Search

Textile antennas are currently being researched and developed so that they can be integrated into clothing. In this paper, two textile antennas with cotton and silk substrate are presented. The antennas operate at GPS L1 frequency, which is 1.575 GHz. This paper discusses the effect of antenna parameters on free space and on-body conditions, and the effect of antenna bending. Based on simulation and measurement results, the parameter values obtained indicate that the antenna can operate properly at a frequency of 1.575 GHz and is safe to use on the body.

Flood is a natural disaster caused by the rise of water levels, typically in urban areas. This phenomenon can cause damages to properties such as buildings and landscapes. Moreover, it also can cause death among humans and animals. Malaysia is among the country that has rainfall throughout the years alongside monsoon seasons. Therefore, this country is prone to floods that are not predictable that causes the public to be unprepared to face potential floods. Although the authorities have taken some measures, such as the installation of the monitoring system, it is not efficient, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Hence, this study aims to design a low-cost flood monitoring system comprising a rainfall sensor, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, controller (Arduino), and GSM modem. The system will monitor the rainfall rates alongside temperature and humidity in deciding for the potential occurrence of flood. The data will be sent to a host PC with Graphical User Interface via GSM modem. The developed prototype aims to be installed at a selected location for monitoring and testing.

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.

A common torchlight comprises of a lighting source fixed in a reflector and a clear lens, battery, switch and enclosed or protected body case. Based on the original design of this torchlight, customers are having problem to hold the torchlight due to poor grip and causing the torchlight easy to slip off and possibly get damaged when it falls into the water. The objectives of this project intend to improve the torchlight design to secure handling, maintenance, and to increase the durability of the torchlight against water using float material which also enables the user to locate the torchlight in a short time. In conclusion, this study also identifies the possible environmental factors that assessed using sustainability tools to ensure the entire design structure will enhance the sustainability issue. Thus, based on the sustainability assessment, the float material able to apply for this purpose to achieve the objective, and the design concept is according to the customer requirement.

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 this democracy world, voting is a way to determine and show the result choice of the majority. In Malaysia all earlier elections a voter used to cast his vote by using ballot paper and it is still being used until now. This is a long, time-consuming process and very much prone to errors. With people now getting busy in their work and voters had to come far away to voting center while some voters don't like to wait in queues. In this project, Cost Effective Real-Time Polling System is introduced using text messages to cast vote of their choice. The voting system is based on short message service to eliminate the drawback of traditional voting method. It used a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P and equipped with groups of digital and analog input/output pins interfaced to several extension boards. In power failure condition, all votes will still be stored in the EEPROM memory. The results show the LCD screen with the total number of vote that have been collected during the voting process. This work indicates that it has reduced the polling time, the accurate vote data information without any mischief at the counting center and more efficiency in getting overall results.

The purpose of rehabilitation is to let the patient who has difficulties of moving some parts of their body to recover. Patient will work one-on-one with physiotherapist who helps them to repeatedly perform the exercise but unfortunately, the number of physiotherapist becomes limited with numerous patients. Moreover, the disadvantages found in quite a number of commercialized rehabilitation robots in terms of their weight and product cost. This paper design a monitoring robot for rehabilitation. It consists of motors, monitoring sensor which called Surface Electrode and actuators. This robot helps the patients to move their lower limb to experience flexion and extension motions in two degree of freedom (DOF) with the help of motors. The motors can be controlled remotely by the patient itself for forwarding and reversing movements. The Surface Electrode will keep monitor the patient's progress in terms of the movement of muscle of the leg or any related to the area of the sensor being placed. The result shows that the project will ease the physiotherapist work by analyze the data given by the sensors and with help of the robot and patient can remotely control the motors to continue the rehabilitation process.

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%.

This work presents a 28 GHz Dual Element Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Planar Inverted-F Antenna for millimeter wave 5G mobile terminal. The antenna design employs PIFA design concept as it is a common antenna type use for mobile phone as it provides wide bandwidth and good performance. The antenna design begins with a characterization of the single element PIFA design and then extended to Dual Element MIMO PIFA design. The single element PIFA design is enhanced to MIMO design by extending the ground plane and locate the second PIFA at the other end. Isolation between the antenna elements of the MIMO PIFA is analyzed by varying the gap distance between the antenna elements. The result for Envelope Correlation Coefficient, Diversity Gain and Multiplexing Efficiency is also presented. The simulation computed using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave Studio software.

The multiple cases of forgetting a baby in a car are the first step to prevention. Even with your car windows open two inches wide, the temperature inside the car can reach harmful degree which can cause fatal consequences to the baby. Youngsters are more inclined to overheating than a grown-up as their body overheats 3-5 times faster than a grown-up body. Smart Child Detector Alert System is developed to give the user an assurance of instantaneous alert in the form of text messages notification if the child/toddlers left in the car. This system uses temperature sensor to detect the temperature in the car which more than 40°C indicate fatal to child. The LM35 temperature sensor measured the temperature of surrounding and send it to Arduino database to evaluate. As the temperature exceeds 40°C, the SMS alert is sent to the designated number and the buzzer alarm is activated.

Locating fixed sensing devices with a mobile anchor is attractive for covering larger deployment areas. However, due to the distribution of nodes within this area, a possibility of nodes having insufficient beacon message to localize their position is higher. Therefore, localization using new Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)-based localization algorithm, which uses a volumetric probability distribution function with cooperative localization technique is proposed to find the relative localization performance of adding inter-blind node range estimates to anchor estimates. This paper presents the guidelines for mobile anchor’s operational requirements based on the number of beacon selection, beacon’s spacing and node density, as a trade-off between the energy costs of travelling versus the localization accuracy with a minimum number of localization generations.

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.

Crosstalk is a major concern among integrated circuit (IC) designers as it may contribute significantly to the amount of noise presented in a device. Hence, there is a need to mitigate the impact of crosstalk in order to preserve the signal integrity between interconnections. This paper will review several methods to mitigate crosstalk in high speed ICs. The methods include the usage of repeater, Schmitt trigger, shielding, skewing, space adjustment between signal wires and setting the coupling length of the signal wires. Although these methods are effective for crosstalk mitigation, the features might only be applicable due to certain constraints. Consequently, this paper will provide a sufficient review on each method as a guideline for crosstalk mitigation method selection in which the crosstalk is largely regulated in long interconnections.

With current technology advances, implementing millimeter wave in real life have become more promising. However, before millimeter wave can be deployed, there are several challenges in terms of technical, path loss and shadowing. This paper provides a review on the challenges that might occurs when implementing millimeter wave. An overview of LTE-Advanced and millimeter wave is made to provide further understanding. A critical analysis is made to identify the problem in rain and haze attenuation, if addressed, will help mobile service provider to overcome the problem.

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 analyses the impact of 3D multipath in an LTE-Advanced heterogeneous network. The impact of the base station array configuration is considered in both the azimuth and elevation planes. Spatial and temporal multipath statistics are generated for example macro- and picocellular base stations, and these are combined with appropriately oriented complex polarimetric antenna patterns. The resulting wideband channels are then passed to an LTE-Advanced physical layer simulator. The optimal spatial multiplexing mode is determined by computing the throughput using the received bit mutual information rate for all modulation and coding schemes. The fastest link speed for each user is identified given a packet error rate threshold of 10%. Results show that RMS angle spread statistics and the base station MIMO array configuration strongly influence user performance in an LTE-A network. The deployment of macrocellular vertical arrays is shown to significantly degrade network performance. In contrast, the elevation angle spread is found to be far greater in picocells, and this allows vertical arrays to be applied to produce compact high performance picobase stations.

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.