The design, test and implementation of a custom Ethernet card for embedded microcontrollers is described. The development of this Ethernet card is an educational effort to understand the various intricacies involved in constructing an Ethernet solution for embedded microcontrollers. The secondary motivation is to research the areas of the design can be ruggedized for high temperature and pressure applications. This report covers in detail the overall effort to which Henry Chang contributed. / text

This diploma thesis deals with analysis, modeling and simulation of the IEEE 802.11af wireless communication system on the physical layer. When designing the solution, it is necessary to understand in details the features and specifics of the IEEE 802.11af system. The work is primarily describes the transmitting part of the communication system with emphasis on processing IEEE 802.11af signal. Subsequently the block diagram and the basic model are created for the transmitting and receiving parts in SISO and MISO broadcast modes. The model is implemented with graphical user interface in the MATLAB programming environment. This application is used to explore the features and performance of the IEEE 802.11af based on its system parameters. System parameters are user configurable what allows to simulate different scenarios. The application also supports simulation of fading channel.

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá analýzou, návrhem a simulací modelu fyzické vrstvy bezdrátového komunikačního systému IEEE 802.11af. V práci je především popsána vysílací část komunikačního systému s důrazem na zpracování IEEE 802.11af signálu. Následně je vytvořeno blokové schéma a model pro vysílací a přijímací části ve vysílacích módech SISO a MIMO. Model je realizován s grafickým uživatelským rozhraním v programovém prostředí MATLAB. Vytvořená aplikace slouží k prozkoumání vlastností IEEE 802.11af modelu na základě jeho systémových parametrů. Systémové parametry jsou volitelné uživatelem a aplikace poskytuje možnost simulace různých přenosových scénářů.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / IEEE 802.11e is an amendment of the medium-access control (MAC) layer of the standard for wireless local area networking IEEE 802.11. The goal of 802.11e is to provide 802.11 networks with Quality of Service (QoS). 802.11 has three physical layers (PHY) of practical importance: 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g. 802.11a and 802.11g provide data rates between 6 and 54 Mbps, and 802.11b provides data rates of 5.5 Mbps and 11 Mbps. However these data rates are not the actual throughput. The actual throughput that a user will experience will be lower. The throughput depends on both the PHY and MAC layers. It is important to estimate what exactly is the throughput when the physical layer is 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g, and the MAC layer is 802.11e. In other words, how does providing QoS change the throughput for each of the three physical layers? In this paper we provide answers to this problem. Analytic formulae are derived. The maximum achievable throughput and minimum delay involved in data transfers are determined. The obtained results have further significance for the design of high-throughput wireless protocols.

<p>Wireless and mobile systems play an increasingly important role in our lives. Fueled by an array of innovative services and applications, mobile data traffic is surging rapidly. Traditionally, wireless traffic growth is met by acquiring new spectrum. However, wireless spectrum demand is soon going to surpass it's availability. Thus, there is an urgent need for major innovations in wireless network architecture, so that our spectrum utilization can achieve its full potential. Motivated by this problem, we explore an alternative design of physical layer aware wireless systems.</p><p>Typical approaches towards improving wireless performance is confined within the physical (PHY) or link layers of the networking stack, providing only partial so- lutions. In this thesis, we advocate to consider the entire network architecture holis- tically. We show how rich PHY layer information can be utilized to address existing challenges in wireless networking - contention resolution, rate control, interference management, etc. We design, implement, and experimentally evaluate protocols to understand network-wide implications of PHY-aware systems. We also pursue the observation that PHY layer not only encode bits but also contain rich information about the ambience, and hence can be viewed as a sensor. This sensing informa- tion can be further coupled with other phone sensors, thereby benefitting pervasive mobile services and applications. We demonstrate how this synergy can contribute towards designing precise indoor localization systems, an important building block for next generation mobile applications.</p> / Dissertation

The branching or tillering of crops is an important agronomic trait with a major impact on yield. Maintaining an appropriate number of branches allows the plant to use limited light resources and to produce biomass or yield more effectively. The branching process includes the initiation of the axillary meristem leading to bud formation and the further outgrowth of the axillary buds. Phytohormones, including cytokinins and auxin, are known to play major roles in regulating axillary bud outgrowth. Light signals, including light quantity and light quality, are among the most important factors regulating plant growth and are perceived by the action of specialized photoreceptors, including phytochromes. Phytochromes sense red (R) and far-red (FR) light and allow some plants to perceive and respond to competing neighbors by evoking the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). One component of the SAS is inhibition of branching. Phytochrome B (phyB) is especially important in sensing shade signals and loss of phyB function results in a constitutive shade avoidance phenotype, including reduced branching. While it has been anecdotally reported that phyB-deficient Arabidopsis branches less than wild type, a detailed study of the defects in the process is lacking. In this research, the interactions between light signals, phytochromes and phytohormones in the regulation of branching were assessed using an integrated physiological, molecular and genetic approach.

abstract: As the number of devices with wireless capabilities and the proximity of these devices to each other increases, better ways to handle the interference they cause need to be explored. Also important is for these devices to keep up with the demand for data rates while not compromising on industry established expectations of power consumption and mobility. Current methods of distributing the spectrum among all participants are expected to not cope with the demand in a very near future. In this thesis, the effect of employing sophisticated multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems in this regard is explored. The efficacy of systems which can make intelligent decisions on the transmission mode usage and power allocation to these modes becomes relevant in the current scenario, where the need for performance far exceeds the cost expendable on hardware. The effect of adding multiple antennas at either ends will be examined, the capacity of such systems and of networks comprised of many such participants will be evaluated. Methods of simulating said networks, and ways to achieve better performance by making intelligent transmission decisions will be proposed. Finally, a way of access control closer to the physical layer (a 'statistical MAC') and a possible metric to be used for such a MAC is suggested. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2014

No description available.

Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a growing technology that allows radio communication to become interoperable. SDR can lower the cost for a particular hardware radio to communicate with another radio that uses a different standard. In order to show the capability of SDR, this thesis shows how to implement IEEE 802.14.5, a low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) standard, on a standalone embedded machine. The implementation is done using a universal software radio peripheral embedded, USRP E100, an open source software development toolkit for SDR, GNU Radio, and UCLA ZigBee PHY GNU Radio application. The implementation can be done on the regular non-embedded USRPs. However, without a fast host computer demodulating the packets, the USRP E100 cannot receive incoming packets. An available FPGA is used to solve this problem by doing a software-hardware hybrid design to allow the USRP E100 to communicate with other IEEE 802.15.4 devices. The final product is an IEEE 802.15.4 monitor software that detects messages from devices communicating using IEEE 802.15.4 in its range. In addition, recommendations are presented for improving SDR education and training, particularly for developers with backgrounds in disciplines other than communications engineering. / Master of Science

As the use of electric vehicles increases, the need for electric vehicle supply equipment to have more advanced functionality also increases. The HomePlug Green PHY standard was developed to allow more advanced communication between electric vehicles and electric vehicle supply equipment. This more advanced form of communication can solve problems such as load balancing during busy charging and seamless payment methods. There are some modem solutions that are based on the Qualcomm QCA7000 chip that allows for implementation of the HomePlug Green PHY standard.             This thesis explores and highlights the implementation of the hardware for the HomePlug Green PHY standard into a solution that is nearly plug and play for most electric vehicles. A module in the form of a PCB based around one of these modem solutions is developed that allows modular expansion of a traditional electric vehicle supply equipment to gain the functionality of HomePlug Green PHY. The final PCB is a near plug and play solution on the hardware side however, the software needs further development.