The focus of this research is to investigate the effects of bursts of errors and packet collisions on the performance of the medium access control (MAC) portion of the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (LAN) protocol.An important ingredient in rapid expansion of wireless networks is the seamless transition between wired and wireless systems. The IEEE standards group in charge of developing the widely used IEEE 802.3 LAN standard has developed the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard. IEEE 802.11 remains hidden from the upper levels of the network, thus allowing a seamless transition between networks. The foundation protocol for the IEEE 802.11 standard, known as Distributed Foundation Wireless Medium Access Control (DFWMAC), operates at the MAC level of the Data Link Layer. The protocol bases its access control mechanism on a principle called Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA), which is an adaptation of the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol used by IEEE 802.3 standard. The collision avoidance scheme in CSMA/CA allows data packets to be transferred via the wireless medium with lower probability of packet collision. In a slotted multi-access wireless system, performance parameters are affected by the bit error rates on the communication channel. These errors occur as a result of noise introduced by the radio channel or data packet collisions. Collisions occur when two or more stations select the same time slot to transmit their data, thus causing corruption in data packets. In this research, a simulation model coded in Microsoft's Visual Basic programming environment is utilized to investigate the effects of bit errors and packet collisions on performance in CSMA/CA. Performance parameters used in this study include throughput, medium utilization, collisions and station data queue lengths. In the simulation model, error bursts in the communication channel are modeled using a simple Gilbert model with two states, good (G) and bad (B). State G is error free, thus errors can only occur while the model is in state B. Collisions are simulated by two or more stations starting to transmit data packets in the same time slot. Therefore, as the number of stations increases, more and more stations compete for the medium, resulting in an increase in the number of collisions. Collisions are also increased by the amount of traffic that each station introduces into the system. Station load is defined here as the number of data packets per unit time that are released by the higher network protocol layers.The results in Chapter 5 demonstrate that higher network throughput can be achieved when the aggregate load on the network is distributed. For example, 30 stations offering 20 kilobits per second (kbps) of load for a total of 600 kpbs, results in a network throughput of 585 kbps. However, three stations offering 200 kbps of load for a total of 600 kbps offered load, results in a network throughput of 486 kbps. The distributed load is serviced at a 17 percent higher rate. However, once the network becomes saturated at above 40 stations for this model, collisions will more than offset the performance gains produced by the distribution of load.Furthermore, reducing the packet size by 50 percent under an approximately 19.5 percent packet error rate results in a 12 percent gain in throughput. This is primarily due to higher utilization of the network by shorter packets. However, as the packet error rate is reduced, the performance gap between the two packet sizes is reduced. Once the errors are removed completely from the communications channel, the longer packets produce a higher throughput than the shorter packets. / Master of Science

The growth of broadband Internet access has paved the way for the development of many newer existing technologies. As the costs of implementing broadband access soar, the best alternative will be to use wireless technologies. At a carrier frequency of about 28 GHz, the potential benefits of Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS) will eventually outweigh those of its current competitors in the wired market. Since the rural communities will reap the most benefits from this technology due to its low costs, studies on the channel behavior and terrain relationships must be done. This thesis aims to provide a preliminary study on the effects of propagating an LMDS signal over a lake surface. Currently, there is not enough information to prove the feasibility of deploying an LMDS system for this terrain. Some background on the technology and rough surface theory is provided for the reader to better understand the environment that is being investigated. Simulation results are presented as a guide to assist future researchers to conduct a field measurement campaign. A block diagram of a potential measurement system is also provided to aid in the development of the tools necessary for the measurement of an actual channel. / Master of Science

Joining of dissimilar metals is a process that is of interest in many fields, especially the automotive industry where lightweighting of the body structure is important. However, creating strong joints between dissimilar metals can be challenging. Friction bit joining (FBJ) is a solid-state method that uses a consumable bit to create a strong joint between dissimilar metals such as aluminum and steel. The purpose of this research is to gain understanding of how adjusting FBJ parameters affects the heating and pressure at the weld interface using a modeling approach, in order to better understand the bonding process. The questions guiding this research are: (1) What is the effect of spindle speed, plunge rate, and plunge depth on joint strength? (2) Can the proposed model be developed with enough fidelity to correlate the effect of these parameters on joint strength, within 10%? (3) What is the effect of the simulated vertical load profile on heating at the interface? (4) Does the load profile/heating relationship correlate to experimental joint strength to within 10%? A design of experiments approach found that the effect of spindle speed on joint strength is significant. Plunge rate did not have a significant effect, but the interaction between plunge rate and spindle speed was significant. A model was created, and multiple simulations were run to study these interactions. Initial simulations were run based on the input parameters used for the experiments. The simulation data was used to run a full second order regression was run which found that spindle speed had a significant effect on the experimental Z load. The data also revealed that spindle speed and plunge rate have a strong correlation between bonded area and temperature. Simulated versus experimental Z loads have a good correlation. Experimental bonded area had a slight correlation to joint strength trending in the correct direction. The shape of the simulated cross section did not fully match the experimental cross sections but was reasonable. Simulated bonded area and experimental bonded area also have a positive correlation. Despite some weaknesses, the current model does appear to be predictive enough that it can provide insight into other FBJ design configurations and material combinations in terms of temperature profiles and welding loads.

<p> In the past, analog circuits, discrete digital logic circuits or minicomputers have been used to implement the signal processing section of a sonar systems. More recently, microprocessor based logic circuit designs have produced a new breed of system design approach which gives designers the flexibility that has never been available through the use of analog or discrete logic circuits; however, due to the inherent slow speed of the metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) logic circuits, incorporating microprocessors in the implementation of a sonar signal processor is not feasible. With the advent of bipolar Schottky large scale integrated circuit technology, the speed performance of the microprocessors have been improved considerably, and signal processor designs employing microprocessors are now feasible. </p> <p> The main objective of this work is to design, implement, and test a real-time digital sonar signal processor for processing pulsed CW signals. With design based on the use of the bit slice microprocessor, a signal processor has been constructed that has an 8 bit input, a 16 bit output. The processor is capable of detecting 16 different Doppler shifts. Laboratory generated signals are used in the testing and the experimental results show good agreement with the theory. A possible means of expanding the existing single channel signal processor into a multichannel processor has also been outlined. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

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<p> The goal of this thesis is the development of a computationally-efficient coded system that enables communication over the non-coherent Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) fiat-fading wireless channel at high data rates. The proposed signalling technique applies the principles of Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) with Iterative Demapping and Decoding (IDD) to non-coherent MIMO communication systems. </p> <p> The principle of BICM is applied to a constellation that mimics the non-coherent capacity achieving distribution at high signal to noise ratios. The capacity achieving distribution is in the form of isotropically distributed unitary matrices, and the constellation can be represented by points on a Grassmannian manifold. A mapping technique that exploits the Grassmannian geometry is proposed. This mapping technique is based on the partitioning of the constellation into two subsets. The Grassmannian geometry also gives rise to an efficient list-based demapping algorithm that substantially reduces the computational complexity of the receiver while incurring some degradation in performance. For example, at a bit error rate (BER) of 10-4 the signal to noise ratio (SNR) performance degradation with respect to full constellation demapping is approximately 1. 75 dB. A technique by which the decoder can augment the demapping list is proposed, and it is shown that the performance degradation of the efficient algorithm can be rendered insignificant (approximately 0.2 dB at a BER of 10-4). </p> <p> Finally, the performance of the proposed BICM-IDD using the Grassmannian constellation will be compared to that of a corresponding training-based BICM-IDD scheme. These simulations show that the proposed scheme can provide better performance at high data rates; e.g., for a data rate of 5/3 bits per channel use, the performance gap is almost 1 dB at BER of 10^(-4). </p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)