There are many various CE (consumer electronics) home appliances being controlled and managed with each different remote control unit based on IR(Infra-Red) signal in our home environments. A universal remote control (URC) unit is an integrated device for controlling these various devices (with a single one). To control them based on IR control signal, the URC unit has to have many pre-programmed control codes for controlling them because each home appliance is controlled with each its identical IR control profile. In case of appliances from different vendors, the IR profile for two different CE devices may be represented with different format even though the type of these appliances is same, such as television sets. In this paper, we propose a novel ZigBee based URC, called Z-URC in this paper, applicable to multiple legacy home appliances. The proposed Z-URC controls dynamically multiple legacy IR controllable digital CE appliances based on IEEE802.15.4, especially ZigBee protocol. The proposed scheme consists of two main components; Z-URC(ZigBee based Universal Remote Control) and Z2IR(ZigBee to IR) conversion module. The one is an integrated remote control unit using ZigBee based wireless network technology, WPAN(wireless personal area network) and the other is a Z2IR(ZigBee to IR) conversion module which converts a control message transferred through the ZigBee network into an IR typed control signal. In the proposed scheme, the list of CE devices to be controlled by the proposed URC is dynamically reconfigured. It is based on his location as a consumer with the proposed Z-URC goes from a room to any other place in his house. The Z-URC gets some information for its controllable devices' product identifier (ID) and vendor ID from WPAN (wireless personnel area network) based on ZigBee. A user may configure the two IDs for his CE appliances. Based on this feature, the module informs the Z-URC a target appliance's information. And, we apply a novel mechanism to our proposed scheme to minimize power consumption of the Z2IR module, which is based on ZigBee devices' ON/OFF control mechanism using multiple timers.

This paper describes our design of a hybrid amplifier composed of a distributed Raman amplifier and erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for C- and L-bands. We characterize the distributed Raman amplifier by numerical simulation based on the experimentally measured Raman gain coefficient of an ordinary single mode fiber transmission line. In single channel amplification, the crosstalk caused by double Rayleigh scattering was independent of signal input power and simply given as a function of the Raman gain. The double Rayleigh scattering induced power penalty was less than 0.1 dB after 1000 km if the on-off Raman gain was below 21 dB. For multiple channel amplification, using commercially available pump laser diodes and fiber components, we determined and optimized the conditions of three-wavelength Raman pumping for an amplification bandwidth of 32 nm for C-band and 34 nm for L-band. After analyzing the conventional erbium-doped fiber amplifier analysis in C-band, we estimated the performance of the hybrid amplifier for long haul optical transmission. Compared with erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, the optical signal-to-noise ratio was calculated to be higher by more than 3 dB in the optical link using the designed hybrid amplifier.

This article comes up with a novel particulate matter (PM) monitoring scheme, denoted by uRET, that conducts microscale sensing resolution in urban environments. uRET relies on battery-powered fine PM sensors with the Bluetooth low energy module and smart mobile devices of pedestrians who walk around urban places. In such opportunistic sensing data acquisition by mobile relaying, it is highly challenging to accomplish the sufficient quality of PM event observation. So, uRET is designed for reliable event transport from sensors to a cloud server. A proof of concept prototype is implemented for field tests by APIs of common map platforms. Test results show that uRET can support high enough delivery success ratio against movement velocity and existence situation of mobiles to achieve required detection quality at microscale urban places.

Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) applications have been increasingly deployed in smart domains, such as homes, buildings, and so on. A wide variety of smart devices and solutions bring improved lifestyles. However, current provider-oriented and individual application deployment leads to the separation of a smart domain into respective regions by providers and applications. Such heterogeneous environments hinder unified operation and the utilization of smart IoT applications. Therefore, this Article firstly addresses analyses on conventional smart domain technologies—smart home, smart building, etc.— and deployment in the real world with heterogeneous IoT technologies; then, a novel smart domain strategy for inter-cloud and inter-service operability and mobile-user-attached interactivity is proposed. Performance is compared in terms of user experience and service availability. Finally, numeric analyses are provided to prove the proposed strategy, and the proof-of-concept is presented to show feasibility and performances.

Photovoltaic (PV) is an attractive renewable energy source and the global cumulative PV capacity is growing steadily. Implementation of a cost-effective wireless PV monitoring system at panel level is required in order to apply it commercially to the massive number of PV panels and to enhance convenience of maintenance of PV systems. This paper proposes an implementation method for cost-effective wireless PV monitoring module (WPMM), and describes demonstration results on the practical PV system.