Thesis (M.Eng.Sc.)--University of Western Australia, 2007.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-35).

M.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) / In this study, the problem of correcting burst of adjacent deletions by adapting product codes was investigated. The first step in any digital transmission is to establish synchronization between the sending and receiving nodes. This initial synchronization ensures that the receiver samples the information bits at the correct interval. Unfortunately synchronization is not guaranteed to last for the entire duration of data transmission. Though synchronization errors rarely occur, it has disastrous effects at the receiving end of transmission. These synchronization errors are modelled as either insertions or deletions in the transmitted data. In the best case scenario, these errors are restricted to single bit errors. In the worst case scenario, these errors lead to bursts of bits being incorrect. If these synchronization errors are not detected and corrected, it can cause a shift in the transmitted sequence which in turn leads to loss of synchronization. When a signal is subjected to synchronization errors it is difficult accurately recover the original data signal. In addition to the loss of synchronization, the information transmitted over the channel is also subjected to noise. This noise in the channel causes inversion errors within the signal. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate if an error correction scheme can be designed that has the ability to detect and correct adjacent bursts of deletions and random inversion errors. This error correction scheme needed to make use of a product code matrix structure. This product matrix needed to incorporate both an error correction and synchronization technique. The chosen error correcting techniques were Hamming and Reed-Solomon codes. The chosen synchronization techniques for this project were the marker technique or an adaptation of the Hamming code technique. In order to find an effective model, combinations of these models were simulated and compared. From the research obtained and analyzed in this document it was found that, depending on the desired performance, complexity and code rate, an error correction scheme can be used in the efficient correction of bursts of adjacent deletions by adapting product codes.

Various multiuser schemes have been proposed to efficiently utilize the available bandwidth while ensuring an acceptable service delivery and flexibility. The multicarrier CDMA became an attractive solution to the major challenges confronting the wireless communication system. However, the scheme is plagued with multiple access interference (MAI), which causes conspicuous performance deterioration at the receiver. A low-complexity multiuser scheme called the Interleave Division Multiple Access (IDMA) was proposed recently as a capable solution to the drawback in the multicarrier CDMA scheme. A combined scheme of OFDM-IDMA was later introduced to enhance the performance of the earlier proposed IDMA scheme. The multicarrier IDMA scheme therefore combats inter-symbol interference (ISI) and MAI effectively over multipath with low complexity while ensuring a better cellular performance, high diversity order, and spectral efficiency. Major studies on the OFDM-IDMA scheme emphasis only on the implementation of the scheme in a perfect scenario, where there are no synchronization errors in the system. Like other multicarrier schemes, the OFDM-IDMA scheme however suffers from carrier frequency offset (CFO) errors, which is inherent in the OFDM technique. This research work therefore examines, and analyzes the effect of synchronization errors on the performance of the new OFDM-based hybrid scheme called the OFDM-IDMA. The design of the OFDM-IDMA system developed is such that the cyclic prefix duration of the OFDM component is longer than the maximum channel delay spread of the multipath channel model used. This effectively eliminates ISI as well as timing offsets in the system. Since much work has not been done hitherto to address the deteriorating effect of synchronization errors on the OFDM-IDMA system, this research work therefore focuses on the more challenging issue of carrier frequency synchronization at the uplink. A linear MMSE-based synchronization algorithm is proposed and implemented. The proposed algorithm is a non-data aided method that focuses on the mitigation of the ICI induced by the residual CFOs due to concurrent users in the multicarrier system. However, to obtain a better and improved system performance, the Kernel Least Mean Square (KLMS) algorithm and the normalized KLMS are proposed, implemented, and effectively adapted to combat the degrading influence of carrier frequency offset errors on the OFDM-IDMA scheme. The KLMS synchronization algorithm, which involves the execution of the conventional Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm in the kernel space, utilizes the modulated input signal in the implementation of the kernel function, thereby enhancing the efficacy of the algorithm and the overall output of the multicarrier system. The algorithms are applied in a Rayleigh fading multipath channel with varying mobile speed to verify their effectiveness and to clearly demonstrate their influence on the performance of the system in a practical scenario. Also, the implemented algorithms are compared to ascertain which of these algorithms offers a better and more efficient system performance. Computer simulations of the bit error performance of the algorithms are presented to verify their respective influence on the overall output of the multicarrier system. Simulation results of the algorithms in both slow fading and fast fading multipath scenarios are documented as well. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Parallel processing can provide the huge computational resources that are required to solve todays grand challenges, at a fraction of the cost of developing sequential machines of equal power. However, even with such attractive benefits the parallel software industry is still very small compared to its sequential counterpart. This has been attributed to the lack of an accepted parallel model of computation, therefore leading to software which is architecture dependent with unpredictable performance. The Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model provides a solution to these problems and can be compared to the Von Neumann model of sequential computation. In this thesis we investigate the issues involved in providing a modular programming environment based on the BSP model. Using our results we present Opal, a BSP programming language that has been designed for parallel programming-in-the-large. While other BSP languages and libraries have been developed, none of them provide support for libraries of parallel algorithms. A library mechanism must be introduced into BSP without destroying the existing cost model. We examine such issues and show that the active library mechanism of Opal leads to algorithms which still have predictable performance. If algorithms are to retain acceptable levels of performance across a range of machines then they must be able to adapt to the architecture that they are executing on. Such adaptive algorithms require support from the programming language, an issue that has been addressed in Opal. To demonstrate the Opal language and its modular features we present a number of example algorithms. Using an Opal compiler that has been developed we show that we can accurately predict the performance of these algorithms. The thesis concludes that by using Opal it is possible to program the BSP model in a modular fashion that follows good software engineering principles. This enables large scale parallel software to be developed that is architecture independent, has predictable performance and is adaptive to the target architecture.

This thesis presents an analysis of the Modified Cramer Rao Bound (MCRB) for synchroniser performance in burst mode communication applications. This is accomplished by introducing the topic of burst mode communications and its practical applications, discussing the importance of synchronisation, presenting a model through which the mathematical analysis of this thesis is based upon, deriving a set of equations which can be used to calculate the MCRB and finally by performing various calculations of the MCRB with different parameters to examine their effects on the MCRB. The methods presented in this thesis are different from those presented in existing literature, which generally do not address the issue of burst mode synchronisation directly. The differences between the methods presented in this thesis and those of existing literature is also discussed.

Thesis (MScEng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Due to ever evolving wireless communication standards and technologies, the need for more flexible radio terminals are becoming more sought after in order to adapt to these new standards. Software-defined radio offers a solution to this demand. Software-defined radio is a radio communication system where signal processing components that have typically been implemented in hardware are replaced by reconfigurable and re-useable software modules running on a digital processor. The need exists to rapidly create new SDR applications without designing an entire system from the ground up, and without specialised knowledge of the target platform. This thesis initially describes the design of a generic SDR architecture that is highly reconfigurable and promotes a high level of code re-use. The research forms part of a larger project to design a domain-specific language (DSL) in which to describe SDR functionality in a platform-independent way. In this thesis, the code synthesis from the DSL is extended to support the Freescale DSP563xx family.

Parents and children increasingly spend time living apart due to marital separation and work travel. I investigated parent--child separation in both of these contexts to find that current technologies frequently do not meet the needs of families. The telephone is easy-to-use and ubiquitous but does not provide an engaging way of communicating with children. Videochat is more emotionally expressive and has a greater potential for engagement but is difficult to set up and cannot be used by a child without the help of an adult. Both telephone and videochat fail to meet the needs of remote parenting because they focus on conversation rather than care and play activities, which are the mechanism by which parents and children build closeness. I also saw that in both types of separation the motivation to connect at times conflicted with desire to reduce disruption of the remote household. To address some of these issues, I designed a system called the ShareTable, which provides easy-to-initiate videochat with a shared tabletop activity space. After an initial lab-based evaluation confirmed the promise of this approach, I deployed the ShareTable to four households (two sets of divorced families). I collected data about the families' remote interactions before and during the deployment. Remote communication more than doubled for each of these families while using the ShareTable and I saw a marked increase in the number of communication sessions initiated by the child. The ShareTable provided benefits over previous communication systems and supported activities that are impossible with other currently available technologies. One of the biggest successes of the system was in providing an overlapped video space that families appropriated to communicate metaphorical touch and a sense of closeness. However, the ShareTable also introduced a new source of conflict for parents and challenged the families as they tried to develop practices of using the system that would be acceptable to all involved. The families' approach to these challenges as well as explicit feedback about the system informs future directions for synchronous communication systems for separated families.

A Distributed Shared Memory(DSM) system consists of several computers that share a memory area and has no global clock. Therefore, an ordering of events in the system is necessary. Synchronization is a mechanism for coordinating activities between processes, which are program instantiations in a system.

Family conversation between homes is difficult to initiate at mutually agreeable times as neither participant has exact knowledge of the other's activities or intentions. Whether calling to plan an important family gathering or simply to connect with family members, the question is: Is now a good time to call? People expect friends and family to learn their activity patterns and to minimize interruptions when calling. Can technology provide awareness cues to the caller, even prior to the initiation of the call? This research focuses on sampling the everyday activities of home life to determine environmental factors, which may serve as an indicator for availability. These external factors may be effective for identifying household routines of availability and useful in determining when to initiate conversation across homes. Several workplace studies have shown a person's interruptibility can be reliably assessed and modeled from specific environmental cues; this work looks for similar predictive power in the home. Copresence, location, and activity in the home were investigated as correlates to availability and for their effectiveness within the social protocol of family conversation. These studies indicate there are activities that can be sensed, either in real-time or over some time span, that correlate to self-reported availability. However, the type and amount of information shared is dependent upon individual preferences, social accessibility, and patterns of activities. This research shows friends and family can improve their predictions of when to call if provided additional context, and suggests that abstract representations of either routines or explicit availability status is sufficient and may be preferred by providers. Availability prediction is feasible in the home and useful to those outside the home, but the level of detail to provide in particular situations needs further study. This work has implications for the development of groupware systems, the automatic sensing of activity to deal with interruption, and activity recognition in the home.