Chun-Lin Lu

A Touch-Dim Network for the Dimming Control of Lighting System

DALI is a popular interface of lighting network system with an excellent dimming facility, but it is too complicated when it is applied in family house. Touch-Dim installation of DALI ballast is then developed. The installation and operation are much simplified but the network function is no more valid. This paper proposed an alternative network structure, which is named as “Touch-Dim network”, to offer an operation as simple as Touch-Dim but the network function is valid again. The system architecture and the hardware design are described in the paper. An internet u-Lighting system with three switches and three fluorescent lights is also implemented in this work to demonstrate the proposed Touch-Dim network.

Design of Interactive e-Care Dining Table for Smart Kitchen

Many domotic applications are quickly growing up in the digital home technologies domain. Installation of these systems allows improved security and comfort of a house through the integration of new digital technologies. Although these technologies can improve individual family member’s social relationship and family relationships, child-parent relationship still remains the main question in such domotic environments for the application of artificial intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to describe our e-Care dining table, which is designed as an interactive and educational tool for family leisure and educational activity. Additionally, this table is developed mainly to improve child-parent relationship and to bring new features into the kitchen environment.

An Asymmetry Printed WLAN/WiMax Dipole Antenna

In this paper, we proposed an asymmetry structure of printed dipole antenna which acquires wideband impedance match delivered by a double-side and center-feed-design and an open slot in the small radiator to expand the high resonant frequency band and harvest an antenna that can reach dual and wide band requirements as we proposed here. The frequency bands of this proposed antenna cover 2.31-3.83 GHz and 4.88-6.0 GHz, which can be applied to WLAN and WiMax operations and the fractional bandwidths reach 49.51% and 20.59%. We minimize the antenna size to 20„e47 mm2 by using the feed lines as design parameters to achieve the dual-band and wideband design. This proposed antenna structure can be included in a WLAN/WiMax array antenna as a structural element. In this paper, we will present simulation and implemented results of antenna structure, frequency bands, gain value and the radiation patterns.

A CPW-feed printed antenna for dual-band WLAN operations

In this paper, we present the design of a CPW-feed printed antenna which improves the connection between the antenna and the coaxial cable. The proposed antenna is designed to cover two frequency bands of 1.84–2.5 GHz and 4.9–6.3 GHz, which are required by the dual-band WLAN communication. In this work, it is found that the distance between the radiator and the ground is the key parameter for the design of the antenna to work in two resonant bands. Furthermore, tuning the shape of the radiator and the position of the slots on the ground will widen the high resonant band of the antenna. This design of the antenna is simulated on an FR4 substrate with a thickness of 0.4 mm and an area of 11×67 mm2. Being small in size, cheap in manufacturing, and simple in profile, the proposed antenna is perfect to be embedded into an access point of dual-band WLAN.

A 3-5-GHz Low-Voltage High-Isolation Transformer-Based CMOS Mixer for UWB Applications

This paper presents the implementation of a transformer-based 3-5-GHz UWB mixer in 0.18-mum CMOS process. An on-chip transformer being inserted between the transconductance and the switch stages, the proposed mixer satisfies the demands of low supply voltage and low power consumption in UWB applications. The RF transconductance stage of the mixer includes a capacitive cross-coupling to widen the working frequency to be 3 - 5 GHz. The measured results show that the mixer has a maximum conversion gain of 4.4 dB with a power consumption of 16 mW under a supply voltage of 0.8 V. The measured LO-IF, LO-RF and RF-IF isolations are 36 dB, 44 dB and 40 dB, respectively. The chip size is 1.78 times 1.39 mm2.

Design and implementation of the smart dining table

The idea of open-plan kitchen/living room has formed in smart home. Activities which took place in the living-room in the past are often moved into the kitchen. The dining table must be modified to be smart enough because many interactive games will be performed on the table. This paper designs and implements a smart dining table which fits the requirements of the open-plan kitchen/living room. The tempered glass with a rear film is utilized as the surface of the proposed table which let the image projector recovers the interactive image on the film. The infrared system consists of IR LED and IR camera is designed in this work as the multi-touch sensing system. Three multi-media games are demonstrated on the proposed smart dining table for the evaluation purposes.

Device Synchronization for the Light Control in ZigBee Networks

Based on the master-slave transmission mode, we proposed a device synchronization method for the light control in ZigBee networks. The lighting devices are distributed over the ground of the road and synchronously flashed at night to improve safety of traffic. Each lighting device is powered by a lithium battery charged by a solar cell during the day. Timing synchronization packets of application layer are periodically sent from the master node to the slaves. When the master node is failure to work, a new master is elected from slave nodes by a free contention rule. The lighting devices still can flash synchronously visually even in the no-master mode or the multi-master mode. Experimental results show the feasibility of our work.

A 16-GHz 0.18μm CMOS differential colpitts VCO with a moderate output power for DS-UWB and 60-GHz applications

A 16-GHz CMOS differential Colpitts VCO fabricated with the 0.18 mum 1P6M process is presented. This VCO is composed of a PMOS transistor-pair core circuit and two source follower output buffers. The VCO can operate at 16.5 GHz, and the measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is -115 dBc/Hz. The power consumption of the VCO core is 12.6 mW. Compared with previous reported works, this VCO has a much higher output power of -0.9 dBm at 16.5 GHz.

A 24-GHz triple-mode programmable frequency divider in 0.13-µm CMOS technology

This paper proposes a new topology of a millimeter-wave triple-mode programmable frequency divider. An example of its application at the working frequency of 24 GHz is also demonstrated in TSMC 0.13-µm CMOS process. It consists of a mixer, a BPF, a CML divider and three pairs of switches. Under proper control of those switches, the proposed divider can offer three division mode of 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4. The divider core consumption is simulated to be 13.5 mW under a supply voltage of 1.2 V. In divide-by-two mode, the divider works from 15 to 26 GHz and the best input sensitivity is 0.1 Vp at 16 GHz. In divide-by-three mode, the divider still works from 15 to 26 GHz but the best input sensitivity slightly shifts to 0.13 Vp at 25 GHz. In divide-by-four mode, the divider is simulated to work from 19 to 24 GHz with a maximum input sensitivity of 0.32 Vp at 22 GHz.

Embedded Digital Signal Controller Application in 2.4-GHz RF Signal Phase Control

This paper describes the application of the embedded digital signal controller (DSC), dsPIC30F2020, in 2.4-GHz RF signal phase control. We merge two technologies of the RF circuit design and the embedded system application together to achieve not only good performance of RF circuit but also friendly interface for the user. The phase shift of RF signal is performed by proper combination of four signals with the same frequency but different phases of 0deg, 90deg, 180deg, and 270deg respectively. Due to successful usage of the embedded functions of DSC, such as the AID conversion and the pulse width modulation (PWM), to construct a close-loop feedback control, the proposed phase controller offers a phase shift range of 0 - 360 degrees and a resolution of one degree per adjustment step.