An Overview of TV White Space Use Cases in the Philippines

Alberto S. Banacia,Felicito S. Caluyo 대한전자공학회 2017 대한전자공학회 학술대회 Vol.2017 No.1

Due to the misfortune of having been geographically located in the Pacific Ring of Fire along the typhoon belt, the Philippines has endured some of the world’s worst natural disasters such as the 2013 7.2-magnitude strong earthquake in Bohol and the super typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines costing billions of pesos of damages to life and properties. On both occurrences, all forms of communication networks including mobile phones were down and unusable for weeks making emergency and relief efforts difficult. To address this problem, an information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure that is robust, flexible and easily deployable must be put in place. One of the key wireless communications technology that emerges in the last few years to provide broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved areas especially during times of calamities is the TV white space technology. In this paper, the concept of TV white space was discussed and an overview of use cases of TV White Space in the Philippines were presented particularly the technology’s ability to provide an immediately deployable, resilient and relatively cheaper communications network in times of natural calamities.

Development and Implementation of an Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) Decoder using GNU Radio and USRP1

Alberto S. Banacia,Joseph C. Acebedo,Johari C. Villegas,Arvin Tate N. Yu 대한전자공학회 2017 대한전자공학회 학술대회 Vol.2017 No.1

The recent adoption by the Philippine government of Japan’s Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting- Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard as the digital TV standard to be used in the country prompts the need for a platform that will facilitate understanding of its concept and provide a framework for evaluating algorithms that will improve ISDB-T receiver’s performance. This research work develops and implements an ISDB-T decoder in a Software-Defined Radio (SDR) platform. The study covers two parts. First, a recorded raw baseband ISDB-T signal in .dat file format was simulated through the configuration of signal processing blocks in GNU Radio Companion (GRC). The successful simulation produced a transport stream .ts H264- MPEG-4 AVC file and resulted to the display of the signal in a 6MHz bandwidth with a 64QAM constellation plot, a 34.22 dB Modulation Error Rate (MER), 8.95 dB and 18.00 dB Bit Error Rate (BER) for the Viterbi and Reed Solomon decoders, respectively. The simulation measurements served as indicators for the quality of the decoded signal as the output transport stream file was played simultaneously in VLC media player. Second, an actual reception of a private Philippine ABS-CBN Digital Television Terrestrial (DTT) signal located in UHF Channel 43 was performed in real-time through the system integration of the USRP1 with the GRC Signal flow graph. A Log Periodic LP0410 PCB antenna that can operate within 400MHz to 1GHz is also integrated to the SDR platform to receive the digital broadcast. Due to proprietary DTV issues, the system was only able to display ABS-CBN’s frequency spectrum centered at its assigned frequency of 611.143MHz at a 6MHz bandwidth.

Spectrum Sensing System in Software-defined Radio to Determine Spectrum Availability

Gerome Jan M. Llames,Alberto S. Banacia 대한전자공학회 2016 IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing & Computing Vol.5 No.2

Spectrum sensing is an integral part of cognitive radio, which seeks to address the perceived spectrum scarcity that is caused by inefficient utilization of the available spectrum. In this paper, a spectrum sensing system using energy detection for analog TV and FM broadcast transmitters as well as modified Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial (ISDB-T) signals is implemented on a software-defined radio platform using GNU’s Not Unix (GNU) radio and the N200 Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). Real-time implementation and experimental tests were conducted in Metro Cebu, a highly urbanized area in the southern part of the Philippines. Extensive tests and measurements were necessary to determine spectrum availability, particularly in the TV band. This is in support of the Philippine government’s efforts to provide internet connectivity to rural areas. Experimental results have so far met IEEE 802.22 requirements for energy detection spectrum sensing. The designed system detected signals at -114 dBm within a sensing time of 100 ms. Furthermore, the required Pd(≥ 90) and Pfa(≤10) of the standard were also achieved with different thresholds for various signal sources representing primary users.

A PROTOTYPE LANDSLIDE EARLY WARNING DEVICE USING SOIL MOISTURE AND SOIL DISPLACEMENT DETECTION WITH SMS CAPABILITY

Philip Lawrence Aberion,Ryan Alocilja,Fritz Cornel Bartolome,Dick Rosal,Harry Rolf Rovillos,Alberto S. Banacia 대한전자공학회 2010 ICEIC:International Conference on Electronics, Inf Vol.1 No.1

Landslides have been one of the natural calamities causing much casualties and destruction in human history. This project intends to create a prototype of an early warning device for the occurrence of landslides. The two monitoring devices used in this project that corresponds to the two parameters that are being considered in the incidence of landslides are the soil moisture and soil displacement detector. These monitoring devices have three major component blocks namely: The sensor which detects changes in the parameters and triggers the system when either moisture content or displacement of soil reaches a specified level, the microcontroller which is programmed to receive the signals from the sensor and translate these signals to codes comprehensible by the cellular phone and the cellular phone which is interfaced with the microcontroller and is used to send a predetermined SMS message to the assigned recipient of the message. With the integration of these components, a warning device is constructed that can offer a much needed step towards creating a system that can provide warning to people before another tragedy happens.

IMPLEMENTATION OF AN AUTOMATIC FACE DETECTION AND TRACKING SYSTEM USING MOTION DETECTION AND PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

Cabural, Aubrey M.,Catarig Dexter T.,Evangelista Marjory P.,Go Josie Lace Y.,Martillano Mary Hope T.,Banacia Alberto S. 대한전자공학회 2010 ICEIC:International Conference on Electronics, Inf Vol.1 No.1

In this paper, we have presented a system which performs automatic face detection and tracking using Motion Detection and Principal Component Analysis. The system was implemented with the use of a network camera VB-C50i and MATLAB 7.0. We divided the study into three (3) major stages. The first stage was the motion detection. After motion had been detected, face detection happened and then finally the detected face was tracked down. The first stage is motion detection. This was performed by setting a threshold for the maximum difference and used this threshold as an indicator for motion. The second stage for this system is face detection. When the system detected the image, the camera automatically captured the image. The captured image was then zoomed in and the possible face region was taken as input data. This possible face region underwent principal component analysis for face detection. After the principal component analysis detected the face, the image was cropped and zoomed in. The final stage is the tracking down of the face as analyzed in the first two stages. Once the system was able to track down the location of the face, it automatically displayed the detected face area. The whole system functioned in such away that it continued to loop every time a motion was detected. The whole system shows the efficiency and accuracy of automatic face detection and tracking with the use of principal component analysis.

A PROPAGATION PATH LOSS MODEL OF GLOBE TELECOMMUNICATIONS’ CELLULAR MOBILE SYSTEM OVER CEBU CITY

Andrew Louis M. Canonigo,Dexter A. Hormillada,Krsytale C. Chan,Carl E. Markgraph II,Ronyard Olivere B. Penola,Alberto S. Banacia 대한전자공학회 2010 ICEIC:International Conference on Electronics, Inf Vol.1 No.1

This research study is about a Propagation Path Loss Model for Cebu City. With a Propagation Path Loss model, transmission loss and strength of the signal received at a certain distance can be predicted. The Study is done to address the lack of a Propagation path loss model for Cebu City. A Propagation Model is empirical in nature. With this said, great amounts of data was gathered through a random route walk test using the Nokia Net Monitor installed on a Nokia 3310 cell phone to measure signal strength and using the Gramin GPS 12 personal navigator, distance form the base station was measured. The Lee microcell model was used and is fit for the microcell environment. As specified, building block densities were calculated using a topographical map which details building orientations over the subject area. From the data gathered a Propagation path Loss Model was formulated and validated over the said area in Cebu City. From the model generated, a close likeliness of the actual measured data to the predicted data was observed. It was also found out that the Lee microcell model was sensitive to terrain undulation.