Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Max Wolff Hauser. / M.S.

Low size, low power, and wearable bio-signal recording systems require acquisition front-ends with high common-mode rejection for interference suppression and adjustable gain to provide an optimum signal level to a cascading analog-to-digital stage. This thesis presents the realization of microcontroller operated double-differential (DD) recording setup with automatic gain control (AGC) and automatic balance control, which can adjust the magnitude of recorded bio-potential signal to a target level and reject common-mode interference for full-bandwidth recording without filtering. Microcontroller code realizes the automatic control method of gain and balance adjustment by detecting, computing, and varying parameters to set timing clock pulses, which determine the gain magnitude and balance state. The automatic balance control compensates for imbalance in electrode interface impedance. The double-differential amplifier is implemented using two integrated variable gain amplifiers (ASIC) and one adder. Measured results of the variable gain amplifiers fabricated in 0.35 £gm CMOS technology show an input spot noise of 169 nV/¡ÔHz, a NEF below 10, and a circuit active area of 0.017 mm2 with a power consumption of 1.44 £gW. Measured results of the double-differential amplifier setup confirm interference suppression of 25.7 dB, tunable gain range of 39.6 dB, and 239 nV/¡ÔHz noise assuming ¡Ó10% interface mismatch. Practical measured examples incorporating the chips confirm gain control suitable for bio-potential recording and interference suppression in a balanced DD arrangement for electrocardiogram and electromyogram recording.

The mammalian brain is a complex computing system that contains billions of neurons and trillions of connections. Is there a general principle that governs the processing in such large neural populations? This dissertation attempts to address this question using computational modeling and quantitative analysis of direct physiological measurements of large neural populations in the monkey primary visual cortex (V1). First, the complete spatiotemporal dynamics of V1 responses over the entire region that is activated by small stationary stimuli are characterized quantitatively. The dynamics of the responses are found to be systematic but complex. Importantly, they are inconsistent with many popular computational models of neural processing. Second, a simple population gain control (PGC) model that can account for these complex response properties is proposed for the small stationary stimuli. The PGC model is then used to predict the responses to stimuli composed of two elements and stimuli that move at a constant speed. The predictions of the model are consistent with the measured responses in V1 for both stimuli. PGC is the first model that can account for the complete spatiotemporal dynamics of V1 population responses for different types of stimuli, suggesting that gain control is a general mechanism of neural processing. / text

Šis darbas yra apie įrenginį, kuris siaurina garsinio signalo dinaminį diapazoną. Darbe lyginami automatinio stiprinimo reguliavimo metodai, bei jų taikymai pramoniniuose garso kompresoriuose. Ieškoma būdų šiuos įrenginius patobulinti. / This article is about apparatus that intentionally reduces the dynamic range of audio signals. The goal is to compare methods of automatic gain reduction, talk their implementation in industry standard hardware compressors and look for possible circuit modifications.

The human visual system is tasked with transforming variations in light within our environment into a coherent percept, typically described using properties such as luminance and contrast. The experiments described in this dissertation examine how the human visual cortex responds to each of these stimulus properties at the population-level, and explores the degree to which contrast adaptation can alter these response properties. The first set of experiments (Chapter 2) demonstrate how saturating sigmoidal contrast response functions can be captured using human fMRI by leveraging sustained contrast adaptation to reduce the heterogeneity of response profiles across neural populations. The results obtained using this methodology have the potential to rectify the qualitatively different findings reported across visual neuroscience, when comparing electrophysiological and population-based neuroimaging measures. The second set of experiments (Chapter 3) demonstrate how under certain conditions a well-established visuocortical response property, contrast response, can also reflect luminance encoding, challenging the idea that luminance information plays no significant role in supporting visual perception. Specifically, these results show that the mean luminance information of a visual signal persists within visuocortical representations, even after controlling for pupillary dynamics, and potentially reflects an inherent imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory components. The final set of experiments (Chapter 4) examine how the time course of population activity during initial periods of adaptation differs across seemingly slightly different adapter conditions. The degree to which stimulus adapter orientation bias (radial vs. concentric orientation) or stimulus adapter luminance (2409 cd/m2 vs. 757.3 cd/m2) can alter adaptation time course dynamics is examined in detail, as well as investigating the prevalence of any retinotopic bias. In an effort to coalesce the findings across all three chapters, the shape and efficacy of the initial adaptation time course is ultimately compared against the contrast and luminance response function parameters reported in previous chapters. As a whole, the findings reported in this dissertation challenge some common assumptions about how the early human visual cortex adjusts and responds to the environment, provide methodological tools and stimulus design caveats vision neuroscientists will need to consider, and play a significant role in cortical models of vision.

No description available.

No description available.

We consider the problem of designing a wide-band digital receiver for an Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) cellular system, and the associated problem of choosing an appropriate Analog-to-Digital (ADC) converter. The probability density function of the voltage across a cellular receiving antenna is shown to be dependent on various cellular parameters. These parameters include mobile transmit power, mobile distance from the base station, mobile transmit frequency, and transmitting and receiving antenna characteristics. Given a high-resolution, wideband, uniform and symmetric quantizer, optimal gain factors are computed for uniformly-, sinusoidally- and normally-distributed input signals. These gain factors maximize the quantizer's Signal-to-Quantization Noise Ratio (SQNR) in a mean-square sense. Together, these techniques can be used to implement an adaptive Automatic Gain Control for cellular communications. Results from a comprehensive AMPS base station simulation will also be discussed in detail. These results illustrate several design tradeoff's including Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (CNR), system loading and quantizer resolution. / Master of Science

In cellular and personal communications services (PCS) systems based on code division multiple access (CDMA), a pilot signal is used on the forward link for synchronization, coherent detection, soft handoff, maintaining orthogonality between base stations, and, in the future, position location. It is critical that the percentage of power allocated to the pilot signal transmitted by each base station be fixed properly to ensure the ability of the CDMA network to support subscriber demand. This thesis reports on the design and implementation of a prototype receiver for measuring pilot signals in CDMA PCS systems. Since the pseudonoise (PN) signal of the pilot channel is a priori information, the receiver searches for pilot signals by digitally correlating the received signal with this known, locally generated pilot signal. By systematically changing the phase of this locally generated pilot signal, the receiver scans the received signal to identify all possible signs of pilot signal activity. Large values of correlation indicate the presence of a pilot signal at the particular phase of the locally generated pilot signal. The receiver can also detect multipath components of the pilot signal transmitted from a given base station. One issue associated with this receiver is its ability to keep the signal power within the dynamic range of the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter at its input. This necessitated the design of an automatic gain control (AGC) mechanism, which is digitally implemented in this receiver. Simulation studies were undertaken to assist in the design and implementation of the pilot signal scanning receiver. These simulations were used to quantify how various non-idealities related to the radio frequency (RF) front-end and A/D converter adversely affect the ability of the digital signal processing algorithms to detect and measure pilot signals. Because the period of the pilot signal is relatively long, methods were developed to keep the receiver's update period as small as possible without compromising its detection ability. Furthermore, the high sampling rate required strains the ability of the digital logic to produce outputs at a rate commensurate with real-time operation. This thesis presents techniques that allow the pilot signal scanning receiver to achieve real-time operation. These techniques involve the judicious use of partial correlations and windowing the received signal to decrease the transfer rate from the A/D converter to the digital signal processor. This thesis provides a comprehensive discussion of these and other issues associated with the actual hardware implementation of the pilot signal scanning receiver. / Master of Science

Visando atender a massificação das tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TIC) por meio de um aproveitamento mais eficiente da infra-estrutura de fibras ópticas, as redes ópticas DWDM vem passando por significativa evolução de capacidade, com base no uso de formatos de modulação avançados, para canais operando em taxas de 100 Gb/s e superiores, bem como no emprego de topologias dinâmicas e reconfiguráveis. Estas redes ópticas de nova geração impõe novos requisitos de desempenho aos amplificadores ópticos. Especificamente, as características dinâmicas da rede tornam obrigatório o uso de esquemas de controle que assegurem estrita planicidade espectral de ganho enquanto o emprego de formatos de modulação avançados e de alta ordem requer margens mais estreitas em termos da relação sinal-ruído aceitável para detecção dos sinais recebidos. Neste contexto, esta tese propõe e avalia experimentalmente uma topologia de amplificação óptica híbrida Raman/EDFA, introduzindo um novo esquema de controle automático de ganho e apresentando desempenho superior aos amplificadores atualmente usados em redes DWDM reconfiguráveis. O amplificador óptico híbrido desenvolvido baseia-se em um estágio Raman distribuído contra-propagante, com excelente desempenho de figura de ruído (porém com baixa eficiência de conversão de bombeio em amplificação - PCE) seguido de um estágio EDFA, que assegura alta potência de saída, devido a sua elevada PCE. Ganho espectral plano foi obtido por meio de uma técnica de controle automático de ganho inovadora, baseada na atuação paralela e independente de duas malhas de controle automático de ganho, uma primeira aplicada ao estágio de amplificação Raman visando ganho-alvo variável com baixa variação espectral, enquanto outra malha de controle de ganho visa fornecer ganho alvo fixo ao estágio EDFA, com alta potência de saída. / Seeking to support the massive deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by means of a more efficient usage of the optical fiber infrastructure, DWDM optical networks have been undergoing a significant capacity evolution, by using advanced modulation formats for optical channels operating at data rates of 100 Gb/s and beyond, as well as by employing dynamic and reconfigurable network topologies. These new generation optical networks impose new performance benchmarks on the optical amplifiers. Specifically, the dynamic characteristics of the network make mandatory the deployment of control schemes which assure stringent optical gain spectral flatness while the usage of high-order advanced modulation formats translate into more strict margins of signal-to-noise ratios for the detected signals. In this context, this thesis proposes and experimentally evaluates an hybrid Raman/ EDFA optical amplifier topology, introducing a novel automatic gain control scheme and demonstrating improved performance over the optical amplifiers already in use in DWDM reconfigurable networks. The developed hybrid optical amplifier is based on a distributed counter-propagating Raman stage, displaying excellent noise figure performance (albeit presenting low conversion efficiency - PCE) followed by an EDFA stage, which assures high output power, due to its high PCE. Flat spectral gain was achieved by means of a novel gain control technique, based on the parallel and independently acting of two control schemes, the first applied over the Raman amplifying stage, aiming at a variable target gain and low spectral gain ripple, while the other seeks to attain a fixed target gain at the EDFA, assuring a high output power.