<p>The final goal of this document is the construction of multi-band terminal for the CVIS project to allow the communication among cars and between the cars and the roadside infrastructure. For the construction of this multi-band terminal, this document takes as starting point, a new compact disk antenna described in [1]. It consists in a circular patch antenna shorted by a central metallic post. This allows reducing the dimensions of a classical circular patch antenna so it is very useful for our application given that the terminal is going to be place on the top of a car and it should be small enough to be attractive for the final users. Specifically, we are going to analyze the behaviour of this kind of antenna when it radiates in the TM01 mode, because the radiation pattern of this mode is particularly interesting for the applications of the CVIS project. This document is divided into two main parts. In the first one, a study in depth of the behaviour of the antenna proposed in [1] was performed. Firstly, through an analytical model and afterward with the help of two simulation tools (WIPL-D and EMDS), we analyze the influence of the main parameters of the antenna (outer and inner radiuses, height, electrical permittivity and the position of the feed) on its properties (resonant frequency, bandwidth, entrance impedance, the shape of the radiation pattern and so on). A general methodology for the design of this kind of antennas was proposed, and it was put in practice with the design of a prototype for a band around 2 GHz. In addition to the conclusions about the influence of the different parameters of the antenna, another important conclusion was done. It was discovered that the use of the simulation tool WIPL-D Lite was not suitable for the simulation of this kind of antenna. In the second part, this document tackles the construction of a dual-frequency antenna for the bands of 2.4-2.484 GHz and 5.75-5.95 GHz. For this, the present document studies the possibility of stacking two compact circular patch antennas, so we put the one which covers the higher band (the smaller) on the top of the one which covers the lower band (the lager). The two patch antennas have a coaxial feed and the feed of the upper antenna goes inside the central post of the lower antenna to minimize the influence of it on the radiation pattern of the lower antenna. This proposal works out not to be feasible, because we need a lower antenna with a large inner radius to allow the variation of the feed position of the upper antenna in a wide range. This is necessary to get a good matching for the upper antenna. The problem is that the radiation pattern becomes very asymmetric when we increase the inner radius of the patch antenna. To solve that, two alternative were analyzed in this document. The first consists in putting a second feed symmetrically placed with respect to the central post. It leads to a more symmetric radiation pattern so we can choose a larger inner radius. In addition, the introduction of the second feed increases the bandwidth of the antenna. The second alternative is a simplification of the first one. It consists in replacing the upper antenna with a monopole on the top of the lower antenna. It is simpler but it prevents the possibility of stacking other patch antennas to cover more frequency bands in a future. Due to this disadvantage, the first alternative was chosen. Finally, a proposal based on the first alternative, which fulfils quite well all the requirements which were raised in the wording of this master thesis, was presented and studied in depth.</p>

<p>In the last two decades, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has had an increasing success in biomedical research. This technique has the faculty of discerning several metabolites in human tissue non-invasively and thus offers a multitude of medical applications. In clinical routine, quantification plays a key role in the evaluation of the different chemical elements. The quantification of metabolites characterizing specific pathologies helps physicians establish the patient's diagnosis. Estimating quantities of metabolites remains a major challenge in MRS. This thesis presents the implementation of a promising quantification algorithm called selective-frequency singular value decomposition (SELF-SVD). Numerous tests on simulated MRS data have been carried out to bring an insight on the complex dependencies between the various components of the data. Based on the test results, suggestions have been made on how best to set the SELF-SVD parameters depending on the nature of the data. The algorithm has also been tested for the first time with in-vivo 1H MRS data, in which SELF-SVD quantification results allow the localization of a brain tumor.</p>

<p>In this thesis we have evaluated the Quality of Experience (QoE) of Internet television through user tests of Absolutt Fotball. Absolutt Fotball is a Norwegian live football streaming service powered by adaptive streaming from Move Networks Inc. In our tests we found that the users rated the overall quality better than other Internet video services, such as Youtube, TV2 Sumo and NRK Nett-TV, but worse than football on TV. The main problems were coding artifacts, such as blurring, edge ringing and color bleeding, as well as problems with the smoothness of playback. Response time and adaptation period were in general satisfactory; all users preferred adaptive streaming with quick starts and no interruptions over traditional streaming with constant quality and buffering in the start and sometimes during sequences. The tests also revealed that factors other than video quality could have significance in the user’s overall QoE. Most notably was the delay from other live services, such as SMS updates, radio and live updates on the Internet. We also found in our analyses tendencies of content and context dependencies to the QoE. E.g. the result of a user’s favorite team, as well as his/her viewing environment, could have an impact on his/her perception of the quality. In order to improve the QoE the service provider should evaluate the encoding stage in particular. By increasing the bit rate of the encoding, many of the problems related to coding artifacts and smoothness of playback could be reduced. The client should be optimized with regards to adaptation period, response time and live-delay, however there is a compromise to be made with the robustness and reliability of the media player. The service provider can receive feedback on the QoE in three stages: 1. Full reference objective quality assessment at headend, such as VQM, 2. Bit rate statistics from the clients, and 3. An extended user profile and a QoE tool at user end. The proposed QoE tool in the form of a menu could include guides and tests related to user equipment and viewing environment, real-time feedback and support chat related to video quality problems, and service personalization in relation to quality/price and features. We found that controlling the QoE in Internet television is very difficult. QoE monitoring is however possible for the service provider, but a true end-to-end solution would require a better integration of client and user than is today.</p>

<p>This thesis is based on work done at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in the field of serious gaming. The motivation for the work is to create a serious game with the purpose of recruiting high school students that undertake studies at NTNU within engineering and science. After considerations of several available tools, Blender was chosen as the best development tool for this kind of game, and used to create "Student Quest - A First Person Student Game". The game analysis shows that the game's Primary Learning Principle is Marketing, the Primary Educational Content is Knowledge Gain through Exploration, the Target Age Group is Middle and High School, and it is developed for a Computer Platform. By extracting the fun factors, we conclude that the game passes the Playability threshold and reaches the Enjoyability threshold. By implementing the potential features suggested, the game may reach the Super Fun threshold and thus has the potential of becoming an extremely entertaining serious game.</p>

<p>This report will describe the simulation of a Wilkinson Power Divider, realised using lumped components to minimize its size. Every step in the process, from calculating the lumped component values to the final momentum s-parameter simulation is discussed. All relevant theory is described in the theory section. The main goal of this project is to produce the Wilkinson Power Divider using TriQuints 0.5 um TQPED process in as small area as possible. The response of the circuit should also be made as close as possible to the ideal Wilkinson Power Divider. An important additional goal is to learn to use a relevant high-frequency design tool (Agilent ADS) and to get a good understanding of MMIC technology, including the components used and various effects such as cross-talk. During the project a practical measurement on components produced using the TriQuint process will be done, which gives a good understanding of practical measurements using probe station and network analyzer. The final layout, that is arrived at in three steps from a regular Wilkinson Power Divider, should be ready for production, and shows good performance while occupying only a 403 um * 271 um area. The design is thoroughly simulated using Momentum simulation and compared to the ideal response. Any discrepancy between the two responses is explained and commented. All the measurements is compared to simulation results, and deviations between the two is pointed out, and the most probable causes of these are described.</p>

<p>Challenged by the LTE system, Mobile WiMAX is set to be the next generation broadband wireless system. Providing high data rates over large distances gives unlimited possibilities for services provided to the end users. As for all undeveloped systems, Mobile WiMAX has also been exposed to rumors and hypes. This thesis is based on the work performed in cite{prosjekt}, and aims to provide radio planning of a Mobile WiMAX network in the populated areas of Trondheim, Norway. Moreover, preparatory work and suggestions for field testing of the deployed system have been provided. The coverage prediction have been performed by using Astrix 5.0, the radio planning tool of Teleplan. A total of 32 base stations have been suggested to provide ubiquitous coverage of -94 dBm using 92 sectors within the $35.63 km^2$ large area. Furthermore, it has been recommended that fixed or nomadic users purchases the si-CPE or CPE PRO for better channel quality and throughput performances at indoor locations. In the preparatory phase prior to field testing, a python script has been created to perform automated performance testing. The reason for automating the performance measurements has been to increase the test efficiency, and to reduce the possibility of human errors in parameter setting, and file naming. This thesis will hopefully serve as a guide for future radio planners, where an Astrix user case, measurement scripts, and data processing codes are provided for revision and editing. The work has been performed on the initiative of Wireless Trondheim.</p>

<p>In this thesis the optimal transmission rate in ad hoc wireless networks is analyzed. The performance metric used in the analysis is probability of outage. In our system model, users/packets arrive randomly in space and time according to a Poisson point process, and are thereby transmitted to their intended destinations using either ALOHA or CSMA as the MAC protocol. Our model is based on an SINR requirement, i.e., the received SINR must be above some predetermined threshold value, for the whole duration of a packet, in order for the transmission to be considered successful. If this is not the case an outage has occurred. In order to analyze how the transmission rate affects the probability of outage, we assume packets of K bits, and let the packet duration, T, vary. The nodes in the network then transmit packets with a requested transmission rate of Rreq=K/T bits per second. We incorporate transmission rate into already existing lower bounds on the probability of outage of ALOHA and CSMA, and use these expressions to find the optimal packet duration that minimizes the probability of outage. For the ALOHA protocol, we derive an analytic expression for the optimal spectral efficiency of the network as a function of path loss, which is used to find the optimal packet duration Topt . For the CSMA protocol, the optimal packet duration is observed through simulations. We find that in order to minimize the probability of outage in our network, we should choose our system parameters such that our requested transmission rate divided by system bandwidth is equal to the optimal spectral efficiency of our network.</p>

<p>To make a double CubeSat with limited power resources capable of transmitting large amounts of data to Earth a high gain antenna is needed. In this thesis a switched beam MSA array operating at 5.84 GHz has been designed to operate on a double CubeSat. The array has 5 beams and uses a switched-line phase shifter to switch between beams. Three different array geometries has been proposed. Computer simulations suggest that the array should be capable of an effective beamwidth of over 60 degrees with a directivity of over 11 dBi. A feed network has been designed to fit the best suited geometry. A ground plane will separate the feed network from the antenna elements. Along with the full array solution all the sub parts has been realized as test circuits. This allows for an evaluation of their characteristics. A TRL calibration kit has also been designed so that the sub parts could be more accurately evaluated. When sending the circuits to fabrication it appeared to be a problem with the selected substrate used for the antenna elements. A redesign using the same substrate for the feed network and antennas was done and production commenced. As it turns out, the TRL calibration kit was not good enough so the S-parameters had to be measured with regular SOLT calibration. Significant problems with connection to ground and mismatches due to a poor SMA-to-microstrip transition was encountered. This caused large deviations between measured and simulated results. It was also discovered that the wrong dielectric constant had been used. This error caused the antenna elements to be dimensioned for operation at 5.70 GHz instead of 5.84 GHz. Problems was also encountered in the switched line phase shifter design. Beam-lead PIN-diodes has been used and due to their small size, a sufficient quality of the soldering was not achieved. This lead to different losses through the phase shifter which again caused the different beam directions to vary from simulations. Only one beam had characteristics similar to simulations. Measurements on the array without phase shifters showed good correspondence with simulation results (adjusted for the correct dielectric constant). It is concluded that by making a better SMA-to-microstrip transition, improve the soldering work and do a redesign with the correct dielectric constant, the array configuration should work as outlined in the design process.</p>

<p>More to come</p>

<p>The main goal of this thesis is to present two good alternatives for the HDL+ protocol proposed for ratification in STANAG 4538, as this partially is restricted by a patent claims. The HDL+ protocol is used as a starting point, and in order to accommodate for the patented parts, the adaptive process is altered, and the code combining process is removed for the highest rate. For simplifying the comparison between the performance of the proposed protocols, and the HDL+, both proposed protocols is simulated in a MATLAB environment, over the same channels as Harris has presented the throughput capabilities of the HDL+. These channels include the AWGN, single tap channel with flat fading, the ITU-MLD channel, and the ITU-MLD channel with Long- and Intermediate- Time SNR variations. By analyzing the results, it is clear that the current implementation of the proposed protocols does not achieve as high throughput as the HDL+, but there are indications that there is potential for better results if further development is performed.</p>