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La tendance actuelle dans le domaine des télécommunications mène à des systèmes capables de fonctionner selon plusieurs standards, et donc plusieurs fréquences porteuses. La synthèse de la fréquence porteuse est un élément clef, dont les propriétés reposent essentiellement sur les performances de l’oscillateur employé. Pour assurer le fonctionnement de systèmes compatibles avec plusieurs standards de télécommunication, la solution conventionnelle consiste à intégrer plusieurs oscillateurs locaux. Cette solution est coûteuse, d’autant plus que, malgré le fait que les technologies actuelles atteignent des niveaux d’intégration très importants, la surface occupée par des oscillateurs traditionnels de type LC ne peut pas être diminuée, alors que le coût de fabrication au millimètre carré devient de plus en plus élevé. Il serait donc très intéressant de remplacer les oscillateurs LC, ce qui nous amène à rechercher des solutions alternatives parmi de nouvelles technologies. L’oscillateur spintronique (STO) est un nouveau dispositif issu des études sur les couches minces magnétiques. Il apparait comme un candidat potentiel de remplacement des oscillateurs LC du fait de sa grande accordabilité en fréquence et de son faible encombrement. Toutefois des mesures effectuées sur les STOs ont montré que la performance en puissance et en bruit de phase d’un oscillateur seul ne permet pas de remplir les spécifications pour des applications de télécommunication. Nous proposons de remplir ces spécifications en couplant un nombre d’oscillateurs spintroniques important. Dans ce cadre se posent plusieurs questions qui concernent les procédures de modélisation, d’analyse et de synthèse des systèmes interconnectés. Les procédures de modélisation incluent la démarche de recherche de modèles à complexité croissante qui décrivent les propriétés entrée-sortie d’un oscillateur spintronique, ainsi que la démarche de généralisation des modèles des oscillateurs dans le cadre du réseau. Les procédures d’analyse cherchent à vérifier la stabilité et évaluer la performance des systèmes interconnectés. Les procédures de synthèse permettent de concevoir des interconnexions sophistiquées pour les oscillateurs afin d’assurer toutes les spécifications du cahier des charges. Dans ce document, nous établissons tout d’abord le problème de la synthèse de fréquence par couplage avec un cahier des charges formalisé en termes de gabarits fréquentiels sur des densités spectrales de puissance. Le cahier des charges posé amène la nécessité de modéliser l’oscillateur spintronique pour pouvoir simuler et analyser son comportement. Ici, nous proposons une modélisation originale selon des degrés de complexité croissante. Ensuite, nous discutons de la structure de la commande de l’ensemble des oscillateurs afin de remplir les spécifications du cahier des charges. La structure de commande proposée nécessite de développer une méthode de conception des interconnexions du réseau d’après les critères de performance. Dans les deux derniers chapitres, nous proposons deux méthodes fréquentielles de synthèse originales pour résoudre le problème de synthèse de fréquence par couplage. La première méthode de synthèse permet de prendre en compte un critère mathématique du cahier des charges, qui correspond à un gabarit fréquentiel à respecter, et permet d’obtenir une matrice d’interconnexion des sous-systèmes, telle que le module de la réponse fréquentielle du réseau approxime le gabarit imposé par le cahier des charges. La deuxième méthode de synthèse permet de prendre en compte plusieurs gabarits fréquentiels à la fois. La solution obtenue est une matrice d’interconnexion des sous-systèmes, qui résout le problème de la synthèse de fréquence par couplage d’oscillateurs spintroniques. / The current trends in telecommunication are leading to systems that are compatible with multiple standards and consequently multiple carrier frequencies. The frequency synthesis is a key element influenced by the local oscillator performance. In order to ensure the system compatibility with multiple telecommunication standards, the conventional solution consists in using one local oscillator for each standard. This solution is expensive, even more, since the cost per squared millimetre is increasing, while the silicon area occupied by the traditional LC-tank oscillators cannot be reduced in spite of the fact that technology is going to higher integration levels. Thus, it should be interesting to find a substitution to the LC-tank oscillators which leads to research for alternative solutions among new technologies. The spin torque oscillator (STO) is a new device issued from the ferromagnetic thin-film research. Due to its frequency accord ability and its capability to occupy relatively small volume, it appears as a potential candidate for the LC-tank oscillator replacement. However, a set of measurements prove that these devices exhibit poor power and phase noise performance, making them unable to fulfill the technical specification of the radiofrequency applications. We propose to reach these specifications by coupling of a large number of spin torque oscillators. In this scope, numerous questions appear regarding the procedures of modelling, analysis and synthesis of the complex interconnected systems. The modelling procedures are dedicated to the increasing complexity models that describe the input-output behaviour of a spin torque oscillator and its behaviour within the interconnected network. The analysis procedures are targeted to verify the stability and to evaluate the performance level of the interconnected systems. The synthesis procedures allow to design the interconnection law for spin torque oscillators in order to fulfill the technical requirements. In this document, the frequency synthesis problem by spin torque oscillator coupling with technical specification description in terms of power spectral densities is established. The formulated specifications introduce the problem of the oscillator modelling in order to perform a simulation and an analysis of the oscillator behaviour. Here, we propose an original model using several conventional models with increasing complexity. An original oscillator network model that describes qualitative properties of the oscillator synchronisation is introduced. Afterwards, the control law architecture for an oscillator set is established in order to accomplish the technical requirement specifications. The suggested control architecture needs to be developed with quantitative systematic and efficient design method for the network interconnection taking into account the formulated performance criteria. In the last two chapters we propose two original frequency domain design methods allowing the resolution of our frequency synthesis problem. The first design method allows to consider explicitly a performance criterium corresponding toa desired frequency constraint. The method allows to obtain a suitable sub-system interconnection matrix that fits the frequency specification constraint. The second design method allows to find an interconnection matrix and to take into account simultaneously several frequency specification constraints. The interconnection matrix obtained with the proposed method solves the problem of frequency synthesis by coupling of spin torque oscillators.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been widely deployed in developmental programs and this has lead to the creation of a new field – ICT for Development (ICT4D). Within the context of ICT4D, various e-services are being developed, including e-Commerce, e-Government, e-Health and e-Judiciary. ICT4D projects allow Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) in rural areas to increase sales and gain a market share in the global market. However, many of these ICT4D projects do not succeed, because they fail to bring enough financial value to SMMEs due to the form they currently have. An obvious example is e-Commerce, which should be a source of revenue for business organizations, but most often is not. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a rewarding and negotiation application for a shopping portal to improve the marketing of products for rural entrepreneurs. The shopping portal has been set up for the Dwesa community, a marginalized area in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The proposed system, called the Dwesa Rewarding Program (DRP) enables customers buying online to get points for some of the activities carried out on the shopping portal. It also allows customers to negotiate and make offers whilst purchasing and get rewarded for buying online. The novelty of the system is in its flexibility and adaptability. One achievement of this system is the establishment of negotiation rules which allows fairness in rewarding customers. This should in turn lead to increased sales on the e-Commerce platform in marginalized areas and subsequently increased effectiveness of ICT4D for socio-economic development

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<p>The introduction of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to speech recognition applications has sparked the rapid development and popularization of digital assistants. These digital assistants perform keyword spotting (KWS), constantly monitoring the audio captured by a microphone for a small set of words or phrases known as keywords. Upon recognizing a keyword, a larger audio recording is saved and processed by a separate, more complex neural network. More broadly, neural networks in speech recognition have popularized voice as means of interacting with electronic devices, sparking an interest in individuals using speech recognition in their own projects. However, while large companies have the means to develop custom neural network architectures alongside proprietary hardware platforms, such development precludes those lacking similar resources from developing efficient and effective neural networks for embedded systems. While small, low-power embedded systems are widely available in the hobbyist space, a clear process is needed for developing a neural network that accounts for the limitations of these resource-constrained systems. In contrast, a wide variety of neural network architectures exists, but often little thought is given to deploying these architectures on edge devices. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This thesis first presents an overview of audio processing techniques, artificial neural network fundamentals, and machine learning tools. A summary of a set of specific neural network architectures is also discussed. Finally, the process of implementing and modifying these existing neural network architectures and training specific models in Python using TensorFlow is demonstrated. The trained models are also subjected to post-training quantization to evaluate the effect on model performance. The models are evaluated using metrics relevant to deployment on resource-constrained systems, such as memory consumption, latency, and model size, in addition to the standard comparisons of accuracy and parameter count. After evaluating the models and architectures, the process of deploying one of the trained and quantized models is explored on an Arduino Nano 33 BLE using TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers and on a Digilent Nexys 4 FPGA board using CFU Playground.</p>

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The end of the Twentieth Century and the start of the Twenty First Century has been a tumultuous time for the Telecommunications Industry. Even as it moves forward to embrace the new technologies the Industry finds itself embroiled in issues of governance. The Industry finds itself in a dilemma since innovations increase at a rate faster than the laws can be changed and these render its existing laws and policies to be in some cases obsolete and inappropriate for the reality of the present. In the past, the United States of America has relied on vertically integrated top down laws and methods of regulating all the different parts in its Telecommunications Industry. These laws are contained in the different numbered Titles of this Countrys Legal Codes. Since the inception of these laws, emphasis was placed in creating and documenting policies structured by industry, sector and type of content. This form of regulation is usually referred to as the Silo Method. However, in recent years, especially in the regulation of the Telephony industry, the method of law and rule formulation moved from content regulation to one in which the technologies are getting regulated in what has been described as a Layers Method. This paper first considered whether the Silo Method of regulation is in actuality the same as using the Horizontal Layers method and showed that this is the case. Then it determined that Enhanced Services are the same as Basic Services and that Telecommunications Services are the same as Information services and showed that given that the pair sets as noted were the same, it went on to conclude that all these services were essentially the same. While studying to some detail the technologies of VoIP, the paper also showed that VoIP although an Internet technology is similar to traditional telephony, and is both a Telecommunications Service and Information Service based on the definition as given in the law as well as the technologies that are used and that as a result of this, the current regulatory environment for this service with regards to telephony is inconsistent. It concluded that Telecommunications policies though now adequate may need to be modified.