Here's the first non-technical introduction to the exciting field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). It describes in detail the materials used in producing MEMS -- including silicon, polymers and glass and quartz substrates -- as well as MEMS design for nozzles, sensors, valves and other applications. It examines the manufacture of commercial MEMS using techniques such as oxidation, lithography, chemical vapor deposition and silicon fusion bonding and applications in a wide range of industries including data storage, telecommunications, consumer, automotive, medical and defense. A unique element of this book is its look at the future of MEMS -- its potential for microelectrode arrays, actuators and optical switches and other technologies.

This thesis proposes a reliable and repeatable method for implementing Spoof Surface Plasmon (SSP) modes in the design of various circuit components. It also presents the first equivalent circuit model for plasmonic structures, which serves as an insightful guide to designing SSP-based circuits. Today, electronic circuits and systems are developing rapidly and becoming an indispensable part of our daily life; however the issue of compactness in integrated circuits remains a formidable challenge. Recently, the Spoof Surface Plasmon (SSP) modes have been proposed as a novel platform for highly compact electronic circuits. Despite extensive research efforts in this area, there is still an urgent need for a systematic design method for plasmonic circuits. In this thesis, different SSP-based transmission lines, antenna feeding networks and antennas are designed and experimentally evaluated. With their high field confinement, the SSPs do not suffer from the compactness limitations of traditional circuits and are capable of providing an alternative platform for the future generation of electronic circuits and electromagnetic systems.

This book features selected papers presented at Third International Conference on Nanoelectronics, Circuits and Communication Systems (NCCS 2017). Covering topics such as MEMS and nanoelectronics, wireless communications, optical communication, instrumentation, signal processing, Internet of Things, image processing, bioengineering, green energy, hybrid vehicles, environmental science, weather forecasting, cloud computing, renewable energy, RFID, CMOS sensors, actuators, transducers, telemetry systems, embedded systems, and sensor network applications in mines, it is a valuable resource for young scholars, researchers, and academics.

This book describes RTL design using Verilog, synthesis and timing closure for System On Chip (SOC) design blocks. It covers the complex RTL design scenarios and challenges for SOC designs and provides practical information on performance improvements in SOC, as well as Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designs. Prototyping using modern high density Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) is discussed in this book with the practical examples and case studies. The book discusses SOC design, performance improvement techniques, testing and system level verification, while also describing the modern Intel FPGA/XILINX FPGA architectures and their use in SOC prototyping. Further, the book covers the Synopsys Design Compiler (DC) and Prime Time (PT) commands, and how they can be used to optimize complex ASIC/SOC designs. The contents of this book will be useful to students and professionals alike.

The book features:
carefully hand-drawn circuit illustrations
hundreds of fully tested circuits
tutorial on electronics basics
tips on part substitutions, design modifications, and circuit operation
All covering the following areas:
Review of the Basics
Digital Integrated Circuits
MOS/CMOS Integrated Circuits
TTL/LS Integrated Circuits
Linear Integrated Circuits
Index of Integrated Circuits
Index of Circuit Applications

This book features works from world-class experts from academia, industry, and national agencies from across the world focusing on a wide spectrum of automotive fields covering in-vehicle signal processing, driver modeling, systems and safety. The essays collected in this volume present cutting-edge studies on safety, driver behavior, infrastructure, and human-to-vehicle interfaces.

This book offers a review of the use of extended ablation plasmas as nonlinear media for HHG of high-order harmonic generation (HHG). The book describes the different experimental approaches, shows the advantages and limitations regarding HHG efficiency and discusses the particular processes that take place at longer interaction lengths, including propagation and quasi-phase matching effects. It describes the most recent approaches to harmonic generation in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) range with the use of extended plasma plumes, and how these differ from more commonly-used gas-jet sources. The main focus is on studies using extended plasmas, but some new findings from HHG experiments in narrow plasma plumes are also discussed. It also describes how quasi-phase-matching in modulated plasmas, as demonstrated in recent studies, has revealed different means of tuning enhanced harmonic groups in the XUV region. After an introduction to the fundamental theoretical and experimental aspects of HHG, a review of the most important results of HHG in narrow plasmas is presented, including recent studies of small-sized plasma plumes as emitters of high-order harmonics. In Chapter 2, various findings in the application of extended plasmas for harmonic generation are analyzed. One of the most important applications of extended plasmas, the quasi-phase-matching of generated harmonics, is demonstrated in Chapter 3, including various approaches to the modification of perforated plasma plumes. Chapter 4 depicts the nonlinear optical features of extended plasmas produced on the surfaces of different non-metal materials. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the analysis of new opportunities for extended plasma induced HHG. The advantages of the application of long plasma plumes for HHG, such as resonance enhancement and double-pulse method, are discussed in Chapter 6. Finally, a summary section brings together all of these findings and discuss the perspectives of extended plasma formations for efficient HHG and nonlinear optical plasma spectroscopy. The book will be useful for students and scholars working in this highly multidisciplinary domain involving material science, nonlinear optics and laser spectroscopy. It brings the new researcher to the very frontier of the physics of the interaction between laser and extended plasma; for the expert it will serve as an essential guide and indicate directions for future research.

This thesis experimentally demonstrates the much discussed electronic charge-glass states in solids. It focuses on quasi-two-dimensional organic conductors of the -(BEDT-TTF)2X family, which form anisotropic triangular lattices, and examines their electronic properties using various measurements: resistivity, time-resolved electric transport, X-ray diffraction analysis, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The hallmark of the charge glass caused by geometrical frustration of lattice structure for those materials is successfully observed for the first time. The thesis provides new insights into the exotic properties of matter driven by strong electron correlations and crystalline frustration. The introduction enables beginners to understand fundamentals of the charge-glass states and the organic-conductor family -(BEDT-TTF)2X. The comprehensive and detailed descriptions of the experimental demonstration make this a valuable resource.

This book reports on an outstanding thesis that has significantly advanced the state-of-the-art in the automated analysis and classification of speech and music. It defines several standard acoustic parameter sets and describes their implementation in a novel, open-source, audio analysis framework called openSMILE, which has been accepted and intensively used worldwide. The book offers extensive descriptions of key methods for the automatic classification of speech and music signals in real-life conditions and reports on the evaluation of the framework developed and the acoustic parameter sets that were selected. It is not only intended as a manual for openSMILE users, but also and primarily as a guide and source of inspiration for students and scientists involved in the design of speech and music analysis methods that can robustly handle real-life conditions.

Microelectromechanical sytems (MEMS) applications in RF and microwave electronics are revolutionizing wireless communications. This text provides a comprehensive explanation of the fabrication and fundamental physics of MEMS and their applications in electronic communication systems. The book integrates circuit fabrication technology, device design-oriented materials, mechanical and microwave considerations, and RF/microwave electronics to give engineers and managers a clear understanding of the potential and limitations of MEMS in electronic communications.

This practical, comprehensive book introduces both semiconductors and integrated optics at a fundamental level, and provides in-depth derivations and analysis of key integrated optical components for more advanced study. Written from an engineer's point of view, the book emphasizes practical application; the author develops and explains the concepts and techniques needed to solve real-world problems and to understand the engineering issues involved. The book first discusses semiconductor optical material systems and then addresses the waveguide in depth. Next, it covers active devices such as lasers, modulators and detectors. Finally, there is a survey of integration and hybridization, plus the development of photonic integrated circuits. With its clear explanations and design examples, the book provides both experienced and budding engineers with the information necessary to design both the structure and fabrication process of a semiconductor integrated optical device.

Digital signal processing (DSP) has been applied to a very wide range of applications. This includes voice processing, image processing, digital communications, the transfer of data over the internet, image and data compression, etc. Engineers who develop DSP applications today, and in the future, will need to address many implementation issues including mapping algorithms to computational structures, computational efficiency, power dissipation, the effects of finite precision arithmetic, throughput and hardware implementation. It is not practical to cover all of these in a single text. However, this text emphasizes the practical implementation of DSP algorithms as well as the fundamental theories and analytical procedures that form the basis for modern DSP applications. Digital Signal Processing: Principles, Algorithms and System Design provides an introduction to the principals of digital signal processing along with a balanced analytical and practical treatment of algorithms and applications for digital signal processing. It is intended to serve as a suitable text for a one semester junior or senior level undergraduate course. It is also intended for use in a following one semester first-year graduate level course in digital signal processing. It may also be used as a reference by professionals involved in the design of embedded computer systems, application specific integrated circuits or special purpose computer systems for digital signal processing, multimedia, communications, or image processing.

This book focuses on two of the most relevant problems related to power management on multicore and manycore systems. Specifically, one part of the book focuses on maximizing/optimizing computational performance under power or thermal constraints, while another part focuses on minimizing energy consumption under performance (or real-time) constraints.

This book is an in-depth treatment of the theoretical background relevant to an understanding of materials that can be obtained by using high-energy electron diffraction and microscopy.

This book analyzes the wireless revolution: from applications to technology, and from economics to system engineering.

Focussing on the key technologies in developing robots for a wide range of medical rehabilitation activities - which will include robotics basics, modelling and control, biomechanics modelling, rehabilitation strategies, robot assistance, clinical setup/implementation as well as neural and muscular interfaces for rehabilitation robot control - this book is split into two parts; a review of the current state of the art, and recent advances in robotics for medical rehabilitation. Both parts will include five sections for the five key areas in rehabilitation robotics: (i) the upper limb; (ii) lower limb for gait rehabilitation (iii) hand, finger and wrist; (iv) ankle for strains and sprains; and (v) the use of EEG and EMG to create interfaces between the neurological and muscular functions of the patients and the rehabilitation robots. Each chapter provides a description of the design of the device, the control system used, and the implementation and testing to show how it fulfils the needs of that specific area of rehabilitation. The book will detail new devices, some of which have never been published before in any journal or conference.

This book focuses on the design of Robotic Flexible Assembly Cell (RFAC) with multi-robots. Its main contribution consists of a new effective strategy for scheduling RFAC in a multi-product assembly environment, in which dynamic status and multi-objective optimization problems occur. The developed strategy, which is based on a combination of advanced solution approaches such as simulation, fuzzy logic, system modeling and the Taguchi optimization method, fills an important knowledge gap in the current literature and paves the way for future research towards the goal of employing flexible assembly systems as effectively as possible despite the complexity of their scheduling.

This book provides readers with a comprehensive treatment of the principles, circuit design techniques, and applications of injection-locking in mixed-mode signal processing, with an emphasis on CMOS implementation. Major topics include: An overview of injection-locking, the principle of injection-locking in harmonic and non-harmonic oscillators, lock range enhancement techniques for harmonic oscillators, lock range enhancement techniques for non-harmonic oscillators, and the emerging applications of injection-locking in mixed-mode signal processing. Provides a single-source reference to the principles, circuit design techniques, and applications of injection-locking in mixed-mode signal processing; Includes a rich collection of design techniques for increasing the lock range of oscillators under injection, along with in-depth examination of the pros and cons of these methods; Enables a broad range of applications, such as passive wireless microsystems, forwarded-clock parallel data links, frequency synthesizers for wireless and wireline communications, and low phase noise phase-locked loops.

Robust and Fault-Tolerant Control proposes novel automatic control strategies for nonlinear systems developed by means of artificial neural networks and pays special attention to robust and fault-tolerant approaches. The book discusses robustness and fault tolerance in the context of model predictive control, fault accommodation and reconfiguration, and iterative learning control strategies. Expanding on its theoretical deliberations the monograph includes many case studies demonstrating how the proposed approaches work in practice. The most important features of the book include: a comprehensive review of neural network architectures with possible applications in system modelling and control; a concise introduction to robust and fault-tolerant control; step-by-step presentation of the control approaches proposed; an abundance of case studies illustrating the important steps in designing robust and fault-tolerant control; and a large number of figures and tables facilitating the performance analysis of the control approaches described. The material presented in this book will be useful for researchers and engineers who wish to avoid spending excessive time in searching neural-network-based control solutions. It is written for electrical, computer science and automatic control engineers interested in control theory and their applications. This monograph will also interest postgraduate students engaged in self-study of nonlinear robust and fault-tolerant control.

Control of Discrete-Time Descriptor Systems takes an anisotropy-based approach to the explanation of random input disturbance with an information-theoretic representation. It describes the random input signal more precisely, and the anisotropic norm minimization included in the book enables readers to tune their controllers better through the mathematical methods provided. The book contains numerous examples of practical applications of descriptor systems in various fields, from robotics to economics, and presents an information-theoretic approach to the mathematical description of coloured noise. Anisotropy-based analysis and design for descriptor systems is supplied along with proofs of basic statements, which help readers to understand the algorithms proposed, and to undertake their own numerical simulations. This book serves as a source of ideas for academic researchers and postgraduate students working in the control of discrete-time systems. The control design procedures outlined are numerically effective and easily implementable in MATLAB (R)

This book provides a general and comprehensible overview of imbalanced learning. It contains a formal description of a problem, and focuses on its main features, and the most relevant proposed solutions. Additionally, it considers the different scenarios in Data Science for which the imbalanced classification can create a real challenge. This book stresses the gap with standard classification tasks by reviewing the case studies and ad-hoc performance metrics that are applied in this area. It also covers the different approaches that have been traditionally applied to address the binary skewed class distribution. Specifically, it reviews cost-sensitive learning, data-level preprocessing methods and algorithm-level solutions, taking also into account those ensemble-learning solutions that embed any of the former alternatives. Furthermore, it focuses on the extension of the problem for multi-class problems, where the former classical methods are no longer to be applied in a straightforward way. This book also focuses on the data intrinsic characteristics that are the main causes which, added to the uneven class distribution, truly hinders the performance of classification algorithms in this scenario. Then, some notes on data reduction are provided in order to understand the advantages related to the use of this type of approaches. Finally this book introduces some novel areas of study that are gathering a deeper attention on the imbalanced data issue. Specifically, it considers the classification of data streams, non-classical classification problems, and the scalability related to Big Data. Examples of software libraries and modules to address imbalanced classification are provided. This book is highly suitable for technical professionals, senior undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of data science, computer science and engineering. It will also be useful for scientists and researchers to gain insight on the current developments in this area of study, as well as future research directions.

In almost all depictions of the future, one technology plays a prominent role - the robot. Science fiction movies and stories tell us that, in the not so distant future, robots - from Robbie the Robot to C3PO to the Terminator - will be everywhere, taking care of every human need. Those are projections of the future. But robots have a history as well, and The Robot: A Life Story of a Technology tells their story. During the Englightenment, "automata" were mechnical toys that could simulate human actions. Robots became essential parts of factories, performing tasks perfectly that would be either too dangerous or boring for humans. And recent advances in artificial intelligence have made robots that can behave with intelligence. The Robot covers all aspects of the history of robotics: BLThe mechanical toys in the Enlightenment, from mechanical timepieces and early computational devices, to music boxes and automated human-like figures designed to amuse royalty. BLThe use of automation in the Industrial Revolution, such as the Jacquard punch card loom and the famous "difference engine" of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, and the use of robotic arms in automation. How by the mid-20th century robots became the icon for the future, and became an important feature of the popular culture. BLCurrent trends in robotics, such as research into artificial intelligence and the creation of "friendly robots" that could make an impact in the marketplace. The volume includes a timeline of important events, a glossary of terms, and a bibliography of important primary and secondary sources that are useful for further research.