Scanning the Issue

The current issue of the IETE Journal of Research (Vol.66, No.3, May-June.2020) contains 12 articles. These articles present ongoing research and developments taking place in the broad areas of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Signal Processing, Microwave Engineering, Control Systems and Power Engineering.

The paper on “Video Copyright Protection using Chaotic Maps and Singular Value Decomposition in Wavelet Domain” presents a new method for video copyrighting protection using singular decomposition and chaotic maps in the discrete wavelet domain. Compared with the existing techniques reported in the literature, the present method exhibits robustness against most image and video processing attacks and also reduces processing time. Authenticity of the watermark data is provided using an authentication key. The keys can be exchanged between the concerned parties through Diffie-Hellman algorithm.

In “A Simple but Efficient EEG Data Compression Algorithm for Neuromorphic Applications,” presents a method to efficiently compress multi-channel EEG (MCEEG) signals that is relevant for storage and communication purposes. The method uses different coders for encoding and decoding the integer and fractional parts of the data. The method is evaluated objectively on standard EEG databases for compression ratio, PSNR and encoding and decoding time, and subjectively using experts.

The paper titled “An Efficient FPGA Realization of Seizure Detection from EEG Signal Using Wavelet Transform and Statistical Features,” presents a method for detecting seizures using the EEG signal analysis. The detection analysis is based on wavelet transform and statistical features for classification using support vector machines. The algorithm is implemented in FPGA hardware. Hardware efficiency is incorporated using appropriate wavelet transform. The detection performance is evaluated on an EEG database.

The next paper on “Backstepping Model Predictive Controller for Blood Glucose Regulation in Type-I Diabetes Patient,” presents a method for regulating the blood glucose using a backstepping model predictive controller for type-1 diabetes patients. The paper studies a linearized state-space model of a nonlinear patient model using simulations to derive insulin dose for a micro-insulin dispenser. The control action is studied in presence of noise. Simulation experiments also compare the controller performance with other methods under various physiological conditions. Inferences are drawn from the comparative study in the paper.

In “Cloud-based Battery Replacement Scheme for Smart Electric Bus System,” a method for battery substitution scheme in cloud-based e-bus system is presented. The e-bus system, also referred to as Smart electric bus, is an alternative public transportation system using cloud-based management wherein the requirement of frequent battery replacement is being optimized here to avoid traffic congestions. Different battery replacement schemes are comparatively studied in terms of waiting time required and other measures. The proposed method is compared with other baseline methods using simulation studies to determine its efficacy in terms of average waiting time for battery replacement and end-to-end travel delay.

The following paper titled “Design of an Improved Differentially Fed Antenna Array for RF Energy Harvesting,” presents the design of a rectifying antenna (rectenna) for RF energy harvesting application. A linear array and a two-antenna array comprising of one with a single feed and another with a differential feed are studied. The proposed design uses a differentially fed antenna array whose performance is tuned for the application and studied in simulation and through measurements. The efficiency of the proposed rectenna design is compared with single fed rectenna.

The next paper “EPE-Based Pilot Relaying Scheme Immune to SIR Variations,” presents a pilot relaying scheme to address issues in distance protection of extra and ultra-high voltage transmission lines (TL) with series compensation. Distance protection in TL is employed to address under-reaching and over-reaching for inductive and capacitive series compensation respectively. The presented pilot relaying scheme can be used to protect uncompensated line also. The paper reports the design of the scheme and its performance using power system computer aided design and DC simulations for different test power systems against different fault types, their locations, fault resistance and compensation levels.

The paper on “Lung Parenchyma Segmentation: Fully Automated and Accurate Approach for Thoracic CT Scan Images,” addresses the problem of lung parenchyma segmentation to accurately segment lung field region of interest viz. nodules and avoid false inclusion of regions. Iterative thresholding, bidirectional chain coding to connect pixel point pairs and support vector machine classification are used. Processing steps studied to improve the accuracy are described. The accuracy is compared against the ground truth of different datasets and inferences are drawn about its efficacy.

In the paper “Novel Text Steganography Using Natural Language Processing and Part-of-Speech Tagging,” presents a method for hiding data in natural language text for transmission. The issue addressed is related to the bit-exact nature of text representation as opposed to classical media for steganography such as speech, audio, images and video. The method performs modifications such that the meaning of the text is unaltered. The method is tested using standard performance measures.

The following paper on “Optimal Localization and Sizing of UPFC to Solve the Reactive Power Dispatch Problem Under Unbalanced Conditions,” addresses the problem of optimal reactive power dispatch in an unbalanced bus system for minimizing the power loss in transmission lines and voltage deviation at the load buses. It presents an algorithm that optimizes a multi-objective problem by considering variables for optimization such as loadability, voltage profile, loss and ATC under unbalanced conditions itself. The performance is studied on standard IEEE test bus systems including trade-offs amongst the multi-objectives, and overload conditions. It is also compared with other existing algorithms for optimization.

The paper titled “Robust 2-DOF FOPID Controller Design for Maglev System Using Jaya Algorithm,” presents the design of 1 and 2 degrees of freedom with integer and fractional order proportional-integral-derivative controllers for Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) system. Maglev system is a relevant platform with several practical applications for studying a complex control system. The paper investigates the application of fractional order control techniques using Jaya algorithm and other parameter optimization algorithms. Performance analysis including robustness analysis is done and compared and inferences are drawn.

The paper on “Visual Tracking Using Kernelized Correlation Filter with Conditional Switching to Median Flow Tracker,” is concerned with the problem of object tracking from video sequences. The paper presents visual tracker based on correlation filters and optical flow to address the problem of drift in tracking. Another aspect is the choice of adaptive feature selection process and dynamic updates of filter template so as to track the object even in presence of occlusion, motion blur and deformation. The algorithm is studied on video sequences from standard object tracking benchmark dataset and compared with several other state-of-the-art trackers to bring out its salient aspects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shiban K Koul

Shiban K Koul is currently an Emeritus Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He served as Deputy Director (Strategy and Planning) at IIT Delhi from 2012-2016 and Mentor Deputy Director (Strategy & Planning, International Affairs) at IIT Jammu from 2018-2020. He also served as the Chairman of Astra Microwave Products Limited, Hyderabad from 2009-2019 and Dr R.P. Shenoy Astra Microwave Chair Professor at IIT Delhi from 2014-2019. His research interests include: RF MEMS, High Frequency Wireless Communication, Microwave Engineering, Microwave Passive and Active Circuits, Device modeling, Millimeter wave IC Design and Reconfigurable Microwave Circuits including Antennas. Completed 38 major sponsored projects, 52 consultancy projects and 60 technology development projects. He has authored 450 Papers, 11 state-of-the art Books and 3 Book Chapters. He holds 10 patents and 6 copyrights. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and Fellow of INAE and IETE. He is the Chief Editor of IETE Journal of Research, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies, Cambridge University Press. He served as a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer of IEEE MTT-S for the period 2012-2014.

Recipient of numerous awards including IEEE MTT Society Distinguished Educator Award (2014); Teaching Excellence Award (2012) from IIT Delhi; Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Young Scientist Award (1986); Top Invention Award (1991) of the National Research Development Council for his contributions to the indigenous development of ferrite phase shifter technology; VASVIK Award (1994) for the development of Ka- band components and phase shifters; Ram Lal Wadhwa Gold Medal (1995) from the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE); Academic Excellence Award (1998) from Indian Government for his pioneering contributions to phase control modules for Rajendra Radar, Shri Om Prakash Bhasin Award (2009) in the field of Electronics and Information Technology, VASVIK Award (2012) for the contributions made to the area of Information, Communication Technology (ICT) and M N Saha Memorial Award (2013) from IETE.E-mail: [email protected]