IEICE Transactions on Communications
Online ISSN : 1745-1345
Print ISSN : 0916-8516
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Showing 1-15 articles out of 15 articles from the selected issue
Special Section on Information and Communication Technology for Medical,
Healthcare and Welfare Applications in Conjunction with Main Topics of ISMICT 2020
• Hirokazu TANAKA
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 570
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
JOURNALS FREE ACCESS
• Shakhnaz AKHMEDOVA, Vladimir STANOVOV, Sophia VISHNEVSKAYA, Chiori MIY ...
Type: INVITED PAPER
Subject area: Navigation, Guidance and Control Systems
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 571-579
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 24, 2020
JOURNALS FREE ACCESS

This study is focused on the automated detection of a complex system operator's condition. For example, in this study a person's reaction while listening to music (or not listening at all) was determined. For this purpose various well-known data mining tools as well as ones developed by authors were used. To be more specific, the following techniques were developed and applied for the mentioned problems: artificial neural networks and fuzzy rule-based classifiers. The neural networks were generated by two modifications of the Differential Evolution algorithm based on the NSGA and MOEA/D schemes, proposed for solving multi-objective optimization problems. Fuzzy logic systems were generated by the population-based algorithm called Co-Operation of Biology Related Algorithms or COBRA. However, firstly each person's state was monitored. Thus, databases for problems described in this study were obtained by using non-contact Doppler sensors. Experimental results demonstrated that automatically generated neural networks and fuzzy rule-based classifiers can properly determine the human condition and reaction. Besides, proposed approaches outperformed alternative data mining tools. However, it was established that fuzzy rule-based classifiers are more accurate and interpretable than neural networks. Thus, they can be used for solving more complex problems related to the automated detection of an operator's condition.

• Toshiyo TAMURA
Type: INVITED PAPER
Subject area: Sensing
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 580-586
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 24, 2020
JOURNALS FREE ACCESS

Cuffless blood pressure (BP) monitors are noninvasive devices that measure systolic and diastolic BP without an inflatable cuff. They are easy to use, safe, and relatively accurate for resting-state BP measurement. Although commercially available from online retailers, BP monitors must be approved or certificated by medical regulatory bodies for clinical use. Cuffless BP monitoring devices also need to be approved; however, only the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) certify these devices. In this paper, the principles of cuffless BP monitors are described, and the current situation regarding BP monitor standards and approval for medical use is discussed.

Regular Section
• Kei SAKAGUCHI, Ryuichi FUKATSU, Tao YU, Eisuke FUKUDA, Kim MAHLER, Rob ...
Type: INVITED SURVEY PAPER
Subject area: Terrestrial Wireless Communication/Broadcasting Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 587-603
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: November 26, 2020
JOURNALS FREE ACCESS

Millimeter wave provides high data rates for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications. This paper motivates millimeter wave to support automated driving and begins by explaining V2X use cases that support automated driving with references to several standardization bodies. The paper gives a classification of existing V2X standards: IEEE802.11p and LTE V2X, along with the status of their commercial deployment. Then, the paper provides a detailed assessment on how millimeter wave V2X enables the use case of cooperative perception. The explanations provide detailed rate calculations for this use case and show that millimeter wave is the only technology able to achieve the requirements. Furthermore, specific challenges related to millimeter wave for V2X are described, including coverage enhancement and beam alignment. The paper concludes with some results from three studies, i.e. IEEE802.11ad (WiGig) based V2X, extension of 5G NR (New Radio) toward mmWave V2X, and prototypes of intelligent street with mmWave V2X.

• Yusuke SAKUMOTO, Hiroyuki OHSAKI
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Fundamental Theories for Communications
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 604-615
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 14, 2020
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Various graph algorithms have been developed with multiple random walks, the movement of several independent random walkers on a graph. Designing an efficient graph algorithm based on multiple random walks requires investigating multiple random walks theoretically to attain a deep understanding of their characteristics. The first meeting time is one of the important metrics for multiple random walks. The first meeting time on a graph is defined by the time it takes for multiple random walkers to meet at the same node in a graph. This time is closely related to the rendezvous problem, a fundamental problem in computer science. The first meeting time of multiple random walks has been analyzed previously, but many of these analyses focused on regular graphs. In this paper, we analyze the first meeting time of multiple random walks in arbitrary graphs and clarify the effects of graph structures on expected values. First, we derive the spectral formula of the expected first meeting time on the basis of spectral graph theory. Then, we examine the principal component of the expected first meeting time using the derived spectral formula. The clarified principal component reveals that (a) the expected first meeting time is almost dominated by $n/(1+d_{\rm std}^2/d_{\rmavg}^2)$ and (b) the expected first meeting time is independent of the starting nodes of random walkers, where n is the number of nodes of the graph. davg and dstd are the average and the standard deviation of weighted node degrees, respectively. Characteristic (a) is useful for understanding the effect of the graph structure on the first meeting time. According to the revealed effect of graph structures, the variance of the coefficient dstd/davg (degree heterogeneity) for weighted degrees facilitates the meeting of random walkers.

• Arisa SEKINE, Masaki BANDAI
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Network
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 616-623
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 17, 2020
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For 360-degree video streaming, a 360-degree video is divided into segments temporally (i.e. some seconds). Each segment consists of multiple video tiles spatially. In this paper, we propose a tile quality selection method for tile-based video streaming. The proposed method suppresses the spatial quality variation within the viewport caused by a change of the viewport region due to user head movement. In the proposed method, the client checks whether the difference in quality level between the viewport and the region around the viewport is large, and if so, reduces it when assigning quality levels. Simulation results indicate that when the segment length is long, quality variation can be suppressed without significantly reducing the perceived video quality (in terms of bitrate). In particular, the quality variation within the viewport can be greatly suppressed. Furthermore, we verify that the proposed method is effective in reducing quality variation within the viewport and across segments without changing the total download size.

• Jun GOTO, Makoto MATSUKI, Takashi MARUYAMA, Toru FUKASAWA, Naofumi YON ...
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Antennas and Propagation
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 624-629
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 04, 2020
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This study aims to propose a novel traveling-wave series-fed microstrip array antenna and its design. The proposed antenna has two features: additional slits placed on the output side of the antenna element are introduced as a new degree of freedom to control the radiation power from each element. Also, the unequal element spacing is applied to compensate passing phases of each antenna element; meander lines that would increase the insertion loss are not used. A 9-element linear array is designed and tested, and the simulated and measured results agree, thus validating the proposed design.

• Quang Quan PHUNG, Tuan Hung NGUYEN, Naobumi MICHISHITA, Hiroshi SATO, ...
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Antennas and Propagation
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 630-638
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 22, 2020
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In this study, a novel decoupling method using parasitic elements (PEs) connected by a bridge line (BL) for two planar inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) is proposed. The proposed method is developed from a well-known decoupling method that uses a BL to directly connect antenna elements. When antenna elements are connected directly by a BL, strong mutual coupling can be reduced, but the resonant frequency shifts to a different frequency. Hence, to shift the resonant frequency toward the desired frequency, the original size of the antenna elements must be adjusted. This is disadvantageous if the method is applied in cases where the design conditions render it difficult to connect the antennas directly or adjust the original antenna size. Therefore, to easily reduce mutual coupling in such a case, a decoupling method that does not require both connecting antennas directly and adjusting the original antenna size is necessitated. This study demonstrates that using PEs connected by a BL reduces the mutual coupling from -6.6 to -14.1dB, and that the resonant frequency is maintained at the desired frequency (2.0GHz) without having to adjust the original PIFAs size. In addition, impedance matching can be adjusted to the desired frequency, resulting in an improved total antenna efficiency from 77.4% to 94.6%. This method is expected to be a simple and effective approach for reducing the mutual coupling between larger numbers of PIFA elements in the future.

• Zheng DAI, Weimin SU, Hong GU
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Antennas and Propagation
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 639-646
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 03, 2020
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In this paper, we propose an active calibration algorithm to tackle both gain-phase errors and position perturbations. Unlike many other active calibration methods, which fix the array while changing the location of the source, our approach rotates the array but does not change the location of the source, and knowledge of the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of the far-field calibration source is not required. The superiority of the proposed method lies in the fact that measurement of the direction of a far-field calibration source is not easy to carry out, while measurement of the rotation angle via the proposed calibration strategy is convenient and accurate. To obtain the receiving data from different directions, the sensor array is rotated to three different positions with known rotation angles. Based on the eigen-decomposition of the data covariance matrices, we can use the direction of the auxiliary source to represent the gain-phase errors and position perturbations. After that, we estimate the DOA of the calibration source by a one-dimensional search. Finally, the sensor gain-phase errors and position perturbations are calculated by using the estimated direction of the calibration source. Simulations verify the effectiveness and performance of the algorithm.

• Xiaolei QI, Gang XIE, Yuanan LIU
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Wireless Communication Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 647-653
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: November 26, 2020
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The hybrid precoding (HP) technique has been widely considered as a promising approach for millimeter wave communication systems. In general, the existing HP structure with a complicated high-resolution phase shifter network can achieve near-optimal spectral efficiency, however, it involves high energy consumption. The HP architecture with an energy-efficient switch network can significantly reduce the energy consumption. To achieve maximum energy efficiency, this paper focuses on the HP architecture with switch network and considers a novel adaptive analog network HP structure for such mmWave MIMO systems, which can provide potential array gains. Moreover, a multiuser adaptive coordinate update algorithm is proposed for the HP design problem of this new structure. Simulation results verify that our proposed design can achieve better energy efficiency than other recently proposed HP schemes when the number of users is small.

• Junhao ZHANG, Masafumi KAZUNO, Mizuki MOTOYOSHI, Suguru KAMEDA, Noriha ...
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Wireless Communication Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 654-663
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 03, 2020
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In this paper, we propose a direct digital RF transmitter with a 1-bit band-pass delta-sigma modulator (BP-DSM) that uses high order image components of the 7th Nyquist zone in Manchester coding for microwave and milimeter wave application. Compared to the conventional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) coding, in which the high order image components of 1-bit BP-DSM attenuate severely in the form of sinc function, the proposed 1-bit direct digital RF transmitter in Manchester code can improve the output power and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the image components at specific (4n-1)th and (4n-2)th Nyquist Zone, which is confirmed by calculating of the power spectral density. Measurements are made to compare three types of 1-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) signal in output power and SNR; NRZ, 50% duty return-to-zero (RZ) and Manchester coding. By using 1 Vpp/8Gbps DAC output, 1-bit signals in Manchester coding show the highest output power of -20.3dBm and SNR of 40.3dB at 7th Nyquist Zone (26GHz) in CW condition. As a result, compared to NRZ and RZ coding, at 7th Nyquist zone, the output power is improved by 8.1dB and 6dB, respectively. Meanwhile, the SNR is improved by 7.6dB and 4.9dB, respectively. In 5Mbps-QPSK condition, 1-bit signals in Manchester code show the lowest error vector magnitude (EVM) of 2.4% and the highest adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of 38.2dB with the highest output power of -18.5dBm at 7th Nyquist Zone (26GHz), respectively, compared to the NRZ and 50% duty RZ coding. The measurement and simulation results of the image component of 1-bit signals at 7th Nyquist Zone (26GHz) are consistent with the calculation results.

• Ryoichi TAKAHASHI, Yosuke TANIGAWA, Hideki TODE
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Wireless Communication Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 664-674
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 09, 2020
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In recent years, wireless LANs (WLANs) are closely deployed which means they interfere with each other. Mobile stations (MSs) like smart phones that connect to such WLANs are also increasing. In such interfering environments, radio interference frequency depends on MS position. In addition, as MSs and their applications become diverse, frame generation rates from MSs are also becoming various. Thus, sufficient frame transmission opportunities should be assigned to MSs regardless of their radio interference frequencies and frame generation rates. One key technology to deal with this issue is uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) transmission introduced in IEEE 802.11ax. However, existing works do not consider the differences of the interference frequencies and frame generation rates among MSs in an integrated manner. This paper proposes an uplink frame transmission method for interfering WLAN environments that effectively uses the OFDMA transmission to assign enough transmission opportunities to MSs regardless of their own interference frequencies and frame generation rates, while efficiently using the channel resource. Considering the combined problem, this proposed method allocates resource units (RUs), created by dividing the channel, to MSs. In addition, based on a mathematical analysis of required frame transmission duration, the proposed method flexibly selects the OFDMA transmission or conventional frame transmission with CSMA/CA, which is also not considered in the existing works.

• Zhaoyang HOU, Zheng XIANG, Peng REN, Qiang HE, Ling ZHENG
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Wireless Communication Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 675-685
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 08, 2020
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In this paper, the distributed cooperative communication of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is studied, where the condition number (CN) and the inner product (InP) are used to measure the quality of communication links. By optimizing the relative position of UAVs, large channel capacity and stable communication links can be obtained. Using the spherical wave model under the line of sight (LOS) channel, CN expression of the channel matrix is derived when there are Nt transmitters and two receivers in the system. In order to maximize channel capacity, we derive the UAVs position constraint equation (UAVs-PCE), and the constraint between BS elements distance and carrier wavelength is analyzed. The result shows there is an area where no matter how the UAVs' positions are adjusted, the CN is still very large. Then a special scenario is considered where UAVs form a rectangular lattice array, and the optimal constraint between communication distance and UAVs distance is derived. After that, we derive the InP of channel matrix and the gradient expression of InP with respect to UAVs' position. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to minimize the CN and the gradient descent (GD) algorithm is used to minimize the InP by optimizing UAVs' position iteratively. Both of the two algorithms present great potentials for optimizing the CN and InP respectively. Furthermore, a hybrid algorithm named PSO-GD combining the advantage of the two algorithms is proposed to maximize the communication capacity with lower complexity. Simulations show that PSO-GD is more efficient than PSO and GD. PSO helps GD to break away from local extremum and provides better positions for GD, and GD can converge to an optimal solution quickly by using the gradient information based on the better positions. Simulations also reveal that a better channel can be obtained when those parameters satisfy the UAVs position constraint equation (UAVs-PCE), meanwhile, theory analysis also explains the abnormal phenomena in simulations.

• Guangna ZHANG, Yuanyuan GAO, Huadong LUO, Xiaochen LIU, Nan SHA, Kui X ...
Type: PAPER
Subject area: Wireless Communication Technologies
2021 Volume E104.B Issue 6 Pages 686-695
Published: June 01, 2021
Released: June 01, 2021
[Advance publication] Released: December 22, 2020
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In this paper, we explore the physical layer security of an Internet of Things (IoT) network comprised of multiple relay-user pairs in the presence of multiple malicious eavesdroppers and channel estimation error (CEE). In order to guarantee secure transmission with channel estimation error, we propose a channel estimation error oriented joint relay-user pair and friendly jammer selection (CEE-JRUPaFJS) scheme to improve the physical layer security of IoT networks. For the purpose of comparison, the channel estimation error oriented traditional round-robin (CEE-TRR) scheme and the channel estimation error oriented traditional pure relay-user pair selection (CEE-TPRUPS) scheme are considered as benchmark schemes. The exact closed-form expressions of outage probability (OP) and intercept probability (IP) for the CEE-TRR and CEE-TPRUPS schemes as well as the CEE-JRUPaFJS scheme are derived over Rayleigh fading channels, which are employed to characterize network reliability and security, respectively. Moreover, the security-reliability tradeoff (SRT) is analyzed as a metric to evaluate the tradeoff performance of CEE-JRUPaFJS scheme. It is verified that the proposed CEE-JRUPaFJS scheme is superior to both the CEE-TRR and CEE-TPRUPS schemes in terms of SRT, which demonstrates our proposed CEE-JRUPaFJS scheme are capable of improving the security and reliability performance of IoT networks in the face of multiple eavesdroppers. Moreover, as the number of relay-user pairs increases, CEE-TPRUPS and CEE-JRUPaFJS schemes offer significant increases in SRT. Conversely, with an increasing number of eavesdroppers, the SRT of all these three schemes become worse.