Recent Patents on Electrical & Electronic Engineering (Formerly Recent Patents on Electrical Engineering) - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2012

This paper presents an overview of the most significant patents and research related to power analysis attacks and their hardware countermeasures and introduces an improved solution to the current flattening countermeasure. Moreover, the paper reviews the mechanisms of power analysis attacks and their relationship to the underlying CMOS technology. Specifically, differential power analysis is a statistical analysis attack that is successful in breaking the security of modern cryptographic devices such as smart cards, embedded devices and FPGA devices. New countermeasures based on capacitor decoupling, power balanced gates, current flattening at system and module level, on-chip switch box with decoupling capacitor bank, and others are analyzed and explained. The security of communication on all cryptographic devices is paramount and it is important to use the right countermeasure for accomplishing the highest level of security.

Generation of green electricity using innovative renewable and alternative energy technologies has shown merits and received renewed interest in recent years due to an increasing concern of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, being responsible for global warming & climate change, environmental pollution, and the limitations and conservation of natural energy resources. Thermoelectric power generation has emerged as a promising renewable and alternative green technology due to its distinct advantages. It offers a potential application in the direct conversion of waste-heat energy produced from automotive exhaust into electrical power where it is unnecessary to consider the cost of the thermal energy input. The application of this alternative green technology in converting waste-heat energy directly into electrical power can also improve the overall efficiencies of energy conversion systems. In this paper, the fundamental concept, composition and specifications, performance aspects, and innovative materials of thermoelectric power generation are presented. Also, recent developments and novel patents of thermoelectric power generation with their important and relevant applications to automotive exhaust waste-heat energy are reviewed and discussed.

In this paper we describe significant advances in the field of perception. We discuss several aspects of our own patent which is a system conceived to enhance human perception. With this objective we introduce the structure of the system patented, and we summarize some of the tests that use auditory and tactile noise. The results show that there is a complex interaction in human sensory integration and the perception can be modulated as a function of the noise level. Finally, we discuss some new challenging fields of application for this kind of invention that will stimulate the development of new research and future technological devices.

This letter presents, a novel compact planar/coplanar Band-Stop Filter (BSF) using octagonal slotted ground structure (SGS) in combination with a multi interdigital (MIDC) and compensated capacitors (MIDC), while the coupling matrix method is used in order to improve the filter characteristics. The filters will be realized through direct electromagnetic coupling and slow wave effect methods. The proposed filters have lower and higher cut-off frequencies of 3.4 GHz and 7.3 GHz respectively. Better compactness of the structure and symmetry of the frequency response have been achieved as well as two reflection zeros close to the stop band have been obtained. A comparison between simulation and experimental results confirms the validity of the proposed design approach. The compact planar filter occupies an area of (0.52λg x 0.34λg) at a guide wavelength λg = 29 mm and an area of (0.51λg x 0.49λg) with λg = 27 mm. Both band stop filters have been fabricated and measured. Measurements are in good agreement with simulation results. This paper reviews some promising patents on design of planar/coplanar compact band-stop filter using SGS resonators and multiinterdigital capacitors.

The current flight passenger-transport and cargo systems have reached the peak of their development. In the last 30 years there has been no increase in speed or reductions in trip costs. The transportation industry needs a revolutionary idea, which allows jumps in speed and delivery capability, and dramatic drops in trip price. The author offers a new idea in transportation in which trip (flight) time practically does not depend on distance, and vehicle load capability doubles and which has a driving engine that is located on the ground and can use any cheap source of energy. The author develops the theory and provides computations for a project containing five subprojects united by the common idea: acceleration of the air vehicle on the ground and continuation of flight by inertia (high speed catapulting). The initial speed is 290 – 6000 m/s, the range is 50 –10000 km (short, average, and long distances). Short transport system has a range on the order of 50-70 km, for example: city – sub-city, strait and air bridges such as across the Straits of Gibraltar 16 km, the English Channel 40 km, Bering Straits 100 km (Russia–America), Sakhalin–Asia 20 km, Russia–Japan, etc. The long distance has range up 10000 km such as New York-Paris 5838 km, Washington-London 7373 km, San- Francisco – Tokyo 8277 km, San-Francisco – Vladivostok (Russia) 8377 km, New York – Moscow 7519 km, Moscow – Beijing 5800 km, Moscow – Tokyo 7487 km, New York – Berlin 6392 km, and so on. The proposed catapult system having a length of 400 km can be used as a space launch system which decreases the space launch cost by hundreds of times. This also may be used as a new conventional high speed (up 1000 km/h) transport system between cities. That will be significantly cheaper then used MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) systems, because for levitation of the vehicle we employ conventional wings. This system may be also used for the mass launch of bombs (projectiles) in war. The article presents some promising patents on electric catapult transportation.

This article deals with the evolution regarding silicon monolithic power AC switches design through reviewing selected patents. Key criteria that are considered in this review are device structure topologies, performances related to application areas and manufacturability. Three main categories of monolithic AC switches are presented and selected patents of each of these categories are described and discussed. Possible future developments and trends are also explored.

This paper introduces a new hybrid method implementable on low cost microcontrollers for increasing the precision of time intervals measurement. The hybrid method combines the time-to-voltage conversion method (TVC) with the direct counting method in a way that eliminates the disadvantages of both methods when implemented on microcontrollers. The results show that using only one external resistor and the on-chip modules of a common and cheap microcontroller, high precision for time interval measurement is achieved on a wide range of time intervals spanning from 200 ns to 1.66 seconds. The article presents some promising patents on system for time intervals measurement.

The WSNs (wireless sensor networks) concept is applied to implement an uninterrupted solar energy surveillance system in this work. The completed system is comprised of three major sub-systems that include a charging subsystem, a control sub-system and a display sub-system. Based on several transmission standards, including Bluetooth, Wifi and Zigbee capability combined with wireless transmission techniques, the proposed surveillance system is designed for monitoring a solar energy system. The performance of the simulated WSN system is evaluated using statistical report results. The proposed surveillance system can be fully extended to several different kinds of applications, such as, health care and environmental inspection. The experimental measurement results significantly show that channel fading over the propagation channel dominates the developed system performance. The article presents some promising patents on WSN concept.

In this paper we have explored the design of double-pole four-throw (DP4T) RF CMOS switch at 45-nm technology and analyzed the better drain current and switching speed as compared to the existing single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch and double-pole double-throw (DPDT) switch. For the proposed DP4T RF CMOS switch results the peak output currents around 0.387 mA and switching speed of 36 ps. We are using the CMOS inverter propertied to some extent to design this DP4T switch. This article deals with the evolution of RF switches and its design through reviewing available patents and introduces the latest applications of proposed switch.