one that can be automatically computed on the subscriber's handset, be available to the operator as well as to subscribers and, at the same time, provide results that are comparable with conventional subjective scores. QMeter® 'a set of tools for signal and bandwidth measurement that have been developed bearing in mind all the parameters that influence call and bandwidth quality experienced by the end-user' addresses these issues and, additionally, facilitates dynamic tariff propositions which enhance the credibility of the operator. This research focuses on call quality parameters from the end-user's perspective. The call parameters used in the research are signal strength, successful call rate, normal drop call rate, and hand-over drop rate. Signal strength is measured for every five milliseconds of an active call and average signal strength is calculated for each successful call. The successful call rate, normal drop rate and hand-over drop rate are used to achieve a measurement of the overall call quality. Call quality with respect to bundles of 10 calls is proposed. An attempt is made to visualize these parameters for better understanding of where the quality is bad, good and excellent. This will help operators, as well as user groups, to measure quality and coverage. Operators boast about their bandwidth but in reality, to know the locations where speed has to be improved, they need a tool that can effectively measure speed from the end-user's perspective. BM (bandwidth meter), a tool developed as a part of this research, measures the average speed of data sessions and stores the information for analysis at different locations. To address issues of quality in the subscriber segment, this research proposes the varying of tariffs based on call and bandwidth quality. Call charging based on call quality as perceived by the end-user is proposed, both to satisfy subscribers and help operators to improve customer satisfaction and increase average revenue per user. Tariff redemption procedures are put forward for bundles of 10 calls and 10 data sessions. In addition to the varying of tariffs, quality escalation processes are proposed. Deploying such tools on selected or random samples of users will result in substantial improvement in user loyalty which, in turn, will bring operational and economic advantages.