The 15th IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference

Download the MELECON 2010 Conference Guide including Abstracts from here

Plenary Speeches

Tutorials

Overview of Sessions

Lecture & Poster Presentations

Workshop

Plenary Speeches

Power Electronics and control for renewable energy systems

Prof. Frede Blaabjerg, IEEE fellow, Aalborg University, Denmark

Abstract

The global electrical energy consumption is still rising and there is a steady demand to increase the power capacity. It is expected that it has to be doubled within 20 years. The production, distribution and use of the energy should be as technological efficient as possible and incentives to save energy at the end-user should also be set up.  Two major technologies will play important roles to solve the future problems. One is to change the electrical power production sources from the conventional, fossil (and short term) based energy sources to renewable energy resources. An other is to use high efficient power electronics in power generation, power transmission/distribution and end-user application. This presentation will discuss some of the most emerging renewable energy sources, wind energy and photovoltaics, which by means of power electronics are changing character from being a minor energy source to be acting as important power sources in the energy system. Issues like technology development, implementation, power converter technologies, control of the systems, synchronization, anti-islanding, grid codes, system integration and future trends will be addressed in the presentation.

Biography

Prof. Blaabjerg was employed at ABB-Scandia, Randers, from 1987-1988. During 1988-1992 he was a PhD. student at Aalborg University. He became an Assistant Profes­sor in 1992 at Aalborg University, in 1996 Associate Professor and in 1998 full professor in power electronics and drives the same place. In 2000 he was visiting professor in University of Padova, Italy as well as he became part-time programme research leader at Research  Center Risoe in wind turbines. Since 2006 he has been dean of the faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine at Aalborg University, Denmark. In 2002 he was visiting professor at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. His research areas are in power electronics, static power converters, ac drives, switched reluctance drives, modelling, characterization of power semiconductor devices and simulation, power quality, wind turbines, custom power systems and green power inverter. He has been involved in more than fifty research projects with the industry. Among them has been the Danfoss Professor Programme in Power Electronics and Drives. He is the author or co-author of more than 700 publications in his research fields including the book “Control in Power Electronics” (Eds. M.P. Kazmierkowski, R. Krishnan, F. Blaabjerg) 2002, Academic Press.  Out of those +450 papers are registered in IEEExplore with more than 150 ISI-registered journal papers.

Dr. Blaabjerg is a member of the European Power Electronics and Drives Association and the IEEE Industry Applications Society Industrial Drives Committee. He is also a member of the Industry Power Converter Committee and the Power Electronics Devices and Components Committee in the IEEE Industry Application Society. He is associated editor of the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Journal of Power Electronics and of the Danish journal Elteknik. From 2006 he has been Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics as well as he has been Distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2005 to 2008. From 2010 he is Distigueshed Lecturer of IEEE Industry Applications Society.

He has served as member of the Danish Technical Research Council in Denmark 1997-2003 and from 2001-2003 he was chairman. He has also been chairman of the Danish Small Satellite programme and the Center Contract Committee which supports collaboration between universities and industry. He became a member of the Danish Academy of Technical Science in 2001 and in 2003 he became a member of the academic council. From 2002-2003 he became a member of the Board of the Danish Research Councils. In 2004-2006 he was chairman of the programme committee Energy and Environment. In 2007 he became a member of board of the Danish High Technology Foundation and 2008 member of the board of the Danish Strategic Research Council. Finally he is also member of a number of international research councils, e.g. European Research Council.

He received the 1995 Angelos Award for his contribution in modulation technique and control of electric drives, and an Annual Teacher prize at Aalborg University, also 1995. In 1998 he received the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has received nine IEEE Prize paper awards during the last ten years (the last one in 2008) and an other prize paper award at PELINCEC Poland 2005. In 2002 he received the C.Y. O’Connor fellowship from Perth, Australia, in 2003 the Statoil-prize for his contributions in Power Electronics and in 2004 the Grundfos Prize in acknowledgement of his international scientific research in power electronics. He became IEEE Fellow in 2003. Finally, he received the IEEE Power Electronics Society Distinguished Service Award in 2009.

From scanned data towards individual simulation of anatomy-based hip motion

Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann,  MIRALab-University of Geneva, Switzerland, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Abstract

We will discuss our ongoing research at MIRALab on the deformation of the hip cartilage and ligaments during extreme motions. First, we will describe the protocol necessary for acquiring MRI data, then our main method for segmentation, then the scanning of each person using a body scanner, the registration done within MRI data and body scan data and the simulation aspect including the deformation of the cartilage during motion. For doing that, we have defined a generic functional model of the lower limb (consisting of bones and soft-tissues) that can be simulated in motion. Relevant patient's anatomical, kinematical and mechanical data are extracted from images (MRI), motion capture (dynamic MRI, optical motion capture) as well as statistical data are being adjusted to the generic model to the patient. A case study with theater ballerinas will be presented as well as its medical validation.

Biography

Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the last 25 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Chemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Geneva in 1977. From 1977 to 1989, she was a Professor at the University of Montreal in Canada.

Since 1989, she is Professor at the University of Geneva where she founded the interdisciplinary multimedia research group MIRALab. She is the coordinator of several European Research Projects, among them the European Center of Excellence  INTERMEDIA (http://intermedia.miralab.unige.ch/) and the European Center of Excellence 3D ANATOMICAL HUMANS (http://3dah.miralab.unige.ch/). She is also Editor-in-Chief of the Visual Computer Journal published by Springer Verlag, co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds published by Wiley, and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. For her scientific and artistic work, she has received several awards, among them the nomination of Woman of the Year in Montreal 1988, the nomination  as computer pionneer in the hall of fame  at the Computer Museum of Padeborn in Germany in 2000 and  the selection of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. With her students, she has published more than 500 papers on virtual humans and virtual worlds.  She has been recently elected to the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences in Switzerland.

Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann has been invited to give more than 350 keynotes speeches in various institutions and organizations, among them the World Economic Forum in Davos. She has been Vice-Rector at the University of Geneva from 2003-2006 and  she received this year a Dr honoris Causa from the Leizniz University of Hanovre. She is presently visiting Professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Professor at the University of Geneva.

Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits for Adaptive Beamforming

Prof. Frank Ellinger, Dresden University of Technology, Germany

Abstract

By means of adaptive antenna combining the tradeoff between coverage range, reliability, data speed and power consumption can be improved in wireless systems. By smart weighting of the phases and amplitudes of multiple antenna signals, the antenna gain can be increased and intersymbol interferences can be reduced. Most systems perform the vector weighting of the antenna signals in the baseband. Since multiple circuit paths are required from RF to baseband, the resulting power consumption and costs are very high.
These drawbacks can be mitigated by performing the adaptive combining in the radio front-end. In this case, only one path from IF to baseband is required. To reduce the control complexity, the phase shifters should vary the phase without manipulating the gain, and the gain control components should adjust the gain without changing the phase. However, if we e.g. vary the transconductance or the load resistance in amplifiers for gain control, the RC time constants of the transistors change leading to significant undesired phase variations. Further challenges such as integration into silicon, sufficient bandwidth, good large signal properties, low power consumption and compact size have to be considered.

In this lecture, these challenges are addressed and solutions are proposed. Different architectures are compared performing the adaptive combining in the RF, LO and IF sections. Several concepts implemented in both CMOS and III/V technologies are presented. The compact and fully integrated circuits are optimized for operating in accordance to the 802.11a/n standard at C-band. Detailed theoretical studies are made enhancing circuit understanding and enabling efficient optimizations.
The phase variations of amplifiers versus gain are discussed. Corresponding compensation techniques are presented.

A variety of different active and passive phase shifter RFICs based on vector modulators, varactor tuned transmission lines, reflection type phase shifters with multiple parallel reflection loads, etc. are discussed and compared.

Biography

Frank Ellinger (S’97-M’01-SM’06) was born in Friedrichshafen, Germany, in 1972. In electrical engineering (EE), he graduated in 1996 from the University of Ulm, Germany. He received an MBA and a PhD degree in EE from the ETH Zürich (ETHZ), Switzerland, in 2001, and the habilitation degree in high frequency circuit design from the ETH in 2004. Since August 2006 he is full professor and head of the Chair for Circuit Design and Network Theory at the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. Currently, he is member of the management board and coordinator of the communications area in the German Excellence Cluster Project Cool Silicon having 65 partners from industry and academia.

From 2001-2006, he has been head of the RFIC design group of the Electronics Laboratory at the ETHZ, and a project leader of the IBM/ETHZ Competence Center for Advanced Silicon Electronics hosted at IBM Research in Rüschlikon. Prof. Ellinger has been coordinator of the EU funded projects RESOLUTION and MIMAX. He published more than 140 refereed scientific papers, most of them IEEE journal contributions, and 3 patents. Prof. Ellinger authored the lecture book "Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits and Technologies" published by Springer. He has been elected by the IEEE MTT-S as IEEE Distinguished Microwave Lecturer for 2009-2010. For his works he received several awards including the ETH Medal, the Denzler Award, two times the Rohde&Schwarz/Agilent/Gerotron EEEfCOM Innovation Award, and a Young PhD Award of the ETH.

Positive Fractional Linear Systems

Prof. Tadeusz Kaczorek, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland

Abstract

The main purpose of this talk is to give an overview of some recent results on positive and cone fractional continuous-time and discrete-time linear systems. The concepts of the positive and cone fractional continuous-time and discrete-time linear systems are introduced. Sufficient conditions for the reachability of positive and cone fractional continuous-time linear systems are given. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the positivity and asymptotic stability of the continuous-time linear systems with delays are established. It is shown that the positive systems with delays are asymptotically stable if and only if corresponding positive systems without delays are asymptotically stable. The realization problem for positive fractional continuous-time systems is formulated and solved. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the positivity and practical stability of fractional linear discrete-time systems are established. The LMI approaches are applied to testing the asymptotic stability of the positive fractional discrete-time linear systems. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the reachability and controllability to zero of the fractional systems are given. Sufficient conditions for the existence are established and procedures for computation of positive and cone realizations of the discrete-time linear systems are proposed. The considerations are illustrated by numerical examples.

Biography

Tadeusz Kaczorek, born 27.04.1932 in Poland, received the MSc., PhD and DSc degrees from Electrical Engineering of Warsaw University of Technology in 1956, 1962 and 1964, respectively. In the period 1968 - 69 he was the dean of Electrical Engineering Faculty and in the period 1970 - 73 he was the prorector of Warsaw University of Technology. Since 1971 he has been professor and since 1974 full professor at Warsaw University of Technology. In 1986 he was elected a corresp. member and in 1996 full member of Polish Academy of Sciences. In the period 1988 - 1991 he was the director of the Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences in Rome. In June 1999 he was elected the full member of the Academy of Engineering in Poland. In May 2004 he was elected the honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was awarded by the University of Zielona Gora (2002) by the title doctor honoris causa, the Technical University of Lublin (2004), the Technical University of Szcz ecin (2004) and Warsaw University of Technology (2004),Technical University of Bialystok(2008).Technical University of Lodz (2008) and Technical University of Opole (2009).

His research interests cover the theory of systems and the automatic control systems theory, specially, singular multidimensional systems, positive multidimensional systems and singular positive 1D and 2D systems. He has initiated the research in the field of singular 2D and positive 2D linear systems. He has published 22 books (6 in English) and over 900 scientific papers. He supervised 69 Ph.D. theses. He is editor-in-chief of Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Techn. Sciences and editorial member of about ten international journals.

Tutorials

Video Compression Technologies and Standards - THIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Prof. Fernando Pereira, Instituto Superior Técnico - Instituto de Telecomunicaçoes, Portugal

Abstract

The main objective of digital video compression technologies is to compress the original data into a much smaller number of bits, while preserving an acceptable video quality. These technologies are behind the success and rapid deployment of products and services such as digital cameras, digital television, and DVDs, among others. Most available video coding standards, notably the ITU-T H.26x and ISO/IEC MPEG-x families of standards, adopt the so-called predictive video coding paradigm where the temporal and spatial correlations are exploited at the encoder by using a motion compensated prediction loop and a spatial transform, respectively. As a consequence, this video coding solution typically leads to rather complex encoders and much simpler decoders, with a rigid allocation of the complexity between the transmitter and the receiver. This approach fits well some application scenarios, e.g. broadcasting, where a few (complex) encoders provide coded content for millions of (simpler) decoders. 

It is largely recognized that MPEG standards, this means the standards developed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), have played and still play a major role in the starting and development of multimedia communications since they have showed the value of interoperability in the context of this type of applications. For this reason, this tutorial will give especial attention to the recent achievements made by MPEG in video coding, trying to explain why a certain standardization path has been followed in this field. When MPEG was started, in 1988, several important technologies were becoming mature enough to open new ways to deliver multimedia content to end users. Among them were audio and image/video compression, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) technology, optical storage, and high-speed delivery of digital information over phone lines. This fact was recognized by some consumer electronics and telecommunications companies, which had the vision that by setting standards for audio and video coding, they would create a market from which they could all benefit. They believed that providing interoperability was crucial, and that would not reduce their chances to develop successful products, but rather the opposite. Moreover this interoperability would be provided without preventing competition and excellence, by specifying only the minimum number of tools for interoperability and leaving open space for the compatible products to distinguish themselves.

Based on this vision, MPEG has set many widely used video coding standards since its establishment. MPEG’s activities have been organized around large projects, typically driven by major application domains, or functionalities. This approach led to the following set of MPEG standards related to visual representation, not only coding but also description/metadata:

• MPEG-1, “Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio at up to about 1.5 Mbit/s”, mostly addressing CD-ROM digital storage [1];
• MPEG-2, “Generic Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio”, mostly addressing digital television and digital storage [1];
• MPEG-4, “Coding of Audio-Visual Objects”, providing new object-based functionalities, synthetic and natural integration, new forms of interaction, etc [2];
• MPEG-7, “Multimedia Content Description Interface”, providing multimedia content description capabilities for a large range of applications [3];

The MPEG-2 Video and MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding standards, clearly the most deployed in the market, have been jointly developed with ITU-T, where they are known as H.262 and H.264 recommendations. Recently, the H.264/AVC standard [4,5] has been extended to address the increasingly more important industry needs related to scalability and multiview video content. The most important recent and joint MPEG and ITU-T video coding standardization activities target the specification of the so-called Scalable Video Coding (SVC) [6] and Multiview Video Coding (MVC) standards [7] which will be defined as amendments (extensions) to H.264/AVC, since the new standards are backward compatible extensions of this available standard.

However, with the wide deployment of mobile and wireless networks, there is a growing number of applications where many senders deliver data to a central receiver. Typically, these emerging applications require light encoding complexity, high compression efficiency, robustness to packet losses and, often, also low latency/delay. To address some of these issues, some research groups revisited the video coding problem at the light of an Information Theory result from the 70s: the Slepian-Wolf theorem. According to this theorem, the minimum rate needed to independently encode two statistically dependent discrete random sequences, X and Y, is the same as for joint encoding. While the Slepian-Wolf theorem deals with lossless coding, in 1976, A. Wyner and J. Ziv studied the case of lossy coding with side information (SI) at the decoder. Under some hypothesis on the joint statistics, the Wyner-Ziv theorem states that when the side information (i.e. the correlated source Y) is made available only at the decoder there is no coding efficiency loss in encoding X, with respect to the case when joint encoding of X and Y is performed. The Slepian-Wolf and the Wyner-Ziv theorems suggest that it is possible to encode two statistically dependent signals independently and decoding them jointly, while approaching the coding efficiency of conventional predictive coding schemes, which rely on joint encoding and decoding instead. The new coding paradigm, known as Distributed Video Coding (DVC) [8] avoids the computationally intensive temporal prediction loop at the encoder, by shifting the exploitation of the temporal redundancy at the decoder. This is a significant advantage in a large range of emerging application scenarios, including wireless video cameras, wireless low-power surveillance, video conferencing with mobile devices, and visual sensor networks. 

With the theoretical doors opened, the practical design of Wyner-Ziv (WZ) video codecs, a particular case of DVC, started around 2002, following important developments in channel coding technology. The first practical WZ solutions have been developed at Stanford University [9] and UC Berkeley [10]. As of today, the most popular WZ video codec design in the literature is clearly the Stanford architecture, which works at the frame level and is characterized by a feedback channel based decoder rate control. On the other hand, the Berkeley architecture, known as PRISM (Power-efficient, Robust, hIgh compression Syndrome based Multimedia coding), works at the block level and is characterized by an encoder side rate controller based on the availability of a reference frame. In recent years, major research developments have happened in the field of distributed video coding; for example, RD performance has been significantly improving, closing the substantial initial gap for the existing standard based alternatives.

However, after the development of the very successful H.264/AVC standard, further compression gains have been short and more difficult to reach than usual. This fact led many video compression research experts to announce the end of the predictive video coding saga as known from the past two decades. In this context, this talk will also discuss the future of video compression considering the emerging industry needs, notably in terms of 3D video and ultra high resolutions, promising technological novelties, and recent standardization initiatives: High-Efficiency Video Coding (HVC) from MPEG and Next Generation Video Coding (NGVC) from VCEG.

In conclusion, this tutorial will present and discuss the main recent developments and future trends in video compression, both in terms of standardization and research, with especial emphasis on the H.264/AVC, SVC, and MVC standards and the DVC research topic. 

Biography

Fernando Pereira is currently Professor at the Electrical and Computers Engineering Department of Instituto Superior Técnico. He is responsible for the participation of IST in many national and international research projects. He acts often as project evaluator and auditor for various organizations. He is an Area Editor of the Signal Processing: Image Communication Journal and is or has been an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions of Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. He is a Member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Image and Multiple Dimensional Signal Processing Technical Committee and of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee. He was an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in 2005 and IEEE Fellow in 2008. He has been a member of the Scientific and Program Committees of many international conferences and has contributed more than 200 papers. He has been participating in the work of ISO/MPEG for many years, notably as the head of the Portuguese delegation, Chairman of the MPEG Requirements Group, and chairing many Ad Hoc Groups related to the MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 standards. His areas of interest are video analysis, processing, coding and description, and interactive multimedia services.

Methodology for Energy-Efficient Design of Digital Circuits - THIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Prof. V. G. Oklobdzij, University of Texas, USA

Abstract

Techniques for designing and optimizing digital circuits have for a long time been driven by performance. Recently, power became the limiting factor for performance. Logical Effort technique helps to determine transistor sizes for speed as an objective function. However, it neglects energy issues and fails to provide a guideline when designing with power budget. Other techniques have been presented which opportunistically improve power, or degrade performance to reduce power. These approaches do not directly address the true concern of digital designers, which is obtaining the minimal energy for a given performance. How to make energy-delay trade-offs for the optimal design point is neither well understood nor well defined. Design space is bound by maximally achievable speed and minimal achievable power. The speed of every digital circuit block can be traded for power and vice versa. We extended the Logical Effort beyond its present limitation and developed it into a tool that provides digital circuit designer with sizing guidelines in Energy-Delay space. This presentation addresses the factors impacting optimization of digital circuits, and a framework for the optimal sizing, comparison, and analysis of energy-efficient designs.

Biography

Vojin G. Oklobdzija, is IEEE Fellow, Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society and Member of the IEEE CAS Board of Governors. He received Dipl. Ing. Degree from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade in 1971, and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1982. From 1982 to 1991 he was at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he made contributions to the development of RISC processors, super-scalar and supercomputer design. In the course of this work, he obtained several patents, the most notable one on register renaming, which enabled a new generation of modern computers.

From 1988 to 1990 he was IBM visiting faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, from 1991-2006 professor of computer engineering at the University of  California Davis, 2006-2007 Chair Professor at Sydney University and currently Professor at the University of Texas in Dallas. Prof. Oklobdzija served as a consultant to: Sun Microsystems, Bell Laboratories, Texas Instruments, Hitachi, Fujitsu, SONY, Intel, Samsung and Siemens Corp. where he was a principal architect for the Infineon TriCore processor. He holds 15 U.S., 6 European, 6 Japanese, 6 international and 2 other patents pending.

Prof. Oklobdzija is serving on the Editorial Board of IEEE MICRO and publishing board of Taylor-Francis, IEEE Fellow Committee, and numerous other IEEE committees. He served as the Associate Editor of IEEE Transaction on Computers from 2000-2006, IEEE Transactions on VLSI from 1995-2003, IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems II and Journal of VLSI Signal Processing, the ISSCC program committee from 1996 to 2003 and again in 2007, First Asian ASSCC, International Symposium on Low-Power Design, Computer Arithmetic, ICCD, PATMOS and numerous other conference committees. He is actively involved in IEEE as organizer, OEB Chair of Solid-State Circuits Society (1998-2002) and was a General Chair of the 13th Symposium on Computer Arithmetic (1997), DCAS-2008, IASTED Conference on Circuits, Signals and Systems (2006), Technical Program Chair for the International Symposium on Low-Power Design 2008 and Track Chair for ICCD 2008. Prof. Oklobdzija has published more than 150 papers, 6 books and dozen of book chapters in the areas of circuits and technology, computer arithmetic and computer architecture. His book “Computer Engineering” won Outstanding Academic Title award, out of 22,000 titles considered and is currently in second edition. He has given over 150 invited talks and short courses in the USA, Europe, Latin America, Australia, China and Japan.

As Emeritus Professor of the University of California he directs ACSEL laboratory which
is involved in digital circuits optimization for low-power and ultra low-power, high performance system design and sensor nodes.
(for further information please see: http://www. acsel-lab.com )

Optimal Linear FIR Estimation of Discrete-Time State-Space Models - THIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Prof. Yuriy S. Shmaliy, Guanajuato University, Mexico

Abstract

Optimal estimation of signal parameters and system models is often required to formalize a posteriori knowledge about undergoing processes in the presence of noise. Therefore, filtering, smoothing, and prediction have become key tools of statistical signal, image, and speech processing and found applications in algorithms of various electronic systems. Very often, estimation is provided using methods of linear optimal filtering employing either finite impulse response (FIR) or infinite impulse response (IIR) structures. First fundamental works on discrete-time optimal linear filtering of stationary random processes were published in 1939-1941 by Kolmogorov as mathematically-oriented. Soon after, Wiener solved the problem for engineering applications in continuous-time and Levinson used the Wiener error criterion in filter design and prediction. The solutions by Wiener were all in the frequency domain, presuming IIR solutions. A FIR modification to the Wiener filter was made by Zadeh and Ragazzini. Thereafter, Johnson extended Zadeh-Ragazzini's results to discrete time. The roots of optimal FIR filtering can be found namely in these basic works. Despite the inherent bounded input/bounded output stability and robustness against temporary model uncertainties and round-off errors, practical interest to FIR filtering weakened after Kalman and Bucy presented in 1960-1961 complete results on the theory of linear filtering of nonstationary Gaussian processes. In contrast to the FIR solutions implying large computational burden and memory, the recursive IIR Kalman-Bucy algorithm has appeared to be simple, accurate, and fast. That has generated an enormous number of papers devoted to the investigation and application of this filter. It then has been shown that the Kalman filter is a nice solution if the model is distinct, there are no uncertainties, and noise sources are all white sequences. Otherwise, the algorithm may become unstable and its estimate may diverge. An interest to FIR structures has grown in recent decades owing to a dramatic development in computational resources. In receding horizon predictive control, significant results on optimal linear FIR filtering of Gaussian processes have been achieved by Jazwinski, Liu and Liu, Ling and Lim, and Kwon et al. For image processing, predictive FIR filtering has been proposed by Heinonen and Neuvo and thereafter developed by many authors. For polynomial models, FIR structures were used by Wang to design a nonlinear filter, by Zhou and Wang in the FIR-median hybrid filters, and a number of publications keep growing.

In this tutorial, we give the general theory with applications of the p-shift optimal linear FIR estimator of discrete time state space models. We show that the general estimator can be derived straightforwardly from the real-time state space model (from n and n-1 to n) used in signal processing, rather than from the prediction model (from n to n+1) used in control. This model leads to a universal solution intended for solving the problems of filtering (p = 0), prediction (p > 0), and smoothing (p < 0) in discrete-time and state space on a horizon of N points. In such an estimator, the initial state is self-determined by solving the discrete algebraic Riccati equation (DARE). The noise components are allowed to have arbitrary distribution and covariance functions with a particular case of white Gaussian approximation. Depending on p, the estimator is readily modified to solve several specific problems, such as the receding horizon control one (p = 1), smoothing the initial state (p = -N+1), holdover in digital communication networks (p > 0), image enhancing employing hybrid FIR structures with optimum p < 0,  etc. We show that the optimal FIR estimator gain is a product of the unbiased gain and the noise-dependent function composed with the covariance functions and the initial state function. An important point is that the optimal and unbiased estimates converge either when the convolution length is large, N >> 1, or if the initial state error dominates the noise components. The unbiased (near optimal) FIR estimate associated with the best linear unbiased estimator (BLUE) is considered in detail as having strong engineering features. Along with the noise power gain (NG), this estimate can be represented in the batch and recursive Kalman-like forms. A special attention is paid to the polynomial state space models as being basic for many applications. For this model, the unique low-degree polynomial gains are derived and investigated in detail. Applications are given for polynomial state space modeling, clock state estimation and synchronization, and image processing. The trade-off with the Kalman algorithm is also discussed and supported with experimental results.
Biography

Dr. Yuriy S. Shmaliy is a Full Professor of Electronics of the School of Mechanical, Electrical, and Electronic Engineering (FIMEE) of the University of Guanajuato, Mexico. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in 1974, 1976 and 1982, respectively, from the Kharkiv Aviation Institute, Ukraine, all in Electrical Engineering. In 1992 he received the Doctor of Technical Sc. degree from the Kharkiv Railroad Institute. In March 1985, he joined the Kharkiv Military University of Ukraine. He serves as Full Professor beginning in 1986 and has a Certificate of Professor from the Ukrainian Government in 1993. Since 1993 to 1999, he has been a director-collaborator of the Scientific Center “Sichron” (Kharkiv, Ukraine) working in the field of precision time. In 1999, he joined the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, and, since November 1999, he has been also with the Guanajuato University of Mexico as a full professor.

Dr. Shmaliy has several books, handbooks, and manuals. He has 251 Journal and Conference papers and 80 patents. His books Continuous-Time Signals (2006) and Continuous-Time Systems (2007) were published by Springer. His book GPS-Based Optimal FIR Filtering of Clock Models (2009) was published by Nova Science Publ., New York. He also contributed with invited Chapters to several books. He was rewarded a title, Honorary Radio Engineer of the USSR, in 1991. He was listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World in 1998; Outstanding People of the 20th Century, Cambridge, England in 1999; and Contemporary Who's Who, American Bibliographical Institute, in 2002. He has Certificates of Recognition and Appreciation from the IEEE, WSEAS, and IASTED. He serves as an Associate Editor in Recent Patents on Space Technology. He is Senior Member of IEEE and belongs to several other professional Societies. He is a member of the Organizing and Program Committees of various Int. Symposia. He organized and co-chaired several Int. Conferences on Precision Oscillations in Electronics and Optics. He was multiply invited to give tutorial, seminar, and plenary lectures. His current interests include optimal estimation and statistical signal processing, probabilistic methods of information theory, stochastic systems theory, and stochastic theory of precision oscillators.

Electrical Load Classification and Profiling - THIS HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Prof. Gianfranco Chicco, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Abstract

The tutorial addresses the representation, classification and aggregation of the electrical loads referred to the residential, industrial and tertiary sectors. The restructuring of the electrical system, with the unbundling of generation, transmission, distribution and retail, has progressively introduced competition to provide customer services, mainly involving commercial interactions with the customers. This has resulted in a growing need for understanding the evolution of the electrical consumption in the time domain, gathering information of technical and commercial value. Enhanced knowledge of the consumption patterns requires suitable metering resources for detailed data monitoring, acquisition and storage. On the basis of the metered load patterns, the electrical load can be analyzed and aggregated at different levels. A meaningful way of performing load pattern aggregation is based on using as distinguishing feature the shape of the electrical consumption. For this purpose, various clustering techniques can be applied. The effectiveness of these techniques is represented by means of specific clustering validity indicators. The clustering results can be used for different purposes, such as load forecasting, load profiling, supply-demand balancing, analysis of the interactions among the electrical load and other energy vectors, and so forth. In particular, load profiling is the tool adopted to develop tariff structures and tariff offers for the retail market. The contents of the tutorial are based on the above concepts and on the approach to perform electrical load pattern classification developed by the speaker and the research group in which he operates. Exemplificative case studies referred to residential and non-residential loads are illustrated and discussed.

Biography

Gianfranco Chicco (gianfranco.chicco@polito.it) graduated in Electrical Engineering (honors) at the Politecnico di Torino (PdT), Torino, Italy, in 1987 and received the Ph.D. degree in Electrotechnical Engineering from the PdT School in 1992. In 1995 he joined the PdT, where he is currently Associate Professor of Distribution Systems. In 1999, he visited the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. He is responsible of research projects in the distributed generation area. He is reviewer of several international journals (IEEE, IET, Elsevier). He has been the Chairman of the Sixth World Energy System Conference (Torino, Italy, July 10-12, 2006). He is author or coauthor of over 150 publications in national and international journals and Conference Proceedings. He is Senior Member of IEEE and member of AEIT. His research activities refer to power systems and distribution systems analysis, energy efficiency, load management, artificial intelligence applications to electrical systems, and power quality.

Overview of Sessions

Click on the image below to download the timetable detailing all sessions being organised during MELECON 2010. Kindly note that all coffee breaks are 45 minutes long and are held during the Poster Presentations time slot.

Lecture & Poster Presentations

Lecture Sessions: http://melecon2010.e-papers.org/ESR/session_sched_view.php?&sched_id=1

Poster Sessions: http://melecon2010.e-papers.org/ESR/session_sched_view.php?&sched_id=2

Session Listing: http://melecon2010.e-papers.org/ESR/session_index.php

Workshop - Demystifying IEEE 802 Standards (Co-sponsored by IEEE R8, IEEE-SA and the IEEE Standards Education Committee)

The IEEE standards Association (IEEE-SA) is a major contributor to IEEE, the world's largest technical professional society. The IEEE-SA promotes the engineering process by creating, developing, integrating, sharing, and applying knowledge about electro- and information technologies and sciences.
For over a century, the cornerstone of the IEEE-SA is its established standards development program - a program that offers balance, openness, due process, and consensus. Each year, the IEEE-SA conducts over 200 standards ballots, a process by which proposed standards are voted upon for technical reliability and soundness. In addition to producing the prominent IEEE 802® Standards for Local and Metropolitan Area Network Wireless, IEEE-SA also develops the standards for:

Intelligent highway systems and vehicular technology Distributed generation renewable energy Voting Equipment Electronic Data >Interchange Rechargeable Batteries for PCs Motor Vehicle Event Data Recorder Public Key Infrastructure Certificate Issuing and Management Components Architecture for Encrypted Shared Media Organic Field Effect Technology

The IEEE Standards Education Committee is a joint committee of the IEEE Standards Association and the IEEE Educational Activities Board. The IEEE Standards Education website http://www.ieee.org/web/education/standards/index.html> serves as the focal point for the delivery of all relevant information on education about standards.

This workshop will provide a detailed overview of IEEE 802 Standards and cover each of the Working Groups developing standards in both the wired and wireless areas with an emphasis on wireless. The IEEE 802 Working Groups are:

• IEEE 802.1 Higher Layer LAN Protocols Working Group
• IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group
• IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group
• IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) Working Group
• IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group
• IEEE 802.17 Resilient Packet Ring Working Group
• IEEE 802.18 Radio Regulatory TAG
• IEEE 802.19 Coexistence TAG
• IEEE 802.20 Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) Working Group
• IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Services Working Group
• IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Networks

Included will be an overview and scope of each technical working group and how they relate or differ from each other.
The workshop will also address the subject of technical standards in general, including an overview of IEEE and IEEE Standards Association as well as a short overview of the ITU which IEEE 802 standards have a close relationship with. This will be followed by and overview of the IEEE-SA Standards Process as well as Standards Education in Technology Programs.

The workshop will be divided into three parts, Part 1 (10:30 - 12:10) will provide the IEEE 802 overview and the IEEE 802.1, IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.17, IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15 overviews. Part 2 (14:00 - 15:40) will provide the address the remaining  IEEE 802 Wireless working Groups, IEEE 802.16, IEEE 802.18, IEEE 802.19, IEEE 802.20, IEEE 802.21 and IEEE 802.22. Part 3 (16:20 - 18:20) will provide the IEEE-SA and ITU Overview, the IEEE-SA Standards Process as well as Standards Education.

Segment 1 (10:30 - 12:10) – IEEE 802 overview, Bridging, Wirleline and Wireless (part 1)

Welcome
IEEE 802 Overview
IEEE 802.1 Higher Layer LAN Protocols Working Group
IEEE 802.3 Ethernet >Working Group
IEEE 802.17 Resilient Packet Ring Working Group
IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group
IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) Working Group

Segment 2 (14:00 - 15:40) – IEEE 802 Wireless (part 2)

IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access Working Group
IEEE 802.18 Radio Regulatory TAG
IEEE 802.19 Coexistence TAG
IEEE 802.20 Mobile Broadband
Wireless Access (MBWA) Working Group
IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Services Working Group
IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Networks

Segment 3 (16:20 - 18:20) - IEEE-SA Overview, process, ITU

Overview of IEEE and IEEE Standards Association Overview of ITU-T Standards Education in Technology Programs The IEEE-SA Standards Process IEEE-SA Patent policy. The Workshop will be conducted by Dr. Adrian Stephens, Dr Bilel Jamouss and David Law.

Biographies

Dr. Adrian Stephens

Adrian Stephens is a Principal Engineer in Intel's Wireless Standards and Technology group (part of the Mobile Wireless Group).  His focus is on developing next generation IEEE 802.11 standards. He is an 802.11 vice chair and is the 802.11REVmb technical editor. He coordinated Intel's MAC proposal for IEEE 802.11n and chaired both the TGnSync and Joint Proposal MAC teams. He has been chair of various IEEE 802.11 TGn committees. Adrian has over 20 years of product development and research experience working for industry and government. He was previously at Mobilian Corporation, where he was a Senior Director of Business Development, specialising in Wireless LAN development and 802.11 standards work as well as editor of the BT SIG's coexistence specification. Before that, he was at Symbionics Ltd (which became Cadence Design Services, then Tality, now defunct) where he was head of software technology for Wireless and Multimedia design services.  There he was responsible for developing the highly successful 802.11 MAC software licensed product.  He was product architect for Bluetooth (tm) and Hiperlan/1 developments, and technical editor of the HomeRF (tm) SWAP-CA standard for two years – taking it to successful release. Adrian received a B.A. (1st Hons) in natural sciences (1974) and a Ph.D. in experimental physics (1981) both from Cambridge University, UK. He is a member of the IEEE.

Dr Bilel Jamoussi

Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department at the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau in Geneva where he is responsible for the organization and management of the ITU-T Study Groups, Global Standardization Initiatives, Joint Coordination Activities, Focus Groups, and the secretariat comprising Counsellors and Assistants. For the past 15 years he has been with Nortel where he has held several leadership roles including Strategic Standards, Advanced Technology, Software Development for routing/switching platforms, and Data Network Engineering of major international customer networks. As Director of the Strategic Standards organization within the office of the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Bilel provided strategic technology direction and leadership for Nortel’s involvement in more than 90 standards development organizations, forums and consortia. He led Nortel's Green ICT standards game plan and has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Green Telco World Congress 2009.
An experienced standards professional, Bilel was an elected member of the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Board of Governors and the IEEE-SA Corporate Advisory Group (CAG). He served on the IEEE Standards Education Committee, the IEEE-SA Nominations and Appointments Committee, the IEEE-SA BOG International ad hoc, and the Technical Liaison from IEEE-SA to ITU-T and ITU-D. Bilel contributes to the innovation and advancement of technology in the ICT Field. He has 22 granted and filed US patents in diverse areas: packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service.

David Law

David Law is a Consultant Engineer at 3Com where has worked on the specification and development of Ethernet products since 1989. Throughout that time he has been a member of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group where he has held a number of leadership positions. He served as the Vice-Chair of IEEE 802.3 from 1996 to 2008 and in 2008 was elected to Chair of IEEE 802.3. In 2000 he received the IEEE-SA Standards Medallion for 'leadership and technical contributions to Ethernet networking standards' and 2009 he received the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board Distinguished Service award 'For long term – service to improve the operation and integrity of IEEE-SA governance'. In 2004 he was appointed to the IEEE-SA Standards Board review committee (RevCom) and in 2005 was also appointed to the IEEE-SA Standards Board and the IEEE-SA Standards Board patent committee (PatCom). In 2007 he served as Chair of PatCom and since 2008 has served as the Chair of RevCom. David has a BEng (hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland.