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The performance of 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi router placement in the Communication Technology laboratories area at Universiti Kuala Lumpur British Malaysian Institute is investigated to address the intermittent connectivity problem observed in some areas. Altair WinProp is a wave propagation simulation tool that can simulate the interior of the building and examine wave propagation with a highly accurate result in a short amount of time. Using WinProp ProMan, the omnidirectional antenna patterns are placed at several locations within the focused area, and the propagation of each of the antennas is computed. The layout of the Communication Section laboratory is initially modelled. The specifications of the construction materials are assigned using WinProp WallMan. The router’s performance is evaluated based on the received signal strength. The procedure is repeated using a different frequency. These antennas’ performances are then compared to determine the optimum placement for the WiFi system at the Communication Technology laboratory area. In addition, the simulation results obtained using WinProp ProMan is validated by measuring the received signal strength using InSSIDer in the real environment. Finally, the optimum location for a radio signal to be broadcast from is identified. The results indicate that the wave propagation pattern can cover the entire Labs area in one go, with better signal strength at this position. The number of current access points can be reduced due to this optimisation, resulting in lower equipment costs and lower electricity bills.

Cognitive brain-training games can stimulate a child’s interest in learning and encourage and increase linguistic development, critical thinking, emotional advancement, brainpower, and creativity. Cognitive brain-training apps games could be seen as having an essential role in a child’s development specifically. This work aims to improve and increase user participation by making the board game more appealing and exciting. The traditional Boardgame Goolee is transformed into an app game based on an ultra-affordable and modular IoT software development. Complete design of the AppsGoolee system is developed using software design based on Unity Editor 2017, Microsoft Visual Studio code editor, C#, JavaScript programming language and Android KitKat 4.4. The app is implemented for Android platform. The 3rd party Services integrates with Google Game Service for accessing the world leaderboard and online personal achievement. AppsGoolee is designed and created as a stimulator to activate the neurons by their specific function that links games, training, and high-level thinking skills. The app element moves the pieces in the allotted time and accuracy without deviating from the path. This app has no expiration date. It provides a platform for single player as well as multiplayer games and caters across any languages, traditions, and nations, for national and international at any background. The game is divided into three categories: easy, medium, and hard depending on the difficulty level, wherein each category consists of 20 levels. Games performance is monitored and listed on the scoreboard known as Goolee Leaderboard to analyze the game pace at each level to improve the game’s strategy and solve the puzzles faster and efficiently. AppsGoole has broad potential in commercial inability as this product is tested at any level of people, including at schools, universities, and companies. AppsGoolee challenges human skills and intelligence in problem-solving and decision-making. It has identified the facts and constraints, developed analytical skills and possible solutions, and the elements of focus, concentration, and mind speed. Thus, the higher-order thinking skills can be achieved.

Paralysis is the inability to control the muscle movement at certain parts of body. It happens when the nerve impulse transmitted from brain cannot be received by the muscle. The common reason to this occurrence is due to injury of spinal cord. Rehabilitation process can restore a person’s daily routine back to normal. Therefore, the portable four joint arm rehabilitation device is designed to improve the physiotherapist’s consistency and performance. Using the LabVIEW software, this device is able to monitor the muscle activities based on the collected data from FSR, elbow and wrist reading and display the muscle activity graphs. Thus, the muscle activity data of four joints movement could be analyzed by comparing the pressure classification between normal and paralyzed person. Result shows that the accuracy rate of this device is more than 80%. For future improvement, variable resistor can be added at shoulder joint to monitor the angle rotation and the design of the device could be upgraded into an adjustable device.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely utilized in Information Technology (IT), banking, business and agriculture such as for the application of regulating and monitoring in plant nursery. Even though the conventional method is still being used to monitor the plant by physically checking the soil moisture and watering the plant, the quality and productivity of plant development is still less effective. Therefore, this project seeks to deploy the artificial intelligence application to automate plant monitoring and smart gardening to reduce the manual effort and to increase the performance of the system with less contact by the user. The use of Internet of Things (IoT) is utilized for managing and monitoring the three input parameters of plant which are temperature, humidity and soil moisture using mobile application. Node- MCU ESP32 is used to communicate the data from the sensors to the mobile application through Blynk and ThingSpeak. The systems will monitor the water usage computed by Fuzzy Logic System and record all the input and output data for subsequent study. The performance comparison between different plant species such as Bougainvillea and Mary Gold plant will be investigated. Finally, the contribution of this research could answer many challenges occurring in the existing farming systems as well as to boost the production of agriculture sector.

The evolution of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is made possible due to the rapid growth of wireless network and constant miniaturization of electrical devices. However, designing an antenna that is suitable for WBAN applications is challenging as the antenna should has compact size, in addition to the ability to endure low power loss during transmission and has robust communication link. Thus, a miniaturized wearable Dielectric Resonator Antenna (DRA) capable of radiating circularly polarized (CP) wave is designed. The antenna designing is done by using CST software. A total of 140 simulations is simulated in order to obtain the desired results. The DRA is used, together with conformal copper strips and miniaturized copper ground plane. The single point fed antenna is excited by a unique capital F-shaped conformal copper strips. The CP DRA offers a simulated Axial Ratio bandwidth below 3dB of ~23.85%, which is much greater than what has been reported in the previous work, with bandwidth of S11 below −10dB ~ 16.066%. In addition, the antenna designed in this research project managed to achieve an overlapped bandwidth of ~14.10% (6.9GHz – 7.94GHz). A prototype antenna is fabricated to validate the simulation result. Thus, the antenna design in this research will be helpful towards the evolution of the WBAN.

In today's world, transportation system has a very vital role to play in day to day life. However, when it comes to take the public transportation especially bus transport, time and patience are of essence. In the other word, many people who use bus transport have experienced time loss because of waiting at the bus stop. In order to overcome this problem, the Malaysia Public Bus Monitoring Real-Time System via GPS and GSM is implemented to help the bus user to track the current location of the bus in the form of latitude and longitude coordinates by using GPS technology. It is to reduce the waiting time of the bus user and enhance the current bus service system to become more effective and efficient. This technology of Global Positioning System and Global System for Mobile communication is used where the GPS module will track on the current position of a particular bus by receiving signal from at least three GPS satellites. The data is then will be send to the microcontroller unit to be processed, control and interpreted. A microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P act as interface between the GPS and GSM Module where it will perform the process to interpret the output and input. As for the GSM Module, it will be used to allow the message to be sent to the user regarding the current bus position. As the outcome, the bus user will receive a text message containing the latitude and longitude coordinate of the current bus position. Results show that the location of the bus can be tracked in the form of latitude and longitude coordinates by using GPS technology. The waiting time of the bus user can be reduced by applying the GSM technology to inform the user vis Short Message Service. The current bus service system can also be enhanced to be more effective and efficient.

Some of elderly people prefer to live independently and hence, choose to stay away from their children and relatives. Bad incidents could happen during the time for instance the elderly might be severely injured due to falling down. However, nobody else would notice and this may cause the victim to receive delayed emergency help. In serious cases, victims were found dead only after few days by the neighbours. To mitigate this issue, a fall detection system device for elderly based on their blood pressure is developed and presented in this paper. The developed device detects fall incident through accelerometer and pulse sensor reading as attached to the elderly body. If a fall incident occurs based on blood pressure abnormality, the device will promptly send an alert message to victim's emergency contact. This innovative development would alert people regarding bad incident happened on their love ones and thus, prompt emergency assistance can be provided.

Lower limb rehabilitation as assisted by physiotherapists plays an important role for post-stroke recovery to help patient to regain body movement, gait and speech capabilities in which the rehabilitation process is performed at the hospital or rehabilitation centre. However, transporting the patients to such places for scheduled appointments would increase the overall cost and become unfavourable. Therefore, a prototype of portable home-based lower limb rehabilitation equipment is developed in this paper that is able to analyse the human muscle contraction during rehabilitation session and interpret the patient's progress in terms of animation performance scoring. Specifically, the developed rehabilitation equipment consists of an actuator for lower limb flexion and extension activities in which three electromyogram (EMG) electrodes are patched on the rectus femoris muscle for muscle contraction signal reading during the rehabilitation procedure. This project used Arduino as the microcontroller to collect the muscle contraction signal and interpret them in terms of animation to visualize the patient's progress. The assimilation test performed to a normal individual showed that the developed rehabilitation equipment has successfully collected vigorous muscle contraction during rehabilitation procedure of lower limb and visualized the performance-based index of the muscle progress via animation.

In modern electronic devices for both consumer and industrial, wireless technology is rapidly becoming a must have feature. Wireless Bluetooth technology is now standard in almost all mobile phones, laptops and other devices. There are a few similar projects on the market previously and totally rely on main supply which limits the usage strictly. This project of Cost Effective Real-Time Polling System is designed to create self-sufficient system than can send audio data from a phone or other device. It allows the Bluetooth technology to directly integrate into small scale project at a low cost, while remaining fully functional and extensible. By using loud amplifier with IC TDA7240A and 12V input voltage, the amplifier is operated and produced loud audio output for outdoor purpose. It produces a small battery powered speakers and solar panel that can produce enough power to charge the battery by using solar charge controller to control and protect the battery. The Bluetooth module 5V input voltage and the voltage regulator is used to step down the voltage from 12V to 5V. Furthermore, IC LM3914 is used in this project to indicate the battery level capacity. Result shows that by using IC TDA7240A, the output audio was very loud and clear when the volume increased to 80%.

Viterbi decoders are widely employed along with convolutional encoders to provide an excellent error correction probability in digital wireless transmissions. To achieve lower error rates, the constraint length (k) of the encoder, has to be defined at higher values. However, higher (k) results in increasingly complex implementations of the Viterbi algorithm. As a result, the power consumption of the Viterbi decoder will increase exponentially which is to the disadvantage of many wireless communication devices. Many reduced complexity decoding techniques of the Viterbi decoder presented in the past focused on algorithm and architecture specific levels. Most of the studies concentrated on the Add-Compare Select Unit (ACSU) of the decoder, due to its nature of repetitive processing; also add to the complexity of the process. This paper presents a review of several variations of the Viterbi algorithm performed in the ACSU. The comparison was made among several different algorithms with the most optimal algorithm presented in this paper. A combined algorithm approach is proposed at the end of the review for future improvement.

This paper presented the analysis and characterization of a single planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) operating with 28 GHz frequency. The PIFA design is extended to dual element Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna. PIFA design is used as it is one of the most promising antenna types because it is small and has a low profile, making it suitable for mounting in mobile devices. Computer Simulation Technology (CST) software is used to design the proposed antenna.

Since the angular spread is related to the propagation environment condition, MIMO channel capacity can be improved by increasing the antenna spacing. This paper evaluates the performance of link correlation for 2×2 MIMO deployments using horizontal and vertical UE and BS array configurations with various antenna separations at the UE and BS. The investigation makes use of measured 3D radiation patterns for the BS and UE antennas. This data is combined with state-of-the-art 3D ray-tracing predictions for a large number of macro and pico-cells locations. Results revealed that in order to achieve a correlation always in the range 0.25 to 0.75, the minimum required antenna spacing was around 0.5λ to 2λ for the UE, 2λ for the Pico-eNB and 10 λ for the Macro-eNB. MIMO performance (in terms of capacity) was seen to increase in pico-cells as a result of the higher angular spreads at the base station.

The initial deployments of antenna in the handset consist of fixed non-rotated antenna for transmitting and receiving the signal in the wireless communication scenario. However, link correlation at the UE shows very bad performance when the handset rotates in landscape position. This paper evaluates the impact of accelerometer on the downlink propagation channel of 3G smartphone for non-line-of-sight links. The performance average received signal power is studied for user equipment. Results show that the exploitation of an accelerometer provide better performance in terms of received signal power when the handset rotated from portrait to landscape position. It can be concluded that the deployment of accelerometer can be used to improve existing 3G smartphone received signal. Results also indicate that accelerometer can be used to improve downlink throughput since the signal-to-noise-power is increased by approximately 16%.

This paper evaluates the user performance analysis of pico-cells and macro-cells in heterogeneous LTE-Advanced networks. The analysis makes use of state-of-the-art 3D ray-tracing for a large number of macro and pico-cell Enhanced Node B and user equipment locations. A baseband LTE-A link level simulator for 2×2 MIMO was designed and implemented in MATLAB to determine the user performance in pico-cells and macro-cells for line-of-sight links and non-line-of-sight link. Based on analysis of all available modulation and coding schemes, the received bit mutual information rate abstraction method is used to determine the optimum physical layer throughput. Packet error rate and optimum throughput are evaluated for pico-cellular and macro-cellular users. A comparison of external wall and lamp-post mounted pico-cell BS deployments is analysed. The analysis show that the UE in the pico-cell cases generally resulted in higher SNR and optimum throughput compared to the macro-cell cases in NLoS environments.

This paper evaluates the user capacity performance analysis of pico-cells and macro-cells in multiple-input multiple-output heterogeneous LTE-Advanced networks. The analysis makes use of state-of-the-art 3D ray-tracing for a large number of pico and macro-cell base station and user locations. A baseband 2×2 MIMO LTE-A link level simulator via 3D extended channel model was designed and implemented in MATLAB to determine the user performance in pico-cells and macro-cells for line-of-sight links and non-line-of-sight link. The received bit mutual information rate abstraction method is used to determine the optimum physical layer throughput based on analysis of all available modulation and coding schemes. Packet error rate and optimum capacity per meter squared are evaluated for pico-cellular and macro-cellular users. Results show that the deployment of pico-cells can be used to improve existing macro network capacity and performance in an LTE-Advanced network.

This paper evaluates the impact of antenna patterns in heterogeneous LTE-Advanced networks. The propagation channel between each BS and UE is modelled as the spatial and polarimetric convolution of the antenna patterns with the spatial and temporal multipath components from a 3D outdoor ray-tracer. An LTE-Advanced physical layer simulator is used to determine the user performance in pico-cells and macro-cells for non-line-of-sight links. The received bit mutual information rate abstraction method is employed to determine the optimal physical layer throughput based on analysis of all available modulation and coding schemes. Packet error rate, throughput, link correlation and channel capacity are studied for pico-cellular and macro-cellular users. Results show that measured antenna patterns along with their orientations strongly influence user performance in an LTE-A network.

This paper studies the impact of antenna pattern and user handset random orientation on macro-cell and pico-cell propagation in heterogeneous LTE networks. The analysis combines measured 3D radiation patterns of basestations and handset antennas with state-of-the-art 3D ray-tracing for a large number of macro-cell and pico-cell basestations and user locations/orientations in an urban environment. Macro and pico propagation characteristics are presented as cumulative distribution functions of the received signal strength, the K-factor, the RMS delay spread and the RMS angle-of-departure and angle-of-arrival azimuth and elevation spreads. It is shown that using measured antenna patterns and considering the random user handset orientation has significant impact on the propagation characteristics of a heterogeneous LTE network.

Antenna configurations and orientations are known to have a major influence on the performance of a wireless communications link. In this paper we study the impact of antenna patterns and orientations on the downlink of an OFDMA LTE-Advanced system. We consider a heterogeneous network (HetNet) comprising a large macrocell with a single picocellular underlay. The spatial and temporal characteristics of the radio channel are modelled using 3D ray-tracing and combined with appropriately oriented complex polarmetric antenna patterns. The handset is rotated in the azimuth and elevation planes to evaluate performance sensitivity. User performance is analysed in terms of data throughput, received power, bit error rate and packet error rate. The received bit mutual information rate (RBIR) abstraction technique is applied for all modulation and coding schemes (MCS) to determine the optimal physical layer throughput. Results show that antenna pattern and orientation significantly influence user performance, especially in the macrocell.