Enhancing the Physical Layer in V2V Communication Using OFDM – MIMO Techniques

The following paper has recently being presented by Ahmad Al-Khalil at The 14th Annual PostGraduate Symposium on The Convergence of Telecommunications, Networking and Broadcasting (PGNET 2013) in Liverpool 24-25th June 2013.

Enhancing the Physical Layer in V2V Communication Using OFDM – MIMO Techniques

Ahmad Baheej Al-Khalil, Ali Al-Sherbaz, Scott Turner

School of Science and Technology 

The University of Northampton 

St. George Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JD 

{ahmad.al-khalil, ali.al-sherbaz, scott.turner}@northampton.ac.uk 

Abstract 
Vehicular Ad hoc network (VANET) has recently been attracting the attention of researchers as a new technology in the wireless communication system. Vehicle-to-vehicle V2V communication can be considered an important way to help the drivers to satisfy requirements such as less congestion, accident 
warning, road exploration, etc. The propagation issues such as multipath fading significantly affect the reliability of V2V 

The goal of this work is to enhance the performance of the physical layer PHY in V2V communication. However, the cellular phone channel has been used to evaluate the possibility of apply it in the vehicular communication V2V. The simulation results observed that the transmitted signal is affected by a 
multipath fading channel. In order to overcome this problem two techniques are used: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique and Multiple-Input-MultipleOutput (MIMO) diversity technique. The simulation results showed that the OFDM technique overcomes the multipath fading with high transmission power. On the other hand, MIMO diversity technique called Alamouti Space-Time Code for two transmitters and two receivers (MIMO 2x2) is used to improve the error degradation with less transmission power. 


The full text of the paper is available at: http://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/pgnet2013/Proceedings/papers/1569763289.pdf

Supervisors
Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz
Dr Scott Turner
Dr Yinghui Zhang

Machine to Machine Communication

The following paper is to be presented at Global Interactions, Annual Research Conference 2013 Postgraduate Research Degree Students and Early Career Researchers. University of Northampton 27th June 2013.

Compressive Sensing of Machine to Machine Communication Terminals as a Means of Enhancing their Energy Efficiencies (M2M Green Communications).

Sylvester Ajah 

School of Science and Technology, 

Computing and Immersive Technology Division

Abstract
Energy efficiency of the machine to machine (M2M) communications terminals is one of the major design goals of the M2M networks, going by the fact that there are over 50 billion of M2M communication devices to be deployed into the network by year 2020. The stakeholders in the M2M communications have observed that it will be environmental and economic catastrophic to deploy M2M communication terminals without solving the energy inefficiencies associated with wireless devices that are expected be used for M2M communications.

This research will examine compressive sensing of machine to machine communication terminals in collaboration with energy synchronisation techniques as the means for actualizing the over a decade life span of M2M communication terminals.


Supervisors
Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz
Prof. Phil Picton
Dr Scott Turner

Fully funded PhD Studentship in collaboration with GE Aviation Systems Ltd

The University of Northampton

£13726 per annum (including £1000 research expenses budget) and tuition fees for 3 years

Applications are invited for a 3-year fully-funded PhD studentship in the area of Model-Based Software Engineering. This PhD project will be funded jointly by both The University of Northampton and GE Aviation Systems Ltd.

Project Description

Model-Based Development (MBD) is seeing widespread adoption in a variety of domains within industry, especially in aviation. Industries around the world are reporting significant benefits from its use. However, the extent to which MBD can be used effectively in the software development lifecycle is unclear.

GE Aviation Systems primarily uses natural language (textual ‘shall’ statements) to express software requirements. These textual statements are often ambiguous, untestable, incorrect, missing detail, etc. Finding this out late in the development lifecycle proves very expensive. To this end, GE Aviation Systems has turned to MBD. They still use textual statements to express software requirements, but they supplement the requirements writing activity with modelling and simulation so that engineers gain a better understanding of the requirements and their faults. The models can then be refined and improved and serve as the Software Design artefacts that are used to auto-generate code. Currently, this means they have to write tests manually to test the design against the requirements. The study will investigate whether they could use models to express requirements and use those models to auto-generate test cases for testing the design model. This would then increase their productivity. To summarise, the research project will study the feasibility of model based tool support to capture requirements and automate requirements based testing.

Eligibility Criteria

• The studentship is open to both national and international candidates.
• Candidates should have at least an upper second class honours degree (UK or equivalent) and/or a strong Masters degree in computer science or related discipline.
• Candidates should have good programming skills in Java and/or C++ and an appreciation of the Software Development Lifecycle.

Deadline for Applications: 28^th July 2013

Start date: To be negotiated

Informal enquiries can be made to Dr. Suraj Ajit (suraj.ajit@northampton.ac.uk)

The application form should be completed and submitted by email to: researchdegrees@northampton.ac.uk. Include a comprehensive CV.

Attachments should be in PDF or Word format.

Please quote reference: UN13MBD

Return to Lab_13

Even though the junkbots project is not specially a computing project, it is part of the on-going work lead on problem-solving going by the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, School of Science and Technology , University of Northampton.

The junkbots project was carried as one of the activities at the celebration of two years of Lab_13 at Irchester Community Primary School - 24th May 2013.

Three groups spent around an hour developing the drawing junkbots (an example of what one is can be found in these image). The session basic revolves around two main activities:

- Showing that a motor can be made to vibrate and can they think of a way to use this and other materials around them (make sure there are pens/pencils around) to make a drinks can move.

- Next stage is can they modify their robot to make it draw.

Details and session plans can be found at: http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/junkbot-project-case-study-and-session.html 


If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact +Scott Turner  
 scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk