Amritian Preeti Kumar will travel to Cambridge, USA in early July to present a research paper at the international conference PIERS 2010 hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium or PIERS brings together the world’s top scientists to discuss recent developments of modern electromagnetic theory and its applications. The who’s who of the electromagnetic field gathers for this top symposium.
 

Preeti, who just completed her B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Coimbatore, wrote a paper titled Comparison of Bit Error Rate for Propagation Mechanisms of Millimeter Waves in Practical Communication Systems Employing PSK and FSK, in collaboration with her professor, Dr. M. Jayakumar.

“Recently the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva, de-licensed the millimeter wave band (60GHz) for use in Wireless Personal Area Networks,” explained Dr. M. Jayakumar. “Preeti investigated how this wave band could be used for building a communication device for an unmanned aerial survey vehicle.”

“The millimeter wave band has high-frequency signals that are advantageous due to high bandwidths, and hence, the high data rates they make possible. But a big drawback is the high path-loss and atmospheric losses that make have hitherto made it suitable only for short-distance communication,” he added.

Preeti reviewed the available literature in the field and made computational models to investigate how the losses could be overcome.

“We concluded that BPSK, QPSK or 8FSK are the most advantageous modulation schemes in a practical communication system, under the worst case climatic conditions,” stated Dr. Jayakumar.  
 See Paper Abstract »

“Millimeter waves are going to play a vital role in communications, medical and satellite applications in the future,” he informed.

Preeti authored another paper with Dr. Jayakumar’s guidance. Titled Propagation Mechanisms of Millimeter Waves, it was accepted for publishing in the International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (IJECE).  See Paper Abstract »

Isn’t it fairly extraordinary that a graduating B.Tech. student publishes and presents papers in international symposiums and journals?
 

“No, not when it is an Amrita student,” stated Dr. V. P. Mohandas, HoD, ECE Department. “So many students of our graduating class have published papers in journals or have had them accepted for presentation at major conferences around the nation and the world.”
 

“Preeti will go for higher studies to the US, so this research experience is bound to help her.”
 

Comparison of Bit Error Rate for Propagation Mechanisms of Millimeter Waves in Practical Communication Systems Employing PSK and FSK
Abstract: Millimeter waves have opened a new door to next generation communication systems. These high-frequency signals are advantageous due to the high bandwidths, and hence, the high data rates they present. However, their main drawback is the presence of attenuation factors that adversely affect the quality of the received signal. We have described the various propagation mechanisms that lead to the attenuation of radio waves in the frequency range of 40GHz for different modulation techniques such as m-PSK and m-FSK. The comparison shows that, as the number of signals needed to represent the digital information increases, the Bit Error Rate (BER) of the PSK system increases, while the BER of an FSK system decreases. We have concluded that BPSK, QPSK or 8FSK are the most advantageous modulation schemes in a practical communication system, under worst case climatic conditions.
 

Propagation Mechanisms of Millimeter Waves
Abstract: Advanced data communication technology demands high data rate and broadband systems for error free transmission. This can be easily achieved by using millimetre wave band, which is getting importance in modern wireless systems. In this paper, a review of analytical models of bit-error rate (BER) due to the propagation of millimetre waves in the signal band of 40GHz to 90GHz has been carried out under various conditions such as, moist atmosphere, scattering due to buildings, multipath fading effects, loss due to vegetation and sea water. The results depict the frequency dependence of BER for various physical parameters including temperature, pressure, humidity etc. It is clearly revealed that these propagation mechanisms result in drastic fluctuations in the communication links. The millimetre wave propagation mechanism through various mediums like free space, dry air, water vapour, hydrosol, brick wall, ply wood, glass, and sea water, in terms of BER, found that this technology is highly sensitive and critical in the realization, which leads to complex system design. As 60GHz band is more sensitive to oxygen due to its high attenuation, which is more suitable for personal communication systems, as external interference is minimum. This study will enlighten various aspects of wave propagation in terms of BER, which directly gives the suitability of the selected millimetre wave band for a given application.
 

May 26, 2010
School of Engineering, Coimbatore