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New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems

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A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2024) | Viewed by 21443

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Angela Digulescu

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Guest Editor

Telecommunications and Information Technology Department, Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I”, 050141 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: signal processing; radio communications; data transmission
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Roland Gautier

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Guest Editor

Lab-STICC, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, 29238 Brest Cedex 3, France
Interests: signal processing and digital communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Florin Popescu

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Guest Editor

Telecommunications and Information Technology Department, Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I”, 050141 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: military radio communications; microcontrollers systems and Python smart applications

Dr. Annamaria Sarbu

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Guest Editor

The Faculty of Military Management, "Nicolae Balcescu" Land Forces Academy, 550170 Sibiu, Romania
Interests: signals and systems; measurements in electronics and telecommunications; circuit analysis and synthesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last three decades, communication systems have seen exponential development and growth, and therefore, their technologies and principles have evolved enormously. Starting from analogic communications, such as the classical circuit switch telephone, contemporary communication technologies have arrived at 4G/5G technology, where video streaming is widely available. In this Special Issue, the trends and methods of communication systems are of great interest, and significant contributions in this area are most welcomed. The topics covered in this Special Issue include but are not limited to the latest developments in the field of advanced signal processing methods, radio communication technologies, electronic systems, non-linear system analysis, artificial intelligence, wireless communications, and the Internet of Things. We kindly invite experimentalists and theorists to submit their high-quality manuscript for publication in this Special Issue.

Dr. Angela Digulescu
Dr. Roland Gautier
Dr. Florin Popescu
Dr. Annamaria Sarbu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

communication systems
signal processing
electronic systems
radio communication technologies
non-linear system analysis
artificial intelligence
wireless communications and the Internet of Things

Related Special Issue

New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems: Volume II in Electronics (1 article)

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 23686 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Quasistationarity of the Ambient Electromagnetic Field Generated by Wi-Fi Sources

by Leontin Tuță, Georgiana Roșu, Alina Andone, Sonia Spandole-Dinu and Lars Ole Fichte

Electronics 2024, 13(2), 301; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13020301 - 10 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1005

Abstract

In recent decades, the widespread use of mobile phones and wireless technologies has led to a significant increase in radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), raising concerns about continuous RF-EMF exposure among the general population. Recent research indicates that real-life RF signals are more biologically active than controlled laboratory signals with a low variability, suggesting that living organisms can adapt to EMF exposure when the pattern has a low variability. However, using real-life sources with unpredictable variation signals in biological experiments contradicts the principle of experiment controllability. This paper aims to investigate the nature of signals generated by current sources of ambient EMFs in terms of stationarity, with the goal of replicating them in biological experiments to study the effects of EMF exposure. Employing a range of statistical methodologies, starting with descriptive statistical analysis and progressing to the advanced APDP and APTF methods, an examination is conducted on a collection of Wi-Fi signal recordings across various operating modes, with particular attention given to video streaming. The chosen datasets are scrutinized with respect to their adherence to a Gaussian distribution and the concept of stationarity. The results indicate that the observed Wi-Fi signals lack stationarity in both the time and frequency domains. However, based on the analytical findings, it is possible to generate signals in frequency that authentically replicate Wi-Fi signals, accounting for nonstationarity considerations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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19 pages, 9994 KiB

Open AccessArticle

SDR-Based Portable System for Evaluating Exposure to Ambient Electromagnetic Fields

by Leontin Tuta, Florentina Panait-Radu, Felix Ardelean, Damian Gorgoteanu and Georgiana Rosu

Electronics 2023, 12(24), 5003; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12245003 - 14 Dec 2023

Viewed by 979

Abstract

This paper discusses the need to accurately determine the population’s exposure to low-intensity radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) from modern technologies like mobile networks, Wi-Fi, and IoT and proposes a practical solution for this assessment. There is no scientific consensus on the biological effects, mostly due to challenges in conducting accurate biological experiments. Recent research suggests that real-life exposure sources trigger stronger biological responses than laboratory-generated RF-EMF. However, there is a lack of research comparing the effects of these sources. This paper introduces a portable system for assessing and monitoring EMF exposure in urban areas. Employing a Software-Defined Radio (SDR) platform to ensure adaptability, the system incorporates two measurement configurations. The initial version concentrates on determining the average power within a 20 MHz Wi-Fi channel, whereas the subsequent configuration augments its functionality by introducing a frequency sweep. This sweep broadens the scrutinized bandwidth, thereby enriching the captured data content through the storage of spectrum sweeps corresponding to each average power value. These data can be used to create EMF profile maps based on individuals’ geographical coordinates. Compared to current limited-performance commercial exposimeters, the proposed system offers expanded capabilities by broadening the frequency bandwidth, georeferencing measurements, and storing data in an SQL database. Compared to high-performance commercial exposimeters, the major advantage of the system is its ability to detect short-term fluctuations in signal spectra and store the corresponding data for subsequent analysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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12 pages, 1280 KiB

Open AccessArticle

BeneWinD: An Adaptive Benefit Win–Win Platform with Distributed Virtual Emotion Foundation

by Hyunbum Kim and Jalel Ben-Othman

Electronics 2023, 12(17), 3540; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12173540 - 22 Aug 2023

Viewed by 726

Abstract

In recent decades, online platforms that use Web 3.0 have tremendously expanded their goods, services, and values to numerous applications thanks to its inherent advantages of convenience, service speed, connectivity, etc. Although online commerce and other relevant platforms have clear merits, offline-based commerce and payments are indispensable and should be activated continuously, because offline systems have intrinsic value for people. With the theme of benefiting all humankind, we propose a new adaptive benefit platform, called BeneWinD, which is endowed with strengths of online and offline platforms. Furthermore, a new currency for integrated benefits, the win–win digital currency, is used in the proposed platform. Essentially, the proposed platform with a distributed virtual emotion foundation aims to provide a wide scope of benefits to both parties, the seller and consumer, in online and offline settings. We primarily introduce features, applicable scenarios, and services of the proposed platform. Different from previous systems and perspectives, BeneWinD can be combined with Web 3.0 because it deliberates based on the decentralized or distributed virtual emotion foundation, and the virtual emotion feature and the detected virtual emotion information with anonymity are open to everyone who wants to participate in the platform. It follows that the BeneWinD platform can be connected to the linked virtual emotion data block or win–win digital currency. Furthermore, crucial research challenges and issues are addressed in order to make great contributions to improve the development of the platform. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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16 pages, 620 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Enhancing Privacy-Preserving Intrusion Detection through Federated Learning

by Ammar Alazab, Ansam Khraisat, Sarabjot Singh and Tony Jan

Electronics 2023, 12(16), 3382; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12163382 - 8 Aug 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2280

Abstract

Detecting anomalies, intrusions, and security threats in the network (including Internet of Things) traffic necessitates the processing of large volumes of sensitive data, which raises concerns about privacy and security. Federated learning, a distributed machine learning approach, enables multiple parties to collaboratively train a shared model while preserving data decentralization and privacy. In a federated learning environment, instead of training and evaluating the model on a single machine, each client learns a local model with the same structure but is trained on different local datasets. These local models are then communicated to an aggregation server that employs federated averaging to aggregate them and produce an optimized global model. This approach offers significant benefits for developing efficient and effective intrusion detection system (IDS) solutions. In this research, we investigated the effectiveness of federated learning for IDSs and compared it with that of traditional deep learning models. Our findings demonstrate that federated learning, by utilizing random client selection, achieved higher accuracy and lower loss compared to deep learning, particularly in scenarios emphasizing data privacy and security. Our experiments highlight the capability of federated learning to create global models without sharing sensitive data, thereby mitigating the risks associated with data breaches or leakage. The results suggest that federated averaging in federated learning has the potential to revolutionize the development of IDS solutions, thus making them more secure, efficient, and effective. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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18 pages, 6212 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Frequency Analysis of Vibrations in Terms of Human Exposure While Driving Military Armoured Personnel Carriers and Logistic Transportation Vehicles

by Daniela Voicu, Ramona Monica Stoica, Radu Vilău, Marin Marinescu, Angela Digulescu, Cristina Despina-Stoian and Florin Popescu

Electronics 2023, 12(14), 3152; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12143152 - 20 Jul 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1270

Abstract

Military heavy vehicle drivers experience low-frequency vibrations that are associated with fatigue, drowsiness, and other adverse health effects. The existing research papers focus on performing different types of analysis, but few use advance signal processing tools based on recurrence plot representation; therefore, the main goal of this paper is to assess the whole-body vibration (WBV) and hand-arm vibration (HAV) exposure of a driver, comparing armoured personnel carriers and cargo destined vehicles. For this purpose, the power of a signal distributed over its frequency was analysed using power spectral density (PSD) and diagonal line quantification (DLQ) analysis. According to the results, in the case of the cargo vehicle, the driver experienced vibration dose values of frequency weighted acceleration above the limits during all three experimental tests, with a maximum value of 26.802 m/s², whereas the results in the case of the armoured personnel carrier are below the 5 m/s² limit imposed by the ISO 5349-2 standard. From the developed tests it was observed that, to protect the driver against the fatigue induced by the vibrations of the vehicle body, it is necessary to provide an elastic and also damping linkage between the vehicle and the driver’s seat. This is the only way to ensure the needed protection and it is, by far, the least expensive. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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24 pages, 7210 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Real-Time Statistical Measurement of Wideband Signals Based on Software Defined Radio Technology

by Mirela Șorecău, Emil Șorecău, Annamaria Sârbu and Paul Bechet

Electronics 2023, 12(13), 2920; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12132920 - 3 Jul 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1681

Abstract

The increase in channel bandwidth and peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of modern communication standards poses a serious challenge to performing channel power (CP) and complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) measurements in real-time using standard measurement solutions based on spectrum analyzers (SA). Recently, Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology has become a viable alternative to the conventional real-time spectrum monitoring approach based on SA due to its reduced cost. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel, innovative, agile and cost-effective solution to enable both CP and CCDF measurements on a state-of-the-art SDR platform. The proposed solution exploits the ability of the SDR equipment to access signal samples in the time domain and defines both CP and CCDF-type measurements. The two measurement functions are software implemented in GNU Radio by designing customized blocks and integrated into a graphical user interface. The proposed system was first tested and parameterized in a controlled environment using emitted signals specific to the IEEE 802.11ax family of wireless local area networks. After parameterization, the SDR-based system was used for over-the-air measurements of signals emitted in the 4G+, 5G and 802.11ax communication standards. By performing the measurement campaign, we have demonstrated the capabilities of the measurement system in performing real-time measurements on broadband channels (up to 160 MHz for IEEE 802.11ax). Altogether, we have proved the usability of CP and CCDF measurement functions in providing valuable insights into the power distribution characteristics of signals emitted by the latest communication standards. By exploiting the versatility of SDR technology, we have enabled a cost-effective solution for advanced real-time statistical measurements of modern broadband signals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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12 pages, 2569 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design of a Baseband Signal for the 406 MHz Satellite Emergency Radio Transmitter Based on STM32

by Mi Liao, Guigen Nie, Jing Zhao and Xi He

Electronics 2023, 12(12), 2717; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12122717 - 17 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1691

Abstract

The baseband signal of the 406 MHz COSPAS-SARSAT emergency beacon is a 144-bit or 112-bit data with 0 and 1 code, including the information bits and error correcting check bits. In order to improve the coding efficiency of the baseband signal for the 406 MHz transmitter in the STM32 micro-controller, this paper proposes a calculation method for the first BCH error correcting code (BCH-1) and the second BCH error correcting code (BCH-2) of the COSPAS-SARAST transmitter. First, conduct the data coding process by 64-bit integral data; then, compute the BCH (127, 106) code and the BCH (63, 51) code to obtain the respective error correcting codes for improving coding rate; next, generate the baseband signal according to the GB 14391-2021 coding format; finally, modulate the baseband signal into a 406 MHz-RF signal, send it out and complete the task of distress alerting. The experimental results show that the proposed STM32 microcontroller-based baseband signal generation method is effective, and the EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) designed based on this method has reached the industry standard. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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12 pages, 1746 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Architecture of a Non-Intrusive IoT System for Frailty Detection in Older People

by Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Gabriel-Vasilică Sasu, Nicolae Goga, Andrei Vasilateanu and Alexandru-Filip Popovici

Electronics 2023, 12(9), 2043; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12092043 - 28 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1022

Abstract

Early detection of frailty is one of the main challenges in the world we live in. Being aware of physiologic and behavior changes can predict and prevent the onset of mental complications for older people. By using modern technologies, one can get insights, which may help detection of different pathologies. In this paper, preliminary results for a novel system to detect early signs of frailty are presented. A prototype was developed and tested in laboratory conditions after requirements and functional capabilities were defined. The main advantages of the proposed architecture are the usage of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and custom mechanisms of security to assure a high level of confidentiality and integrity of user-specific data. Other original elements are its easy-to-use and non-intrusive characteristics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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15 pages, 346 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of IQI for AF Cooperative Single-Carrier Frequency Domain Equalization Systems Using Channel Decoder Feedback

by Mohamed Marey and Hala Mostafa

Electronics 2023, 12(4), 863; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12040863 - 8 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1133

Abstract

The process of amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying is essential to the improvement of both current and future wireless communication standards. Nevertheless, significant performance loss may be posed by in-phase and quadrature imbalance (IQI) caused by defects in radio frequency components. Prior studies into this research problem were restricted to uncoded broadcasts, even though error-correcting codes are frequently used in real applications. To this purpose, we develop a novel approach applicable to the destination terminal for estimating and compensating for IQI that occurs at the source, relay, and destination terminals. The proposed approach is explored in the context of coded emissions of AF single-carrier frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE) systems. In contrast to other methods for mitigating this radio frequency deflection at each node, the proposed system estimates and compensates for all IQI parameters and channel impulse responses simultaneously. With the use of an iterative expectation–maximization (EM) process, a maximum-likelihood (ML) solution to the problem is computed. At each round, the soft information supplied by the channel decoder is employed to create the a posteriori expectations of the sent data symbols, which are then fed into the estimation process as if they were training symbols. In addition, we address how to use the estimated parameters to perform the task of data detection. The offered predictor and detector exchange soft information in a sequential process, boosting the overall system effectiveness. The simulation results show that the proposed method is not only practicable but superior to the established methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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15 pages, 4317 KiB

Open AccessArticle

IR-UWB Radar-Based Robust Heart Rate Detection Using a Deep Learning Technique Intended for Vehicular Applications

by Faheem Khan, Stéphane Azou, Roua Youssef, Pascal Morel and Emanuel Radoi

Electronics 2022, 11(16), 2505; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11162505 - 11 Aug 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3894

Abstract

This paper deals with robust heart rate detection intended for the in-car monitoring of people. There are two main problems associated with radar-based heart rate detection. Firstly, the signal associated with the human heart is difficult to separate from breathing harmonics in the frequency domain. Secondly, the vital signal is affected by any interference signal from hand gestures, lips motion during speech or any other random body motions (RBM). To handle the problem of the breathing harmonics, we propose a novel algorithm based on time series data instead of the conventionally used frequency domain technique. In our proposed method, a deep learning classifier is used to detect the pattern of the heart rate signal. To deal with the interference mitigation from the random body motions, we identify an optimum location for the radar sensor inside the car. In this paper, a commercially available Novelda Xethru X4 radar is used for signal acquisition and vital sign measurement of 5 people. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with and found to be superior to that of the conventional frequency domain technique. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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20 pages, 11185 KiB

Open AccessArticle

TMRN-GLU: A Transformer-Based Automatic Classification Recognition Network Improved by Gate Linear Unit

by Yujun Zheng, Yongtao Ma and Chenglong Tian

Electronics 2022, 11(10), 1554; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11101554 - 12 May 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1622

Abstract

Automaticmodulation recognition (AMR) has been a long-standing hot topic among scholars, and it has obvious performance advantages over traditional algorithms. However, CNN and RNN, which are commonly used in serial classification tasks, suffer from the problems of not being able to make good use of global information and slow running speed due to serial operations, respectively. In this paper, to solve the above problems, a Transformer-based automatic classification recognition network improved by Gate Linear Unit (TMRN-GLU) is proposed, which combines the advantages of CNN with a high efficiency of parallel operations and RNN with a sufficient extraction of global information of the temporal signal context. Relevant experiments on the RML2016.10b public dataset show that the proposed algorithm not only has a significant advantage in the number of parameters compared with the existing algorithms, but also has improved recognition accuracy under various signal-to-noise ratios.In particular, the accuracy of the proposed algorithm improves significantly compared with other algorithms under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. The accuracy is improved by at least 9% at low signal-to-noise ratio (6 dB) and about 3% at high signal-to-noise ratio (>2 dB). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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20 pages, 3782 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Modulated Wideband Converter Calibration Technique Based on a Single Measurement of a White Noise Signal with Advanced Resynchronization Preprocessing

by Gilles Burel, Anthony Fiche, Roland Gautier and Annaig Martin-Guennou

Electronics 2022, 11(5), 774; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11050774 - 2 Mar 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1757

Abstract

The Modulated Wideband Converter (MWC) is a blind sub-Nyquist sampling system used especially to monitor wideband spectrum. This system can be realized by existing analog components. From a theoretical point of view, all analog components are assumed ideal. However, this hypothesis is false in practice. Indeed, some imperfections are introduced by analog components such as nonlinearities of mixers, phase/attenuation/selectivity of low-pass filters and desynchronization between modulating waveforms. Consequently, it is necessary to correctly estimate the sensing matrix to ensure correct spectrum reconstruction performance. Conventional calibration methods are based on the measurements of different single tones. However, these approaches need to record several measurements with single-tone inputs. To avoid this problem, this paper presents a new hardware calibration method of MWC by using a single measurement of a white noise signal for radio frequency spectrum monitoring. A preprocessing method is performed to resynchronize input, output and modulating waveforms signals with each other. Our hardware calibration method is applied to our prototype of Compressed Sensing (CS) scheme in order to estimate the corrected sensing matrix. To prove the efficiency of our hardware calibration, reconstruction performances were evaluated with respect to the probability of correct reconstruction and false alarm criteria. These results are compared with those obtained with the theoretical MWC scheme, with our prototype without calibration and with reference calibration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends and Methods in Communication Systems)

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