Browsing by Author "Anderson, Christopher R."

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    3.5 GHz Indoor Propagation Modeling and Channel Characterization
    Ha, Sean Anthony (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-29)
    In the push for spectrum sharing and open spectrum access, the 3.5 GHz frequency band is under consideration for small cells and general Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) in the United States. The same band is beginning to see deployment in China, Japan, and South Korea, for the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular standard to increase coverage and capacity in urban areas through small cell deployment. However, since the adoption of this band is new, there is a distinct shortage of propagation data and accurate channel modeling at 3.5 GHz in indoor environments. These models are necessary for cellular coverage planning and evaluating the performance and feasibility of wireless systems. This report presents the results of a fixed wireless channel measurement campaign at 3.5 GHz. Measurements were taken in environments typical of indoor wireless deployment: traditional urban indoor office, hallway, classroom, computer laboratory, and atrium areas, as well as within a hospital. Primarily Non Line of Sight (NLOS) experiments were carried out in areas with a controllable amount of partitions separating the transmitter and receiver in order to document material-based attenuation values. Indoor-to-outdoor measurements were carried out, focusing on attenuation due to common exterior building materials such as concrete, brick, wood, and reinforced glass. Documented metrics include large scale path loss, log-normal shadowing, and channel power delay profiles combined with delay spread characteristics for multipath analysis. The statistical multi-antenna diversity gain was evaluated to gauge the benefit of using multi-antenna systems in an indoor environment, which has much greater spatial diversity than an outdoor environment. Measurements were compared to indoor path loss models used for WLAN planning in the low GHz range to investigate the applicability of extending these models to 3.5 GHz.
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    Characterizing the Role of Magnetic Cues Underlying Spatial Behavior
    Painter, Michael Scott (Virginia Tech, 2017-01-09)
    In the 50+ years since the discovery of magnetic compass orientation by migratory songbirds, evidence for the use of magnetic cues has been obtained for a range of taxonomic groups, including several classes of vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. Surprisingly, however, the biophysical mechanisms and biological substrate that underlie magnetic sensing are still not fully understood. Moreover, while use of magnetic cues for compass orientation is intuitive, the functional significance of other forms of behavioral responses mediated by magnetic cues, such as spontaneous magnetic alignment, is less clear. The following research was carried out to investigate the mechanisms underlying magnetic orientation in vertebrates and invertebrates. This involved the modification of existing experimental systems to characterize responses to magnetic cues in laboratory animals (flies, mice) and the development of novel techniques for studying the role of magnetic cues in the spatial behavior of free-living animals (red foxes). Chapter II examines magnetic orientation in wild-type Drosophila melanogaster larvae. We show that three strains of larvae reared under non-directional ultraviolet (UV) light exhibit quadramodal spontaneous orientation along the anti-cardinal compass directions (i.e. northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest) when tested in a radially symmetrical environment under UV light. Double-blind experiments cancelling the horizontal component of the magnetic field confirmed that the response is dependent on magnetic cues rather non-magnetic features of the test environment. Furthermore, we argue that the larval quadramodal pattern of response is consistent with properties of magnetic compass orientation observed in previous studies of adult Drosophila and laboratory mice, both of which have been proposed to be mediated by a light-dependent magnetic compass mechanism. Chapter III explores the use of novel biologging techniques to collect behavioral and spatial data from free-roaming mammals. Specifically, a previous observational study of free- roaming red foxes found a 4-fold increase in the success of predatory 'mousing' attacks when foxes were facing ~north-northeast, consistent with magnetic alignment responses reported for a range of terrestrial animals. The authors propose that the magnetic field may be used to increase accuracy of mousing attacks. Using tri-axial accelerometer and magnetometer bio-loggers fitted to semi-domesticated red foxes, we created ']magnetic ethograms' from behavioral and magnetic machine learning algorithms 'trained'] to identify three discrete behaviors (i.e. foraging, trotting, and mousing-like jumps) from raw accelerometer signatures and to classify the magnetic headings of mousing-like jumps into 45° sectors from raw magnetometer data. The classifier's ability to accurately identify behaviors from a separate fox not used to train the algorithm suggests that these techniques can be used in future experiments to obtain reliable magnetic ethograms for free-roaming foxes. We also developed the first radio-frequency emitting collar that broadcasts in the low MHz frequency range shown to disrupt magnetic compass responses in a host of animals. The radio-frequency collars coupled with biologgers will provide a powerful tool to characterize magnetic alignment responses in predatory red foxes and can be adapted for use in studies of magnetic alignment and magnetic compass orientation in other free-roaming mammals. Chapter 3 discusses findings from a magnetic nest building assay involving male labratory mice. Mice trained to position nests in one of four directions relative to the magnetic field exhibited both learned magnetic compass responses and fixed magnetic nest positioning orientation consistent with northeast-southwest spontaneous magnetic alignment behavior previously reported for wild mice and bank voles. This is the first mammalian assay in which both learned magnetic compass orientation and spontaneous magnetic alignment were exhibited in the same species, and suggests that the use of magnetic cues in rodents may be more flexible that previously realized.
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    Design and Implementation of an Ultrabroadband Millimeter-Wavelength Vector Sliding Correlator Channel Sounder and In-Building Multipath Measurements at 2.5 & 60 GHz
    Anderson, Christopher R. (Virginia Tech, 2002-05-06)
    Over the past decade, the market for wireless service has grown at an unprecedented rate. The industry has grown from cellular phones and pagers to broadband and ultra-broadband (also called ultra-wideband) wireless services that can provide voice, data, and full-motion video in real time. This growing hunger for faster data rates and larger bandwidths has prompted a need for a deeper understanding of the wireless channels upon which these devices communicate. In order for the visions of real time full-motion video, multimedia, and high speed data delivery inherent in the 3rd and 4th generations of wireless communication standards to be fully realized, system design engineers must have a thorough understanding of the wireless channels upon which these devices operate. Additionally, for these networks to deliver their promised data rates, they must operate at very high microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies, where large segments of spectrum are readily obtained. Unfortunately, little is known about the propagation characteristics at these frequencies and bandwidths. As a consequence, there has been a significant demand for wireless test equipment that is capable of characterizing these new wireless channels. The objective of this research was to design and develop a wireless test instrument that can not only characterize these new wireless channels, but has the portability to be quickly and easily re-located to various measurement sites, as well as the flexibility to characterize a wide variety of frequencies and bandwidths in addition to the ultrawideband channels investigated in this work. This measurement system is also designed to be capable of characterizing both the magnitude and phase response of these wireless channels, which not only provides a more complete channel characteristic, but the potential capability to measure the Doppler spectrum introduced by a dynamic channel.
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    Globally Optimal Transmitter Placement for Indoor Wireless Communication Systems
    He, Jian; Verstak, Alex; Watson, Layne T.; Stinson, C.A.; Ramakrishnan, Naren; Shaffer, Clifford A.; Rappaport, Theodore S.; Anderson, Christopher R.; Bae, Kyung; Jiang, Jing; Tranter, William H. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2002-08-01)
    In this paper, a global optimization technique is applied to solve the optimal transmitter placement problem for indoor wireless systems. An efficient pattern search algorithm ---DIRECT (DIviding RECTangles) of Jones, Perttunen, and Stuckman(1993)---has been connected to a parallel 3D radio propagation ray tracing modeler running on a 200-node Beowulf cluster of Linux workstations. Surrogate functions for a parallel WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) simulator were used to estimate the system performance for the global optimization algorithm. Power converage and BER(bit error rate) are considered as two different criteria for optimizing locations of a specified number of transmitters across the feasible region of the design space. This paper briefly describes the undrelying radio propagation and WCDMA simulations and focuses on the design issues of the optimization loop.
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    Rapid Learning of Magnetic Compass Direction by C57BL/6 Mice in a 4-Armed 'Plus' Water Maze
    Phillips, John B.; Youmans, Paul W.; Muheim, Rachel; Sloan, Kelly A.; Landler, Lukas; Painter, Michael Scott; Anderson, Christopher R. (PLOS, 2013-08-30)
    Magnetoreception has been demonstrated in all five vertebrate classes. In rodents, nest building experiments have shown the use of magnetic cues by two families of molerats, Siberian hamsters and C57BL/6 mice. However, assays widely used to study rodent spatial cognition (e.g. water maze, radial arm maze) have failed to provide evidence for the use of magnetic cues. Here we show that C57BL/6 mice can learn the magnetic direction of a submerged platform in a 4-armed (plus) water maze. Naïve mice were given two brief training trials. In each trial, a mouse was confined to one arm of the maze with the submerged platform at the outer end in a predetermined alignment relative to magnetic north. Between trials, the training arm and magnetic field were rotated by 180° so that the mouse had to swim in the same magnetic direction to reach the submerged platform. The directional preference of each mouse was tested once in one of four magnetic field alignments by releasing it at the center of the maze with access to all four arms. Equal numbers of responses were obtained from mice tested in the four symmetrical magnetic field alignments. Findings show that two training trials are sufficient for mice to learn the magnetic direction of the submerged platform in a plus water maze. The success of these experiments may be explained by: (1) absence of alternative directional cues (2), rotation of magnetic field alignment, and (3) electromagnetic shielding to minimize radio frequency interference that has been shown to interfere with magnetic compass orientation of birds. These findings confirm that mice have a well-developed magnetic compass, and give further impetus to the question of whether epigeic rodents (e.g., mice and rats) have a photoreceptor-based magnetic compass similar to that found in amphibians and migratory birds.
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    S4W: Globally Optimized Design of Wireless Communication Systems
    He, Jian; Verstak, Alex; Watson, Layne T.; Stinson, C.A.; Ramakrishnan, Naren; Shaffer, Clifford A.; Rappaport, Theodore S.; Anderson, Christopher R.; Bae, Kyung; Jiang, Jing; Tranter, William H. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2002-07-01)
    In this paper, a global optimization technique is applied to solve the optimal transmitter placement problem for indoor wireless systems. An efficient pattern search algorithm -- DIRECT (DIviding RECTangles) of Jones,Perttunen, and Stuckman(1993)--has been connected to a parallel 3D radio propagation ray tracing modeler running on a 200 node. Beowulf cluster of Linux workstations. Surrogate functions for a parallel WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) simulator were used to estimate the system performance for the global optimization algorithm. Power coverage and BER (bit error rate) are considered as two different criteria for optimizing locations of a specified number of transmitters across the feasible region of the design space. This paper briefly describes the underlying radio propagation and WCDMA simulations and focuses on the design issues of the optimization loop.
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    A Software Defined Ultra Wideband Transceiver Testbed for Communications, Ranging, or Imaging
    Anderson, Christopher R. (Virginia Tech, 2006-09-07)
    Impulse Ultra Wideband (UWB) communications is an emerging technology that promises a number of benefits over traditional narrowband or broadband signals: extremely high data rates, extremely robust operation in dense multipath environments, low probability of intercept/detection, and the ability to operate concurrently with existing users. Unfortunately, most currently available UWB systems are based on dedicated hardware, preventing researchers from investigating algorithms or architectures that take advantage of some of the unique properties of UWB signals. This dissertation outlines the development of a general purpose software radio transceiver testbed for UWB signals. The testbed is an enabling technology that provides a development platform for investigating ultra wideband communication algorithms (e.g., acquisition, synchronization, modulation, multiple access), ranging or radar (e.g., precision position location, intrusion detection, heart and respiration rate monitoring), and could potentially be used in the area of ultra wideband based medical imaging or vital signs monitoring. As research into impulse ultra wideband expands, the need is greater now than ever for a platform that will allow researchers to collect real-world performance data to corroborate theoretical and simulation results. Additionally, this dissertation outlines the development of the Time-Interleaved Analog to Digital Converter array which served as the core of the testbed, along with a comprehensive theoretical and simulation-based analysis on the effects of Analog to Digital Converter mismatches in a Time-Interleaved Sampling array when the input signal is an ultra wideband Gaussian Monocycle. Included in the discussion is a thorough overview of the implementation of both a scaled-down prototype as well as the final version of the testbed. This dissertation concludes by evaluating the of the transceiver testbed in terms of the narrowband dynamic range, the accuracy with which it can sample and reconstruct a UWB pulse, and the bit error rate performance of the overall system.