Giorgos Tatsis

Bio: Giorgos Tatsis is an academic researcher from University of Ioannina. The author has contributed to research in topics: Schumann resonances & Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 38 publications receiving 289 citations.

Performance of Turbo Coded OFDM Under the Presence of Various Noise Types

Abstract: A telecommunication system uses carriers in order to transmit information through a cable or wirelessly. If each time only one carrier is transmitted, then the system's signal will not be immune to frequency selective fading. If frequency selective fading includes the working frequency of the system, then the wireless link will not be established. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is the primary solution for coping with inter-signal interference and frequency-selective fading. Many carriers can be produced by splitting a fast information stream to slower data series. Different orthogonal frequencies carry slower data series. System's performance can be further enhanced with the utilization of turbo codes. Turbo codes make the system more immune to noise effects with excellent BER results. This paper presents the thorough analysis of a turbo coded OFDM scheme using a PCCC technique in the presence of a channel which includes AWGN, phase noise, Rayleigh fading, Rician fading and Doppler shift.

A Prototype Photoplethysmography Electronic Device that Distinguishes Congestive Heart Failure from Healthy Individuals by Applying Natural Time Analysis

Abstract: In this paper, a prototype photoplethysmography (PPG) electronic device is presented for the distinction of individuals with congestive heart failure (CHF) from the healthy (H) by applying the concept of Natural Time Analysis (NTA). Data were collected simultaneously with a conventional three-electrode electrocardiography (ECG) system and our prototype PPG electronic device from H and CHF volunteers at the 2nd Department of Cardiology, Medical School of Ioannina, Greece. Statistical analysis of the results show a clear separation of CHF from H subjects by means of NTA for both the conventional ECG system and our PPG prototype system, with a clearly better distinction for the second one which additionally inherits the advantages of a low-cost portable device.

Enhanced PAPR in OFDM without Deteriorating BER Performance

Abstract: Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is vastly used in wireless networks. Its superiority relies on the fact that information can be split in large amount of frequencies. Each frequency is called information subcarrier. OFDM exhibits excellent annotation in channel fades and interferers as only a few subcarriers can be affected and consequently a small part of the original data stream can be lost. Orthogonality between frequencies ensures better spectrum management and obviates the danger of intersymbol interference. However, an essential problem exists. OFDM systems have high peak to average power ratio. This implies large fluctuations in signal power, ending up in increasing complexity of ADCs and DACs. Also, power amplifiers must work in a larger linear dynamic region. In this paper we present two new techniques for reducing Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), that can be added in any OFDM system and we compare them with other existing schemes.

Turbo Coded OFDM with Large Number of Subcarriers

Abstract: Wireless communication systems have greatly advanced during the last years. A significant contributor in these systems’ performance has been Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Since its invention, it is considered to be a technological leap. This leap in splitting an information stream in multiple frequency carriers has been adapted by various scientists working on the development of wireless systems. Moreover, as OFDM presented excellent tolerance of channel fading and noise signals, the evolvement in terms of speed and reliability was consequent, because only a small stream of information is lost due to noise effects. OFDM along with the knowledge that Turbo codes is another excellent scheme of reducing BER, has triggered us to expand our research. So, we experimented in simulation level not only in joining OFDM with Turbo Codes but even in finding a better Turbo scheme compared to a typical PCCC, SCCC and a Convolutional encoder with Viterbi decoder. As the last goal has already been accomplished, in this paper is presented the new OFDM system consisted of our Turbo scheme. The analysis of the previous system took into consideration the effects of an AWGN channel. Also, this noise analysis was conducted using a simulation platform with specific attributes such as transmitting and receiving fixed number of subcarriers (2048 carriers after IFFT block) while using different types of convolutional concatenated codes, such as PCCC (Parallel), SCCC (Serial) and the new PCCC scheme. The results clearly show not only the improvement in the BER performance of the Turbo Coded OFDM systems (compared to others consisted of Viterbi decoders) but the overall superiority of the proposed design.

Earth-to-Earth Microwave Rain Attenuation Measurements: A Survey On the Recent Literature

Abstract: Many works have been conducted relevant to rainfall measurements, while the first relevant ones were based on the power loss estimation function from wireless links located back to the early 1940s. It is notable, though, that this innovative idea conduced to many theoretical models correlating the signal attenuation to the rainfall intensity. This type of parameter strongly contributes to the mechanism of frequency attenuation above 10 GHz. Consequently, in the last twenty years, there has been a significant boost to this research topic. Researchers all around the world have worked thoroughly on the issue of estimating rain with the use of earth-to-earth microwave signal attenuation. Nevertheless, the issue remains intriguing and challenging. This paper presents a literature survey, of the last decade, on this challenging issue focusing on measurements from backhaul cellular microwave links and experimental setups. Research challenges and future trends are also presented.

Three Years of Country-Wide Rainfall Maps from Cellular Communication Networks

Abstract: Accurate and timely surface precipitation measurements are crucial for water resources management, agriculture, weather prediction, climate research, as well as ground validation of satellite-based precipitation estimates. However, the majority of the land surface of the earth lacks such data, and in many parts of the world the density of surface precipitation gauging networks is even rapidly declining. This development can potentially be counteracted by using received signal level data from the enormous number of microwave links used worldwide in commercial cellular communication networks. Along such links, radio signals propagate from a transmitting antenna at one base station to a receiving antenna at another base station. Rain-induced attenuation and, subsequently, path-averaged rainfall intensity can be retrieved from the signal’s attenuation between transmitter and receiver. Here, we show how one such a network can be used to retrieve the space–time dynamics of rainfall for an entire country (The Netherlands, ∼35,500 km2), based on an unprecedented number of links (∼2,400) and a rainfall retrieval algorithm that can be applied in real time. This demonstrates the potential of such networks for real-time rainfall monitoring, in particular in those parts of the world where networks of dedicated ground-based rainfall sensors are often virtually absent.

ELF Electromagnetic Waves from Lightning: The Schumann Resonances

Abstract: Lightning produces electromagnetic fields and waves in all frequency ranges. In the extremely low frequency (ELF) range below 100 Hz, the global Schumann Resonances (SR) are excited at frequencies of 8 Hz, 14 Hz, 20 Hz, etc. This review is aimed at the reader generally unfamiliar with the Schumann Resonances. First some historical context to SR research is given, followed by some theoretical background and examples of the extensive use of Schumann resonances in a variety of lightning-related studies in recent years, ranging from estimates of the spatial and temporal variations in global lighting activity, connections to global climate change, transient luminous events and extraterrestrial lightning. Both theoretical and experimental results of the global resonance phenomenon are presented. It is our hope that this review will increase the interest in SR among researchers previously unfamiliar with this phenomenon.

Mobile-Phone Antenna Array with Diamond-Ring Slot Elements for 5G Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract: A design of mobile-phone antenna array with diamond-ring slot elements is proposed for fifth generation (5G) massive multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The configuration of the design consists of four double-fed diamond-ring slot antenna elements placed at different corners of the mobile-phone printed circuit board (PCB). A low-cost FR-4 dielectric with an overall dimension of 75 × 150 mm2 is used as the design substrate. The antenna elements are fed by 50-Ohm L-shaped microstrip-lines. Due to the orthogonal placement of microstrip feed lines, the diamond-ring slot elements can exhibit the polarization and radiation pattern diversity characteristic. A good impedance bandwidth (S11 ≤ −10 dB) of 3.2–4 GHz has been achieved for each antenna radiator. However, for S11 ≤ −6 dB, this value is 3–4.2 GHz. The proposed design provides the required radiation coverage of 5G smartphones. The performance of the proposed MIMO antenna design is examined using both simulation and experiment. High isolation, high efficiency and sufficient gain-level characteristics have been obtained for the proposed MIMO smartphone antenna. In addition, the calculated total active reflection coefficient (TARC) and envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of the antenna elements are very low over the whole band of interest which verify the capability of the proposed multi-antenna systems for massive MIMO and diversity applications. Furthermore, the properties of the design in Data-mode/Talk-mode are investigated and presented.

Retrieval algorithm for rainfall mapping from microwave links in a cellular communication network

Abstract: Abstract. Microwave links in commercial cellular communication networks hold a promise for areal rainfall monitoring and could complement rainfall estimates from ground-based weather radars, rain gauges, and satellites. It has been shown that country-wide (≈ 35 500 km2) 15 min rainfall maps can be derived from the signal attenuations of approximately 2400 microwave links in such a network. Here we give a detailed description of the employed rainfall retrieval algorithm. Moreover, the documented, modular, and user-friendly code (a package in the scripting language “R”) is made available, including a 2-day data set of approximately 2600 commercial microwave links from the Netherlands. The purpose of this paper is to promote rainfall mapping utilising microwave links from cellular communication networks as an alternative or complementary means for continental-scale rainfall monitoring.

Generalized Deep Neural Network Model for Cuffless Blood Pressure Estimation with Photoplethysmogram Signal Only.

Abstract: Due to the growing public awareness of cardiovascular disease (CVD), blood pressure (BP) estimation models have been developed based on physiological parameters extracted from both electrocardiograms (ECGs) and photoplethysmograms (PPGs). Still, in order to enhance the usability as well as reduce the sensor cost, researchers endeavor to establish a generalized BP estimation model using only PPG signals. In this paper, we propose a deep neural network model capable of extracting 32 features exclusively from PPG signals for BP estimation. The effectiveness and accuracy of our proposed model was evaluated by the root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standard and the British Hypertension Society (BHS) standard. Experimental results showed that the RMSEs in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) are 4.643 mmHg and 3.307 mmHg, respectively, across 9000 subjects, with 80.63% of absolute errors among estimated SBP records lower than 5 mmHg and 90.19% of absolute errors among estimated DBP records lower than 5 mmHg. We demonstrated that our proposed model has remarkably high accuracy on the largest BP database found in the literature, which shows its effectiveness compared to some prior works.