This research presents a novel approach to 28 impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) transmission using pulse position modulation (PPM) over an analog radio-over-fiber (ARoF) link, investigating the impact of fiber-based fronthaul on the overall performance of the communication system. In this setup, an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) is employed for PPM signal generation, while demodulation is performed with a commercial time-to-digital converter (TDC) based on an event timer. To enhance the reliability of transmitted reference PPM (TR-PPM) signals, the transmission system integrates Gray coding and Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS)-standard-compliant Reed-Solomon (RS) error correcting code (ECC). System performance was evaluated by transmitting pseudorandom binary sequences (PRBSs) and measuring the bit error ratio (BER) across a 5-m wireless link between two 20 gain horn (Ka-band) antennas, with and without a 20 single-mode optical fiber (SMF) link in transmitter side and ECC at the receiver side. The system achieved a BER of less than 8.17 × 10−7, using a time bin duration of 200 and a pulse duration of 100 , demonstrating robust performance and significant potential for space-to-ground telecommunication applications.
1 June 2022 in Electrical, Control and Communication Engineering
The paper is dedicated to the development of hardware and software components for the autonomous water quality monitoring system (WQMS) for fishing farms. The system can measure main water quality parameters, storing and processing data on the remote server. The LoRaWAN technological solutions and infrastructure are utilized, providing the optimal tradeoff between data transmission range and adaptive power consumption. The main implementation and exploitation issues are described, and the proposed solutions are provided.
OTFS, proposed for next-generation wireless communication systems such as 6G mobile networks, incorporates ISAC into DD-domain multiplexing, enabling simple detection of distance, velocity, and movement direction. This paper presents a SDR implementation of OTFS in an ARoF setup with wireless RF transmission. The main goal of this study is to validate and evaluate the implemented OTFS with static objects and to explore the quality of velocity and direction estimation in sensing scenarios involving moving objects. For the BER measurements, experiments were performed using a static object while varying the SDR transmitter power and introducing additional CFO. Experimental validation shows a minimum BER ≤ 5 × 10−7 with 0 errors per 2 × 106 bits. Data transmission at fractional Doppler yielded a BER ≈ 0.09, which is attributed to the use of a LMMSE channel estimator, that is not optimal for channels with fractional Doppler. Estimation of the velocity of a mobile object with an absolute velocity of m/s yielded a RMSE = 0.0839 m/s.
The energy efficiency of a communication system using pulse position modulation (PPM) can be increased by reducing the duration of the pulses transmitted over the communication channel to several tens of picoseconds. The employment of an event timer device as a time-to-digital converter (TDC) for demodulation allows the use of PPM with many pulse positions and achieves competitive data transfer speeds. However, along with several-picosecond accuracy of modern event timers, they require a pulse duration of several hundred picoseconds for precise detection. This research is devoted to developing passive techniques for precise pulse expansion from tens of picoseconds to hundreds of picoseconds. We propose two methods: the electrical method, which employs a microstrip low-pass filter (LPF), and the optical method, which uses fiber Bragg grating (FBG). This research offers a detailed analysis of distortion-free pulse expansion requirements, the design of prototypes meeting these requirements, and experimental design verification. Theoretical background, mathematical models, and results of experimental validation of the proposed pulse expansion methods within the laboratory transmitted reference pulse-position modulation (TR-PPM) communication system are provided.
This work presents an experimental evaluation of a high-speed analog-to-digital conversion method based on passive reference waveform crossings combined with time-to-digital converter (TDC) time-tagging. Unlike conventional level-crossing event-driven analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that require dynamically updated digital-to-analog converters (DACs), the proposed architecture compares the input waveform against a broadband periodic sampling function without active threshold control. Crossing instants are detected by a high-speed comparator and converted into rising and falling edge timestamps using a multi-channel TDC. A commercial ScioSense GPX2-based time-tagger with 30 ps single-shot precision was used for validation. A range of test signals—including 5 MHz sine, sawtooth, damped sine, and frequency-modulated chirp waveforms—were acquired using triangular, sinusoidal, and sawtooth sampling functions. Stroboscopic sampling was demonstrated using reference frequencies lower than the signal of interest, enabling effective undersampling of periodic radio frequency (RF) waveforms. The method achieved effective bandwidths approaching 100 MHz, with amplitude reconstruction errors of 0.05–0.30 RMS for sinusoidal signals and 0.15–0.40 RMS for sawtooth signals. Timing jitter showed strong dependence on the relative slope between the acquired waveform and sampling function: steep regions produced jitter near 5 ns, while shallow regions exhibited jitter up to 20 ns. The study has several limitations, including the bandwidth and dead-time constraints of the commercial TDC, the finite slew rate and noise of the comparator front-end, and the limited frequency range of the generated sampling functions. These factors influence the achievable timing precision and reconstruction accuracy, especially in low-gradient signal regions. Overall, the passive waveform-crossing method demonstrates strong potential for wideband, sparse, and rapidly varying signals, with natural scalability to multi-channel systems. Potential application domains include RF acquisition, ultra-wideband (UWB) radar, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems, high-speed instrumentation, and wideband timed antenna arrays.
This study presents the design and development, fabrication, and experimental testing of a four-circular-coil system capable of generating controlled, very low-frequency magnetic fields for biomedical applications. The system is tailored for use with a bioreactor cultivating mesenchymal stem cells, ensuring highly uniform magnetic fields within the area of interest (AOI). An asymptotic approach—the Multiple-Turn Thin-Wire Approximation (MTTWA)—was employed for fast calculations and modeling of multi-turn coil systems with massive windings. The MTTWA-calculated magnetic field distribution of the four-multi-turn coil system was verified with Ansys Maxwell simulations, showing good agreement. The coils and coil system were designed and fabricated, along with a prototype of the exposure system to validate both numerical modeling and simulation results, achieving magnetic field uniformity of at least 97% within the AOI. In the fabricated four-coil exposure setup, symmetric coils are connected in parallel with two separate amplifier-controlled outputs, enabling precise adjustment of field strength, uniformity, and intentional inhomogeneity for specialized experiments. An automated measurement system has been designed and fabricated to measure the magnetic field within the AOI volume with a spatial resolution of 1 mm.