Almadar Journal for Communications, Information

Technology, and Applications

Vol. 03, No. 01, April 2016

AJCITA R EVIEWERS OF THIS I SSUE

Almadar Journal for Communications, Information Tech-
nology, and Applications (AJCITA) (ISSN 2313−156X),
(Local registration number at the Libyan National Li-
brary 369/2014) is published semi-annually by the Research
and Development Office, Almadar Aljadid Co. Address:
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AJCITA aims to provide high-level scientific papers with
value in academic research and industry. The published papers
can be:
• Original research articles with clear contributions,
• Review articles,
• Application articles with industrial values,
• Invited articles.
D IRECTOR OF J OURNAL
Abdulla A. Abouda, Manager of Research and De-
velopment Office, Almadar Aljadid Co. Libya, E-mail:
a.abouda@almadar.ly.
E DITOR IN C HIEF
Mohammed S. Elmusrati, Professor and Head of Communi-
cations and Systems Engineering Group, University of Vaasa,
Finland. He is also Professor at Electrical and Electronic En-
gineering Department, University of Benghazi, Libya, E-mail:
mohammed.elmusrati@uwasa.fi.
E DITORIAL B OARD
Naser G. El−Tarhuni, Assistant Professor at Electrical
and Computer Engineering Department, University of Sultan
Qaboos, Sultanate of Oman, E-mail: tarhuni@squ.edu.om.
Ali A. Ganoun, Assistant Professor at Electrical and
Electronic Engineering Department, University of Tripoli,
Libya, E-mail: a.ganoun@uot.edu.ly.
Omar A. Abu-Ella, Assistant Professor at Electrical and
Electronic Engineering Department, University of Misurata,
Libya, E-mail: omarabuella@eng.misuratau.edu.ly.
Mustafa A. Abuzaraida, Assistant Professor at Information
Technology Department, University of Misurata, Libya,
E-mail: abuzaraida@it.misuratau.edu.ly.
Ashraf Saleem, Hassan Yousef, Azeldien Kinsheel, Ibrahim
Almerhag, Ahmed Alkilany, Khawla Alnajjar, Elhusain Saad,
Eshag Larbah, Idris El-Feghi, Mustafa Abuzaraida, Zia Nadir,
Mohammed Bait-Suwailam.
C OVER PAGE D ESIGN
Mohamed E. Glaiow
Ahmed A. Aljarray
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P UBLICATION S TAFF
Asmaeil A. Ahteebah
 Almadar Journal for Communications, Information
Technology, and Applications
Vol. 03, No. 01, April 2016
Contents

Editorial Page: Technologies for Next Generations Networks

Abdulla A. Abouda, Page 1.

Performance Analysis of Double Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes

Rajab Legnain, Ian Marsland and Roshdy Hafez, Page 2.

INTERNET as Dictionary for Image Compression

Elhusain Saad and Keigo Hirakawa, Page 6.

Using Bayesian Hypotheses Testing to Improve Radial Basis Function Neural Network Performance
Khaled Mohamed, Page 11.

Design Principles and Practical Implementation of an Islanding Preventing Algorithm Based on

IEC 61850-7-420
Mike Mekkanen, Erkki Antila and Reino Virrankoski, Page 15.

Feedforward and Feedback Control of Smart Material Actuators

Mohamed M. Edardar, Page 22.

An Overview of Mobile Indoor Coverage: A Case Study of a Local Mobile Operator

Maoloud Y. Dabab, Page 31.

EDITORIAL PAGE
Technologies for Next Generations Networks
Abdulla A. Abouda1
T ODAY’S networks are primary built with equipments
from multiple vendors. Each equipment has a specific
function and role in the network. Examples of these equip-
ments in mobile operator’s context are mobile switching cen-
tre, home location register, short message server, charging and
billing equipments, gate ways, etc. When network operators
plan to lunch new services through these networks or to do
network expansion, new equipments should be added and
spaces to accommodate them are required beside the need
for energy and professional staff to run and integrate these
new equipments. Adding new equipment to an existing net-
work consumes valuable time and introduces extra costs and
overheads. Also introducing changes to an existing network
is a hard task to manage. Virtualizing network functions and
defining network connectivity using software are new concepts
to overcome these challenges.
Tomorrow’s networks are built with equipment from multi-
ple vendors and commercial off-the-shelf hardware that is used
to create a generic platform and cloud based environment. In-
stead of performing network functions using specific purpose
hardware, a software running on the generic platform is used to
implement the network functions. With this approach operators
can gain several benefits. Among these benefits are reduction
in equipment costs and power consumption, increasing speed
of time to market, improvement of network availability and
scalability. Flexibility is another benefit that can be gained
when software defined networking (SDN) technology is in-
troduced. These new technologies will introduce fundamental
changes to the current network architecture and play essential
role in the next generation networks.
Despite the above mentioned benefits operators can gain
from NFV and SDN, there are several challenges that has
to be addressed. One of these challenges is the coexistence
of legacy hardware based network system with the newly
introduced NFV and SDN systems. Development in OSS/BSS
has to go in line with NFV and SDN. Another challenge
that network operators will face is how to integrate multiple
1 Abdulla A. Abouda, Manager of Research and Development Office,
Almadar Aljadid Co. Libya, E-mail: a.abouda@almadar.ly.
1
virtual appliances from different vendors. Operators need to be
able to mix and match hardware, hypervisors, and appliances
from different vendors without incurring significant integration
costs. Performance issues such as latency, reliability and
security are other issues that has to be addressed.
In spite of these challenges several cases has been reported
where operators started to partially utilize NFV and SDN,
however, significant research in the area of NFV and SDN
is still needed before complete benefits of these technologies
are realized.
This is the third issue of Almadar journal for communi-
cations, information technology and applications where six
papers appear. The papers cover wide scope of topics, ranging
from deep technical research papers to overview studies.
Utilizing spatial domain to increase data rate and improve
signal quality is very important area for research in wireless
communications. It has been widely known that using multiple
transmit and receive antennas can increase channel capacity
significantly. In this issue one of the articles presents an
approximate closed-form expression for the double orthogonal
space-time block code.
Image processing has several important applications in our
daily life, however, in order to deal with images compromise
between image quality and size is always needed. Image
compression for different purposes is also an important topic.
One of the articles in this issue proposes utilizing INTERNET
as dictionary for image processing.
Neural networks have found it’s way in several applications,
and communications is one of these applications. One of
the articles in this issue uses Bayesian hypotheses testing
to improve the performance of radial basis function neural
network.
Comparison of different control schemes for smart material
actuators is presented in one of the articles.
Communication technology has found it’s way in several
areas. One of the articles in this issue presents design principle
and practical implementation of one of these application in
power system.
Since most of mobile traffic is generated inside buildings,
indoor coverage is a very important issue for mobile system
operators. One of the articles in this issue presents an overview
of mobile indoor coverage using a case study from Almadar
Aljadid Co.
Finally, in behalf of the editorial staff I would like to use
this chance to acknowledge the contribution of all people to
this issue of the journal from authors, editors, reviewers and
publishing staff. I also would like to invite researchers to send
their contribution to the journal for publication.
2 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

Performance Analysis of Double Orthogonal

Space-Time Block Codes
Rajab Legnain1 , Ian Marsland1 and Roshdy Hafez1

Abstract—In this paper we study the performance of the double
orthogonal space-time block code (DOSTBC) scheme. In the
DOSTBC, the transmitter simultaneously transmits its symbols
using two OSTBC systems. In this paper, we consider the case
where the receiver uses minimum mean square error detection
to estimate the transmitted symbols. We derive an approximate
closed-form expression for the bit error rate of the DOSTBC
for the case of a slow uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel with
perfect channel estimation at the receivers. This expression is
valid for the well-known modulation schemes, (i.e., M -PAM, M -
QAM and M -PSK). The analytical results are confirmed using
Monte Carlo simulations.
Index Terms—Double orthogonal space time block codes, BER
analysis.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Notation: Throughout the paper, the following notations are
used. Bold lowercase and bold uppercase letters denote vectors
and matrices, respectively; [·]∗ , [·]T , [·]H and k·kF denote the
complex conjugate, transpose, Hermitian, and Frobenius norm
of a vector or a matrix, respectively; E[·] denote the expecta-
tion operation; In is used to denote the n × n identity

matrix;
Q (x) denote the Gaussian Q-function; and nk = k!(n−k)! n!
is


the binomial coefficient, where nk = 0 for k > n.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
We consider a MIMO system with NT = 4 transmit
antennas and NR receive antennas, as shown in Fig. 1. The
transmitter splits an incoming 4 × 1 symbol vector, x, into
two 2 × 1 vectors, and then it uses two OSTBCs to encode

O RTHOGONAL space-time block code (OSTBC) trans- these two vectors in space and time, and then transmits them
mission is a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) simultaneously over two time slots.
technique which is used to provide transmit diversity to
mitigate the channel fading. The main advantage of an OSTBC 1
is that it provides full spatial diversity with a simple detector. x1
OSTBC1 1
However, an OSTBC can only provide a spatial code rate that 2

Channel
x .. x̂
is equal to or less than one. For example, an OSTBC with S/P . Detector
two transmit antennas (i.e., Alamouti’s OSTBC [1]) can offer x2
3

a spatial code rate of one while OSTBCs with three or four OSTBC2
4
NR
transmit antennas can offer a maximum spatial code rate of
3/4 [2]. Transmitter Receiver
The spatial code rate can be doubled with sacrificing some Fig. 1: System model of DOSTBC.
transmit diversity, by using two OSTBCs. This scheme, called
double orthogonal space-time block code (DOSTBC) [3], The received sample vector at the receiver can be expressed
requires that the number of receive antennas should be equal as
to or larger than twice the spatial code rate [4]. For example,    
hk,1,1 hk,1,2 n1,1
DOSTBC with two Alamouti codes requires at least two
r  h∗k,1,2 −h∗k,1,1    n∗1,2 
receive antennas to detect the transmitted symbols. 2
X E    
 .. ..  xk,1  .. 
In this paper, we study the performance of the DOSTBC y=  . .  + . ,
NT   xk,2  
scheme with two Alamouti Codes, where the receiver uses k=1  hk,NR ,1 hk,NR ,2 | {z }  nNR ,1 
a minimum mean square error (MMSE) detector. The main h∗k,NR ,2 −h∗k,NR ,1
xk
n∗NR ,2
contribution of this work is the analytical evaluation of the | {z } | {z }
Hk n
bit error rate (BER) for DOSTBC scheme. More specifically, (1)
we derive an approximate closed-form expression for the BER, where E is the average energy transmitted per time slot. hk,i,j
when the transmitter either uses Gray coded M -PAM, M -PSK is the channel coefficient between the j th transmit antenna
or square M -QAM (i.e., M = 4, 16, 64). of k th OSTBC and the ith receive antenna, and is modeled
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The system as independent and identically distributed (iid) zero-mean
model of the DOSTBC is described in Section II. In Section III complex Gaussian (ZMCG) random variables with variance
we derive the approximate closed-form expression of the BER T
σ 2 . xk = [xk,1 , xk,2 ] is the transmitted symbol vector from
for the scheme. Simulation results and the conclusions are the k OSTBC, and xk,v , v ∈ {1, 2}, is selected from a
th
presented in Sections IV and V, respectively. set of M complex symbols, i.e., xk,v ∈ {s1 , · · · sM }. The
1 The authors are with Department of SCE, Carleton University, Ottawa, covariance matrix of xk is given by Rxk = E[xk xH k ] = I2 . n
Canada, E-mails: {rlegnain, ianm, hafez}@sce.carleton.ca. is the effective noise vector, where the element ni,t represents
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 3

the noise on the ith receive antenna in the tth time slot, which where ρ12 = | NTEσ2 hHl,1 hl,2 | = 0 because hl,1 and hl,2 are
2
N
is modeled as a ZMCG random variable with variance σN2 . orthogonal. Therefore, (6) can be rewritten as
The receiver uses either a maximum likelihood (ML), mini- (
2
E 2
mum mean square error (MMSE) or zero forcing detector (ZF) kHl kF + σN , n = 1, 2
λl,n = N2T . (9)
to detect transmitted symbol vectors. In this paper we consider σN , n = 3, · · · , 2NR
the MMSE detector. The MMSE detector estimates the trans-
Using (5) we can express (4) as
mitted symbol vector from the k th OSTBC by multiplying the
received vector by a weight matrix that is given by E H −1
!−1 γk = u Λ uk,v , (10)
r 2 NT k,v l
E H X E
Wk = H Hl HlH + σN 2
I2NR . (2) where the vector uk,v = VlH hk,v = [uk,v,1 , · · · , uk,v,2NR ]T
NT k NT
l=1 has the same probability density function of hk,v , because Vl
The estimated symbol vector is given by x̂k = Dec (Wk y), is a unitary matrix (i.e., Vl VlH = I). We can rewrite (10) as
where Dec(·) denotes the hard decision operation and depends L
X E
on the transmitter signal constellation. Then the receiver com- γk =
2
|uk,v,n | , (11)
bines the estimated vectors to obtain the detected transmitted n=1
NT λ l,n
symbol vector, x̂ = [x̂1 , x̂2 ]T .
where L = 2NR is the number of independent channels
III. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS between the k th OSTBC and the receiver.
The average SER of detecting a symbol xk,v is found by
In this section we derive an approximate closed-form ex-
averaging (3) over the pdf of γk (or equivalently over the pdfs
pression of the average BER for the DOSTBC scheme. The
of λl,1 and uk,v,n ). Because it is difficult to take the average
following analysis is valid for any modulation schemes where
over the pdf of λl,1 , we use the average value of λl,1 , which
the instantaneous symbol error rate (SER) at an instantaneous
is given by
signal-to-noise (SNR) of γ can be approximated by [5]
p  L
λ̄l,1 = E [λl,1 ] = Eσ 2 + σN
2
. (12)
P s (γ) ≈ α Q 2βγ , (3) NT l
where α and β depend on the modulation scheme. For M - Therefore, the average SER of detecting a transmitted symbol
PAM, α = 2(1 − M 1
) and β = (M 23−1) , for M -PSK, α = 2 can be expressed as [7]
Z π/2  
and β = sin2 ( M
π
), and for square QAM, α = 4(1 − √1M ) and α 2β
P̄s ≈ Φγ k − dθ, (13)
β = 2(M −1) . Note that (3) is exact for BPSK.
3
π 0 2 sin2 (θ)
The instantaneous signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
(SINR) of xk,v at the detector output is where Φγk (ω) is the moment generating function (MGF) of
γk and is given by [7]
E H !Ns
γk = h M−1 hk,v (4)  L−Ns
NT k,v l 1 1
Φγk (ω) = , (14)
where hk,v is the v th column of the effective channel matrix, 1 − ωγ̄k 1 − ω λ̄ γ̄/σ
k
2
l,1 N
Hk , and Ml = NET Hl HlH + σN 2
I2NR (where l = 1, 2 and 2
σk E
l 6= k) is the interference-pulse-noise covariance matrix. Using where γ̄k = NT σN
is the average SNR per channel per symbol.
2

spectral decomposition we can rewrite Ml as The scalar Ns is the number of interfering symbols that are
Ml = Vl Λl VlH (5) transmitted from the lth OSTBC and is equal to two (i.e.,
Ns = 2), because we consider Alamouti OSTBC in which
where Λl is a diagonal matrix of the eigenvalues of Ml , and two symbols are simultaneously transmitted in each time slot.
Vl is the eigenvector matrix. The eigenvalues of Ml are [6] equation (13) can be rewritten as
 γl,1 +γl,2
 2
σN (1 + 2 + 12 Υ), n = 1
γ +γ Z π/2 2 
Y mn
λl,n = σN 2
(1 + l,1 2 l,2 − 12 Υ), n = 2 , (6) α sin2 (θ)

 2 P̄s ≈ dθ, (15)
σN , n = 3, · · · , 2NR π 0 n=1
sin2 (θ) − ψn
2
where γl,v = NTEσ2 hH E
l,v hl,v = NT σN2 kHl kF is the instanta- where ψ1 = βγ̄k , ψ2 = λ̄ βγ̄/σk
2 , m1 = L − Ns and m2 = Ns .
N l,1
neous SNR of the symbol xl,v , which has a chi-square distri- N
Using the results of the limit integral in [7], an approximate
bution with eight degrees of freedom, which has a probability closed-form expression for P̄s is
density function (pdf) of
 NX
  α ψ 1 s −1

1 γkL−1 γk P̄s ≈ 
ψ2
L−1 Bm Im (ψ2 )
fγk (γk ) = exp − , (7)
(L − 1)! γ̄kL γ̄k 2 1− ψ 1
ψ2
m=0

and  ψ  L−N X s −1 
q −
1
Cm Im (ψ1 ) (16)
Υ= (γl,1 − γl,2 )2 + 4ρ12 (8) ψ2 m=0
4 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

100
where
 m
ψ2 Am
Bm = −1 L−1

, (17)
ψ1 m 10−1

 m NXs −1 m


ψ1
Cm = 1− n
L−1

An , (18)
ψ2 n=0 n
10−2

BER
Ns −1

Ns
Ns −1+m
Y
Am = (−1) m
(L − n) , (19) 10−3
(Ns − 1)! n=1
n6=m+1
Simulation: 256-QAM
Simulation: 16-QAM
and Simulation: 32-PSK
s 10−4 Simulation: 8-PSK
m  
ψ X 2n −n Simulation: 4-PSK
Im (ψ) = 1 − [4 (1 + ψ)] . (20) Simulation: BPSK
1 + ψ n=0 n Theoretical: solid lines
10−5
Finally, the BER is given by 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
γ̄ (dB)
P̄s
P̄b ≈ . (21) Fig. 2: BER performance of DOSTBC for MR = 2.
log2 M
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
100
In this section, we provide simulation results for the BER Simulation: 256-QAM
Simulation: 16-QAM
performance of the DOSTBC scheme using Monte Carlo Simulation: 32-PSK
simulation. These results are compared to the theoretical 10−1
Simulation: 8-PSK
Simulation: 4-PSK
results. We also compare the performance of the DOSTBC Simulation: BPSK
scheme with well-known schemes. Theoretical: solid lines
Fig. 2 shows the theoretical and the simulation results of 10−2
the average BER performance of the DOSTBC scheme for
BER

BPSK, 4-PSK, 8-PSK, 32-PSK, 16-QAM and 256-QAM. We

consider the case where NR = 2. As expected, the theoretical 10−3
results accurately match the simulation results at high SNR.
For higher values of M , at low SNR, there is an error between
the theoretical and simulation results due principally to the 10−4
approximation in (21). However, this error decreases as SNR
increases.
In Fig. 3, we extend the simulation to the case when NR = 10−5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
4. Again, we show that the theoretical results approaches to
γ̄ (dB)
the simulation results as the SNR increases.
In Fig. 4 and 5, we compare the BER performance of the Fig. 3: BER performance of DOSTBC for MR = 4.
DOSTBC with the BER performance of vertical Bell Labs
layered space-time (VBLAST) and spatial modulation-spatial
multiplexing (SM-SMux) [8] schemes. We consider that the V. C ONCLUSIONS
VBLAST uses minimum mean square error ordered successive
interference cancellation detector [9], and the SM-SMux uses In this paper we studied the performance of the DOSTBC
the suboptimal detector [8]. In Fig. 4, we consider the case scheme. We derived an approximate closed-form expression
where all the schemes use only two receive antennas (i.e., of the BER for Gray coded M -PAM, M -QAM and M -PSK
NR = 2). We plot the BER performance of the 4 bps/Hz modulation schemes. In the analysis, we considered a slow
spectral efficiency for the 4 × 2 4-QAM DOSTBC, 2 × 2 uncorrelated Rayleigh Fading channel with perfect channel
BPSK VBLAST, and 4 × 2 4-QAM SM-SMux. In Fig. 5, estimation at the receiver. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we
we extend the comparison to the case where all the schemes showed that the theoretical results have excellent agreement
use four receive antennas (i.e., NR = 4). We plot the BER with the simulation results.
performance of the 4 bps/Hz spectral efficiency for the 4 × 4
4-QAM DOSTBC, 2 × 4 4-QAM VBLAST, 4 × 4 BPSK
R EFERENCES
VBLAST, and 4 × 4 4-QAM SM-SMux. As shown in Fig. 4
and 5, the DOSTBC scheme outperforms the VBLAST and [1] S. M. Alamouti, “A simple transmit diversity technique for wireless
SM-SMux schemes in both cases. This can be explained by communications,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Commun., vol. 16,
the fact the that the DOSTBC can provide transmit and receive pp. 1451–1458, Oct. 1998.
[2] V. Tarokh, H. Jafarkhani, and A. Calderbank, “Space-time block coding
diversity while the other two schemes can provide only receive for wireless communications: Performance results,” IEEE Journal on
diversity. Selected Areas in Commun., vol. 17, pp. 451–460, March 1999.
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100
DOSTBC: 4x2, 4-QAM
VBLAST: 2x2, 4-QAM
SM-SMux: 4x2, Na =2, BPSK

10−1
BER

10−2

10−3

10−4
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
γ̄ (dB)

Fig. 4: BER performance for a spectral efficiency of 4 bps/Hz and NR = 2.

100
DOSTBC: 4x4, 4-QAM
VBLAST: 2x4, 4-QAM
VBLAST: 4x4, BPSK
SMMUX:4x4, Na =2, BPSK
10−1

10−2
BER

10−3

10−4

10−5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
γ̄ (dB)

Fig. 5: BER performance for a spectral efficiency of 4 bps/Hz and NR = 4.

[3] E. N. Onggosanusi, A. G. Dabak, and T. M. Schmidl, “High rate space-

time block coded scheme: Performance and improvement in correlated
fading channels,” in IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking
Conference, WCNC, Orlando, FL, USA, March 2002, pp. 194–199.
[4] R. Legnain, R. Hafez, and I. Marsland, “Multiuser detection for rate-
1/2 ostbc wih four transmit antennas,” in IEEE International Conference
on Communications, Signal Processing, and their Applications, ICCSPA,
Sharjah, UAE, Feb 2013.
[5] J. G. Proakis and M. Salehi, Digital Communications, 5th ed. McGraw-
Hill, 2008.
[6] J. Cui, D. Falconer, and A. Sheikh, “Analysis of BER for optimum
combining with two co-channel interferers and maximal ratio combining
with arbitrary number of interferers,” in Proc. of 7th IEEE PIMRC, Taipei,
Taiwan, Oct. 1996, pp. 53–57.
[7] M. K. Simon and M. S. Alouini, Digital Communication over Fading
Channels. Wiley, 2005.
[8] R. Legnain, R. Hafez, I. Marsland, and A. Legnain, “A novel spatial
modulation using MIMO spatial multiplexing,” in IEEE International
Conference on Communications, Signal Processing, and their Applica-
tions, ICCSPA, Sharjah, UAE, Feb 2013.
[9] R. Bohnke, D. Wubben, V. Kuhn, and K.-D. Kammeyer, “Reduced
complexity MMSE detection for BLAST architectures,” in IEEE Global
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CA, USA, Dec. 2003, pp. 2258–2262.
6 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
INTERNET as Dictionary for Image Compression
Elhusain Saad1 and Keigo Hirakawa2
Abstract—The success of modern image compression algorithm
depends on the effectiveness of the dictionaries that represent
the images indirectly. Recent emphasis has been on the sparse
representation, where the redundant dictionaries are used to
closely approximate the image vector with a combination of a
few coefficients. In this work, we explore the possibility of using
INTERNET as a source of dictionary for image compression.
As the number of images available online are extraordinarily
large, the quality of image compression improves by searching
for the closest dictionary matches. A unique requirements to this
work is the efficient addressing of these images by compressing
the Universal Resource Locater (URL). The results show that
the proposed algorithm is competitive with state-of-art image
compression algorithms.
Index Terms—Dictionary learning, image compression.
I. I NTRODUCTION
P ROGRESS in storage and transmission technologies fu-
eled the advancements of multimedia applications like
graphics and video. Compression plays a critical role by
reducing the bits required to represent the same image or
video data. Image compression exploits correlation between
the neighboring pixels to represent redundant information that
can be described with fewer bits [1]–[3]. Image compression
can be divided into lossy and lossless compression, where
the latter results in exact reconstruction of the data while the
former would sacrifice image quality to reduce bits further.
When the quality loss is acceptable, the additional savings
in encoded bits may be significant. As such, the focus of
research is on the favorable trade offs between compression
ratio and image quality loss. A common approach to lossy
image compression is based on some dictionary or a set of
basis vectors designed to represent the image with only a few
coefficients. For instance, the discrete cosine transform and
wavelet transform play key roles in JPEG and JPEG2000 com-
pression standards, respectively [1]–[3]. More recent develop-
ments in wavelet-based compression methods include Embed-
ded Zero Tree Wavelet (EZW) which compresses images by
thresholding wavelet coefficients in a tree structure [1], Set
Partitioning In Hierarchical Trees (SPIHT) which leverages
inter-subband redundancies [1], [2], and Adaptively Scanned
Wavelet Difference Reduction (ASWDR) that predicts active
wavelet coefficients [4].
In this work, we employed a strategy based on the notion
that expanding the size of dictionary would improve the
overall coding efficiency. Instead of learning new dictionaries
1 Elhusain Saad is with Department of Electrical, University of Misurata,
Misurata, Libya, E-mail: saadelhusain1@eng.misuratau.edu.ly, The author
thanks Libyan ministry of higher education for funding this research.
2 Keigo Hirakawa is with University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469 USA,
E-mail: khirakawa1@udayton.edu.
based on some sparsity criteria [5], we exploit similarities of
structures that occur naturally in images by searching over a
large set of blocks or image patches that closely approximates
an image patch taken from the image to be compressed. To
accomplish this, we make use of readily available images
on INTERNET as a “dictionary” that we search over, and
address them with the Universal Resource Locater (URL) that
uniquely identify the relevant dictionary images. Compression
is performed in part by employing text-based lossless com-
pression algorithms to reduce the bits required to specify the
URL. When the search range is sufficiently large, the proposed
compression algorithm attains state-of-art performance.
The proposed compression architecture is shown in Fig. 1.
As shown by this illustration, the encoder and decoder require
access to the INTERNET to retrieve the dictionary images.
Such a structure makes sense if the storage cost is higher
than the cost of network access, or if the goal is required to
compress a large set of images at once (e.g. image services
such as Flickr, Instagram, Google Images, etc. may benefit
from the proposed approach). This approach also presents a
set of unique challenges, such as the permanence of URL
and the hashing of dictionary images to make the search
more efficient. Though these questions remain, the potential
of image compression as evidenced by the qualities we attain
cannot be ignored.
II. INTERNET AS D ICTIONARY
A. Criteria for Establishing A Match
Let f ∈ RW ×W be the target block or image patch of size
W × W cropped from image-to-be-compressed F : Z2 → R.
Let fˆ = αg + β be a candidate dictionary block that approx-
imate f , where g ∈ RW ×W and α and β are parameters.
The criteria we employ to determine the “goodness” of match
between f and fˆ are mean squared error (MSE) and structural
similarity index metric (SSIM) which predicts their perceived
similarity [6].
MSE is defined as follows
W
X −1 W
X −1
M SE(f, fˆ) =W −2 (f (m, n) − fˆ(m, n))2 . (1)
m=0 n=0
By taking derivative with respect to α and β to minimize MSE,
we arrive at the standard linear regression coefficients
σf g σf σf g
α̂ = 2 = ρf g , β̂ = µf − 2 µg . (2)
σg σg σg
where µf and µg are the means of blocks f and g, respectively;
σf2 and σg2 are variances of f and g, respectively; and σf g and
ρf g = σf g /σf σg are covariance and the Pearson correlation
coefficient, respectively. Consequently, substituting α̂ and β̂
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 7

Fig. 1: Block diagram of basic image compression framework (IAD1).

into equation (1) yields the minimum value of mean square corresponding to ρf ĝk̂ = max(ρf ĝ1 , . . . , ρf ĝK ).
error: The number of available dictionary images in INTERNET
is virtually infinite. To give an idea for how many dictionary
e2min = σf2 (1 − ρ2f g ). (3)
images are required to meet an “acceptable” image quality
The SSIM is defined by the relation: SSIM (f, f˜) = (say M SE = σf2 (1 − ρ̂2 ) or SSIM = ρ̂), let us treat f and
! ! ! Gk as i.i.d. random variables for the moment. The probability
2µf µf˜ + C1 2σf σf˜ + C2 σf f˜ + C3
, (4) that we would have met the desired quality with K dictionary
µ2f + µ2f˜ + C1 σf2 + σf2˜ + C2 σf σf˜ + C3 images is
where µf˜ and σf˜ are mean and variance of f˜; σf f˜ denotes n o n oK
P r ρf ĝk̂ > ρ̂ = 1 − P r ρf ĝ ≤ ρ̂ . (9)
covariance of f and f˜; and C1 , C2 , C3 are small constants. In
the special case that we use f˜ = α̃g + β̃ where In other words, one can expect the success probability to
σf σf increase as K grows (although the encoder complexity as well
α̃ = , β̃ = µf − µg . (5)
σg σg as the number of URL codes to retain would also increase).
instead of α̂ and β̂ in (2), (4) simplifies to (when C1 , C2 , C3
are negligibly small) III. P ROPOSED I MAGE C OMPRESSION A LGORITHM
A. Basic IAD Image Compression Framework
SSIM (f, f˜) = ρf g . (6)
We first describe the basic image compression architecture
B. Template Matching using INTERNET as dictionary (IAD), illustrated by Fig. 1.
Based on (3) and (6), we conclude that g that maximizes the Let the target image F : Z2 → R be partitioned into blocks
Pearson correlation coefficient ρf g ∈ [−1, 1] is the minimizer fij ∈ RW ×W , as follows: ∀(m, n) ∈ {0, . . . , W − 1}2 ,
of MSE error emin (using α̂ and β̂) and the maximizer of fij (m, n) = F (m + iW, n + jW ). (10)
SSIM (using α̃ and β̃). Given a large dictionary image G :
Z2 → R, we are interested in identifying an W ×W dictionary Based on the template matching of (7) and the maximum
block ĝ inside G that maximizes ρf ĝ : Pearson correlation criteria of (8), lossy storage/transmission
of fij (m, n) is accomplished indirectly via fˆij (for MSE-
ĝ = arg max ρf g (7) optimal compression) or f˜ij (for SSIM-optimal compression),
g(m,n)=G(m+∆m,n+∆n)
where
Known as template matching, this search task can be per-
formed very efficiently by combining a few convolution oper- fˆij = α̂ij ĝk̂ij + β̂ij , f˜ij = α̃ij ĝk̂ij + β̃ij . (11)
ators.
Suppose for the moment that the dictionary images Gk : As such, the following quantities must be stored/transmitted
Z2 → R are drawn at random from INTERNET, where k by the encoder in order for the decoder to be able to recover
denotes the image index k ∈ {1, 2, . . . }. Let ĝk = G(m + fˆij or f˜ij :
∆mk , n + ∆nk ) be the best candidate dictionary block in • µfij and σfij (or σfij · ρfij ĝk for fˆij )
dictionary image Gk corresponding to the Pearson correlation • (∆mi , ∆ni ) for locating gk̂ in Gk̂
coefficient ρf ĝk and the location (∆mk , ∆nk ). Obviously, we • URL for locating image Gk̂
choose as the final candidate as the maximizer of ρf ĝk over The URLs are stored in a “text file” in ASCII format, each
k ∈ {1, 2, . . . , K} dictionary images: separated by carriage returns—this text file will be com-
fˆ = α̂ĝk̂ + β̂ pressed subsequently using standard text-based compression
subject to k̂ = arg max ρf ĝk (8) techniques. The remaining values were stored in a separate
f˜ = α̃ĝk̂ + β̃ k
“data file” after being quantized into 8bit integers (i.e. 4 × 8
8 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Fig. 2: Block diagram of multilevel image compression framework (IAD2).
(a) PSNR vs bpp (b) SSIM vs bpp
Fig. 3: The performance of the proposed algorithm and some standard methods. (K=number of dictionary image, W 0 size of block of block means).
bits per W × W block). Contrast this to the fact that original
W × W block taken from an 8bit image requires 8W 2 bits to
represent.
The exact steps taken by the encoder are as follows:
1) Retrieve K dictionary images {G1 , . . . , GK } found on-
line (random draws from Flickr.com in our implemen-
tation) and cache them to local storage.
2) For each target block fij , locate the template matched
block ĝk that maximizes Pearson correlation coefficient
ρfij ,ĝk in each dictionary image Gk .
3) Identify the dictionary block ĝk̂ among {ĝ1 , . . . , ĝK }
that maximizes Pearson correlation coefficient.
4) Output µfij , σfij , (∆mi , ∆ni ) to “data file” and URL
of Gk̂ to “text file.”
5) Once all target blocks are encoded, then apply an effi-
cient lossless compression to “data file” and “text file”
(the default Zip compression in our implementation).
The exact steps taken by the decoder are as follows:
1) Decompress “data file” and “text file.”
2) Retrieve dictionary images from online by parsing URLs
in “text file.”
3) For each reconstruction of target block fˆij (or f˜ij ),
locate the template matched block ĝk̂ (m, n) = Gk̂ (m +
∆mi , n + ∆ni ). Compute µg and σg .
4) Compute α̂ and β̂ (or α̃ and β̃), and reconstruct fˆij (or
f˜ij ).
(c) Effects of varying K (d) Effects of varying W 0
B. Simple Extensions
There are a few simple extensions that one can employ
to improve the overall image quality. First, block based
compression methods (such as JPEG) are subject to blocking
artifacts, where the discontinuities at the block boundaries
become visible. Traditionally, blocking artifacts are dealt with
in post-processing by smearing pixels near the boundaries. In
the context of IAD compression, however, the decoder may
impose “feathering” by w pixels. That is, by cropping an
(W +2w)×(W +2w) image patch from Gk̂ instead of W ×W
image patches, we allow for an overlap between neighboring
blocks by w pixels that can be blended together for smoother
transition. In our investigation, we found that feathering was
far more successful at removing blocking artifacts than the
standard post-processing.
Second, recall (9). Although the success probability would
increase as K grows, this also requires more template match-
ing. One simple technique to improve the success probability
is to modify (8) as follows:
k̂ = arg max |ρf ĝk |. (12)
k
That is, when ρf ĝk is close to -1, fˆ (or f˜) reconstructed
with negative α̂ (or α̃) is actually very good approximation
to f . Allowing α̂ to be a signed variable would essentially
mean the number of dictionary images is doubled to 2K,
therefore increasing the success probability by a significant
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 9

(a) Original (b) IAD1 (c) IAD2

BPP=8, SSIM=1, PSNR=∞ BPP=.33, SSIM=.95, PSNR=28.45 BPP=.27, SSIM=.94, PSNR=28.32

(d) JPEG2000 (e) ASWDR (f) SPIHT

BPP=.33, SSIM=.95, PSNR=33.6 BPP=.48, SSIM=.93, PSNR=31.7 BPP=.30, SSIM=.92, PSNR=30.8
Fig. 4: Reconstructed cameraman image. (BPP=bits per pixel).

margin compared to (9):
n o n o2K
P r |ρf ĝk̂ | > ρ̂ = 1 − P r ρf ĝ ≤ ρ̂ . (13)
However, this technique has the disadvantage that the signed
α̂ variable requires an extra sign bit to encode.
C. Multilevel IAD Image Compression
The proposed IAD image compression can be applied
recursively. Consider Fig. 2. Here, Encoder 1 is the same
encoder found in Fig. 1, with same input/output structure.
Encoder 2 is also identical to Encoder 1, except for the fact
that the input image is replaced by the “block means” µfij . In
other words, the block means when taken together as a whole
can be interpreted as another image, which can be compressed
by Encoder 2 in the same manner that Encoder 1 does (for
instance, “blocks” in Encoder 2 are really “blocks of block
means”). Similarly, Encoder 3 is responsible for compressing
the “block standard deviations” σfij . The decoder will have
to process the streams from Encoders 2 and 3 to recover µfij
and σfij first before the actual image f can be decoded from
Decoder 1.
The multilevel IAD compression results in a higher com-
pression rate by reducing the number of bits required to code
µfij and σfij . However, the image quality suffers also because
of the fact that error in µfij and σfij can propagate to the
decoding of Encoder 1 bitstream. This risk can be mitigated
by increasing the search range K for Encoders 2 and 3, as well
by reducing the size of “blocks of block means” and “blocks
of block standard deviations” to W 0 × W 0 where W 0  W .
IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
The proposed algorithms was implemented using Matlab.
64 INTERNET dictionary images have been downloaded from
Flickr.com with varied texture, feathers, and size. Color dic-
tionary images were converted to grayscale images. We chose
to compress some standard grayscale reference images (cam-
eraman, Peppers, Boat, etc.). The performance of the single
level (IAD1) and multilevel (IAD2) compression algorithms
were compared to other well known compression methods
(SPIHT, ASWDR, JPEG2000). Fig. 3 reports the PSNR and
SSIM scores averaged over the compressed images. Based on
Fig. 3(a-b), IAD1 and IAD2 are comparable to the alternatives
in PSNR performance, but clear winner in SSIM performance
for bits per pixel ranges between 0.02 and 1. Fig. 3(c) shows
that expanding the dictionary image size would indeed result in
improved image quality, while Fig. 3(d) shows the sensitivity
of multilevel IAD compression algorithm (IAD2) to block
sizes (W 0 ).
Example images in Fig. 4 show surprising contrast between
IADs and the alternative methods compressed at similar rates.
IADs retain the sharpness of image edge better and the texture
10 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

in the sky are preserved. One might argue that loss of grass
textures occurs more gracefully in IADs than SPIHT, ASWDR,
and JPEG2000.

V. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK

We proposed a new compression algorithm based on “IN-
TERNET as dictionary of images” principles to attain accept-
able images at high compression ratios. Match between target
image block and dictionary block was made based on MSE and
SSIM optimal criteria, and the stored/transmitted bitstreams
included text files to record the URL of the dictionary images.
The experiments showed that we are competitive in PSNR and
surperior in SSIM performance when compared to SPIHT,
ASWDR, and JPEG2000. Future work in this are include
hashing of dictionary image blocks to enable a fast encoding
over a very large set of dictionary images.

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ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Using Bayesian Hypotheses Testing to Improve
Radial Basis Function Neural Network Performance
Khaled Mohamed1
Abstract—Radial basis function (RBF) neural network is one
of the networks which are used to classify different types of
patterns. Using RBF is the key behind the success of this network.
In this network, the detector (conventional detector) in training
and testing data usually depends on the maximum value of the
output or a certain threshold, however it doesn’t always assure
the chosen threshold can give the best performance. In this paper,
Bayesian hypothesis testing is introduced and applied to RBF
neural network to get the optimum threshold. We replace the
conventional detector in the training and testing data by the
Bayesian detector (smart detector). A comparison between the
two detectors is conducted which shows that the smart detector
can dramatically decrease the average cost of miss and false
alarms and lead to less error percentage.
Index Terms—Radial basis functions, Clustering and pattern,
neural network, Bayesian hypothesis, smart detector.
I. I NTRODUCTION
R ADIAL basis function (RBF) networks are usually
utilized for approximating functions from given in-
put–output patterns. The performance of a trained RBF net-
work depends on several factors. The locations and number
of the RBF, their shape and the method used for learning
the input-output mapping are some important factors [1]. RBF
network consists of a two-layer feed-forward neural network
such a network is characterized by a set of inputs and a
set of outputs. In between the inputs and the outputs layer,
there are hidden layers. Each of them implemented a radial
basis function. In the pattern classification application, the
network input usually represents features while the output
corresponds to a pattern or a class. A pattern which has
same features is classified in a same group. Then weights
multiplied to those groups where a certain output is gotten
so the detector can decide what the input is. The conventional
detector usually gives one to the output whose value is bigger
than a certain threshold; however it doesn’t always assure the
chosen threshold can give the best performance.
RBF networks were firstly introduced into the neural net-
work application in 1988 [4]. Since then many methods have
been proposed to improve RBF networks performance and
utilize to many applications [2], [5]–[7]. Many methods have
focused exclusively to optimize the number of the RBF, their
shape and the method used for learning the input-output
mapping [3].
In this paper, we focus in how the threshold can be
optimized. We take a completely different detector by viewing
the design of Bayesian detector (smart detector). This detector
1 Khaled Mohamed Ahmied Mohamed is with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Al Jabal Al Gharbi University,
E-mail: alkmeshe@yahoo.com.
11
based on Bayesian hypotheses testing. In general, a Bayesian
hypothesis test is a method of making decisions using data.
These data can be either from a controlled experiment or
an observational study . In statistics, we call a statistically
significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone,
according to the significance level, and a pre-determined
threshold probability. Critical tests of this kind may be called
tests of significance, and when such tests are available we may
discover whether a second sample is or is not significantly
different from the first [8]. The smart detector depends on the
probability density function when an event occurs. Bayesian
hypotheses testing are the principle of our smart detector
where the average risk can be minimized. The smart detector
can minimize the error percentage by accessing to the training
data and getting the probability density functions and applying
these functions to the testing images. Moreover, changing the
miss and false alarm costs can lead to changing the system
performance so choosing the right costs can improve the
system performance.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The the-
oretical description is defined and discussed in Section II.
In Section III, we demonstrate the algorithm efficacy using
handwritten numbers database. Finally, in Section IV, we offer
conclusions.
II. T HEORATICAL D ESCRIPTION
A. Radial Basis Function Neural Network
Radial functions consist of a two-layer feed-forward neural
network such a network is characterized by a set of inputs and
a set of outputs. In between the inputs and the outputs layer,
there are hidden layers. Each of them implemented a radial
basis function. The network input usually represents features
while the output corresponds to a class in the pattern classifi-
cation application. The mean for each class are multiplied by
the weights where the M th outputs from the weights block
will be inputs to the detector. The detector decides which the
input is (either depends on a certain threshold or the highest
value of the output). Fig. 1 shows a simple block diagram for
training a system whose patterns have N elements, L hidden
layers and M outputs.
RBF function are used to classify different patterns into L
groups where the outputs of RBF block are computed as
1
uk = 2 (1)
1 + e(x−µk ) /2σk
where k = 1, 2, ..., L and σk is the standard deviation. Then
12 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

XP u1 V1
1

XP u2 V2
2

RBF function Weights Detector Y

(L × N ) Wij (M × L) (M × 1)
(the detected output)

XP uL VM
N

Classification all patterns Weights which multplied The detector is to detect

into L groups by classified groups what the input is

Fig. 1: Shows simple block diagram for training a system for RBF network.

the output of weights block is computed in such a way as C. Bayesian detector (Smart detector)
L The smart detector depends on the probability density
X
Vj = Wji ∗ ui , (2) function when H0 occurs as well as the probability density
i=1 function when H1 occurs. In order to implement this type of
detector, we have to follow the next steps:
where j = 1, ..., M (M is the number of the output from the
• First, train the system with the conventional detector.
weights block) , i = 1, ..., L (L is the number of hidden layers
• Then, we replace the detector with the smart one and use
or clusters) . The last step to get the output is computed such
as  the same training images again as inputs and also keep
+1, Vj ≥ C the trained weights to get the probability density function
yj = (3)
0, Vj < C for each digit.
• Use two dimension kernel density function to smooth
where C is a certain threshold value. In the conventional
the probability density function (PDF) for P (y|H0 ) and
detector, the threshold value is usually chosen to be the
P (y|H1 ) where y in our case is combinations of V1 and
maximum value in the vector Vj .
V2 .
• Compute the threshold τ by assign costs for all Cij and
B. Bayesian Hypotheses testing apply them to Equation (6).
Let assume a simple case which has only two possible hy- • Apply the smart detector in the testing part so by checking
potheses H0 and H1 (M = 2), correspondence to two possible the likelihood ratio whether is bigger than the threshold
probability distribution P (H0 ) and P (H1 ) respectively where: value (τ ) or not so the smart detector can decide what
H0 : Y ∼ P (H0 ) versus H1 : Y ∼ P (H1 ) [8]. the input is.
The Bayesian decision rule is given by
 III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
1 if L (y) ≥ τ
δB (y) = (4)
0 if L (y) < τ In this section, fully connected network structure of 784
input nodes (N = 784), 2 output nodes (M = 2), and 30
where the likelihood ratio is
hidden nodes (L = 30) are implemented by Matlab. Our
P (y/H1 ) database is a set of (28×28) pixels handwritten numbers
L (y) = , (5)
P (y/H0 ) images which consists about 6000 ones and 6000 zeros where
the threshold value is half of them are used in the system training and the other
half are used in the system testing so it is obvious that the
P (H 0 ) . (C00 − C10 )
τ= , (6) priors are equal (P (H0 ) = P (H1 ) = 0.5). In order to compare
P (H1 ) . (C11 − C01 ) fairly between the two approaches, learning factor parameter
and Cij is the cost when my decision is i while Hj is true. and number of hidden nodes are fixed where the learning
The Bayesian hypotheses testing minimize the average risk parameter is set to 0.1 and number of hidden nodes is set to
by using 30. The fact we have chosen these numbers because it gives
the least error percentage when the conventional detector is
rB (δ) = P (H0 ) [C10 P (Γ1|H0) + C00 P (Γ0 |H0 )] +
(7) applied. The metric which is used in the comparison between
P (H1 ) [C11 P (Γ1 |H1 ) + C01 P (Γ0 |H1 )] the conventional and the smart detectors is the error percentage
where Γ1 and Γ0 are defined in Equations (8) and (9) for each digit. Using Equation (6), the threshold value is 3
respectively (τ = 3) when C00 = C11 = 0, C10 = 3 and C01 = 1.
Γ1 = {y ∈ Γ|L (y) ≥ τ } (8) The inputs of the detector (V1 and V2 ) have different values
when all the input images have zero labels as well as when
all images have one’s labels. Fig. 2 shows the values of V1
Γ0 = {y ∈ Γ|L (y) < τ } (9) and V2 when H0 and H1 occur. It is clear from Fig. 2 that
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 13

2
H0 is occured
1.5 H1 is occured
1
1
0.8
0.5

P(V1,V2 /H1)
0.6
V2

0
0.4
-0.5
0.2
-1
0
-1.5 2
1 2
-2 0 1
-2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0
V1 -1 -1
V2 -2 -2
Fig. 2: Values of V1 versus V2 when H0 and H1 occur. V1

Fig. 4: The probability density function for the likelihood when H1 occurs.

the images whose label are ones have different locations from
images whose labels are zeros except some small overlapping
between them. Those overlapping should be distinguished in
order to decrease the error percentage for each digit. This
distribution of data is very important to get the probability
density functions. In order to get the probability density
function for the likelihood of H0 , around 3000 images whose
labels are zeros are used as inputs into the training system.
Fig. 3 shows the probability density function for likelihood
when H0 occurs (P (V1 , V2 /H0 )). Likewise the probability
density function for the likelihood of H1 can be gotten, around
3000 images whose labels are ones are used as inputs into the
training system. Fig. 4 shows the probability density function
for the likelihood when H1 occurs (P (V1 , V2 /H1 )).
1 ten times when the smart detector is conducted. This idea can
0.8
P(V1,V2 /H0)
Equation (4).
We run the experiment 50 times using the conventional and
smart detector where the mean error percentage for each digit
is computed and reported. In each run, randomly a set of 3000
ones and a set of 3000 zeros are picked and utilized for training
while the rest of images are used for testing.
Fig. 5 shows the mean error percentage for zero and one
when the conventional detector is used while Fig. 6 shows
the mean error percentage for zero and one when the smart
detector is used. Table (I) shows the average error percentage
comparison between the conventional and smart detectors for
each digit. It is obvious from the experiment that there is a
big improvement in terms of the error percentage when the
conventional detector is replaced by the smart one. The im-
provement factor is 10 so the system performance is improved
be generalized with more than two outputs (not only H0 , H1 )
by only knowing the probability density functions for those

0.6 inputs.
0.4
Error Percentage for the digits zero and one using the conventional detecor
2
0.2 Hidden nodes is 30 and learning parameter is 0.1
1.8
0
2 1.6
1 2
1 1.4
0
Error Percentage %

0
-1 -1 1.2
V2 -2 -2
V1 1

Fig. 3: The probability density function for the likelihood when H0 occurs. 0.8

0.6
The probability density function for likelihood when H0 or
H1 occur is corresponding to the dense of V1 and V2 so the 0.4

probability density functions have big values where there is 0.2

a dense in data. The likelihood ratio can be computed by 0

knowing the values of V1 and V2 and plug them into the 0
numbers
1

probability density function for H0 and H1 as in Equation (5)

Fig. 5: Error Percentage for zero and one when the conventional detector was
where y represents by V1 and V2 . Then, the decision rule can used.
decide whether the input is zero or one which depends on
the likelihood ratio and the threshold value as illustrated in
14 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

Error Percentage for the digits zero and one using the smart detecor
2
Hidden nodes is 30 and learning parameter is 0.1 [8] Vicent Poor ,”an Introduction to Signal Detection and Estimation”,”
1.8 Springer Science and Business Media”, 1995.
1.6

1.4
Error Percentage %

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 1
numbers

Fig. 6: Error Percentage for zero and one when the conventional detector was
used.

TABLE I: S HOWS THE AVERAGE E RROR P ERCENTAGE C OMPARISON B E -

TWEEN THE C ONVENTIONAL AND S MART D ETECTORS FOR EACH D IGIT.

Average
The digit 0 1
Error
percentage %
1.61% 1.4% 1.5%
(Conventional Detector)
Error percentage %
0.2% 0.091% 0.15%
(Smart Detector)

IV. C ONCLUSION
Bayesian hypotheses testing are the principle of our smart
detector where the average risk can be minimized. Bayesian
detector can minimize the error percentage by accessing to
the training data and getting the probability density functions
and applying these functions to the testing images. In addition,
changing the miss and false alarm costs can lead to changing
the system performance so choosing the right costs can deliver
a higher performance. In average, the smart detector enhances
our system performance by ten times comparing to the con-
ventional detector. Finally, smart detector can play a key rule
for enhancement many systems whenever there is available
data for training.

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[5] Luo Huaien and S. Puthusserypady, “Bayesian radial basis function
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[6] D. Fisch, and B. Sick,”Training of radial basis function classifiers with
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ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Design Principles and Practical Implementation of
an Islanding Preventing Algorithm Based on IEC
61850-7-420
Mike Mekkanen1 , Erkki Antila2 and Reino Virrankoski3
Abstract—Incoming booming of Distributed Energy Resources
(DER) and the growing complexity of electrical systems are
driving the need for robust communication solutions to refurbish
the existing automation and protection functions or even invents
a new functions. In order to sustain an efficient electrical energy
systems operation and reduce hazard for the Electrical Utilities
persons within such dynamic and adaptable systems structure
behavior that handle numerous parameters and variables. Design
and practical implementation of an islanding detection and
preventing technique is carried out. The designed approach relies
on the electrical grid communication system network based on
the IEC 61850-7-420 standard. Electrical grid distributed main
management service (DMMS) takes the response to monitor all
the electrical connection points (ECP) and the DERs status. The
developed solution has overcomes the lack of the existing remote
(transfer-trip) and local (active, passive) detection techniques,
since, upon its implementation, measurements for any electrical
grids operation parameters (e.g. frequency, active and reactive
power, etc.) are not needed. The designed DMMS and data objects
modeling for the predefined LNs within the IEC 61850-7-420 and
their implementations through a specifically designated testing
is applied within the commercial instruments. The obtaining
results show that the correctness for the design of the islanding
protection function through the DMMS approach and the data
modeling of various IEC 61850-7-420 predefined data object LNs.
Index Terms—DERs, IEC 61850-7-420, Islanding detection,
Smart grid.
I. I NTRODUCTION
HE expected increase of the electrical energy
T consumption to double by 2050 based on the International
Energy Agency study and the incoming boom of the DERs
are the most global challenges facing the energy Utilities [1].
Decentralized DERs lead to parallel operation within the
electrical distribution network (Utilities’ main generators
and DERs) which involves several challenges. The most
challenging is the detecting of the islanding scenarios, or loss
of main. Since, the existing distribution networks were not
intended to handle the incoming boom of the DERs scattered
along to the distribution electrical grid. Moreover, they are
designed upon the passive network assumption [2].
1 Mike Mekkanen is with University of Vaasa, Department of
Computer Science, Communications and Systems Engineering, E-mail:
mike.mekkanen@uva.fi.
2 Erkki Antila is with University of Vaasa, Department of Electrical En-
gineering and Energy Technology, P.O. Box 700, FI-65101 Vaasa, Finland,
E-mail: erkki.antila@uva.fi.
3 Reino Virrankoski is with University of Vaasa, Department of Computer
Science, Communications and Systems Engineering, E-mail: rvir@uva.fi.
15
Islanding, term represents the case where, a segment(s) from
the electrical grid is isolated from the main Utilities energy
supply due to the maintenance schedule or a fault that may
comprise at least one DER which might continue to energize
the islanded segment independently.
This case and from the electrical grid managements point
view [3] creates unacceptable situation in terms of power
quality that need to be maintained within the consumer
assigned acceptable range [4], [5]. Moreover, it may cause
a severe damage to the DERs in case of reconnection to
electrical grid while losing synchronism with the rest of the
electrical grid [6]. Lastly, it provides a hazard in case of
restoration or fault clearing to the electrical grid persons who
involved with the repairing tasks. The main Utility supply
and the DERs are planned to operate in parallel through the
electrical grid rather in the islanding mode. Therefore, in terms
of the electrical grid managements assigned requirements
for the DERs that aimed to connect to the main electrical
network must install islanding protection on its intertie to the
electrical network. Energize segment(s) from the electrical
grids by DERs are not allowed in case of isolation from the
main electrical grid. As a result, anti-islanding gained high
attention from both industry [7] and academia, and several
anti-Islanding detection techniques have been proposed.
These proposed anti-islanding techniques can be divided
into two categories local technique and remote technique.
Local technique can be divided into active technique and
passive technique. All these above mentioned techniques have
several advantages and disadvantages that might limit their
implementations [8].
Within the local technique category, and firstly the active
techniques, the main idea is to inject a small disturbances
to the electrical network, real time monitoring to the DERs
outputs need to be considered. These small disturbances are
expected to make significant changes within the outputs of
the DERs in islanding case. Whereas, the DERs outputs
changes are almost inconsiderable in connection within the
main electrical grid cases. The main advantage of the active
technique is the ability to detect the islanding case upon
the perfect matching between the load demands and the
DERs output power. However, several disadvantages are
associated with the active technique implementation, such
as, introducing disturbances within the electrical grid might
lead to effect on overall energy system quality. Further, in
case of more than one DER within the islanded segment,
16 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
interference between the introduced disturbances and DERs
output signals may affect the implementation of the active
techniques. In addition, the long implementation time upon
creating the external disturbances and monitor the DER
output parameters might reduce its effectiveness. Several
advanced islanding detection techniques within the active
techniques have been used to detect the loss of main situation
(e.g., reactive power error detection, impedance measurements
technique, phase shift or frequency technique and hybrid
techniques that monitor hybrid parameters). However, most
of the active techniques share the same characteristics, higher
cost, complexity, introduces disturbances to the electrical
network, long time to implements etc. that might limits its
implementation and rarely been used within the electrical
network [9].
The other techniques within local category is the passive
techniques, which overcome most of the active limitation for
instance easy to use, no need to introduce disturbances to
the electrical network, less cost etc. Several passive islanding
detection techniques have been proposed, for instance rate of
change of frequency (ROCOF) [10], over/under voltage [11],
[12], phase displacement [13], change of the DERs power
outputs [14], and hybrid solution [15]. All the proposed
passive techniques share the same concept that monitoring
and measuring the outputs of the DERs parameters through
the interface points to the main electrical grids. However,
indiscriminate between the normal electrical grid transient
events such as (DERs out from supplying power, instantaneous
loads changes, faults in some electrical grids unites that leads
to out from operation etc.) and the actual islanding scenarios
may cause a nuisance tripping that reduces the reliability
and availability of the electric grids. Moreover, uncertainties
in islanding detection upon the measuring outputs of the
DERs parameters for instance (ROCOF), when the local loads
are perfectly matches with the local DERs generated power
(dead zone). Therefore, and form the above discussion these
islanding detection techniques might not function as intended,
and reduces the reliability and availability of the electrical
grids upon false tripping or increase the hazard to the electrical
grids Utilities persons [16]–[18].
With these motivations, in order to increase the reliability
and availability of the electrical grids, reduces the hazard to
the electrical grids Utilities persons and improve the remote
techniques, since the existing transfer-tripping and power line
carrier signaling (PLC) lack of co-ordination between the DER
units and the main electrical grids. According to the existing
remote techniques, there are no specific real communication
standards and protocols for electrical systems that have the
ability to provide to their customers for monitoring, controlling
and protection the DERs devices. As a result, a developed
islanding detection algorithm upon the the standardized com-
munication solution brought by IEC 61850-7-420 DERs LNs
and IEC 61850 communication system has been developed.
This developed algorithm has the ability to monitor all the
electrical connection points (ECPs) and DERs status within
the electrical grid, and share the information, take the right
decisions to handle the electrical grid operation in efficient
way. Since the IEC 61850-7-420 offers a set of extended LNs
that support several DER units, more details within the rest of
this paper [19].
II. DER S S TANDARDIZATIONS B ROUGH BY IEC
61850-7-420
Utilities and DERs manufacturers announce the concept of
growing need to define and standardize the communication
outside the individual SAS that may include various DERs
IEDs. As a result, the standard IEC 61850-7-420 was
published in 2009 as an extension of the IEC 61850
standard and to address these issues. The IEC 61850-7-420
specify various types of LNs and information modeling
that applicable for the various DERs e.g. fuel cell systems,
photo-voltaic (PV), combined heat and power (CHP), etc [19].
The predefined information modeling, LNs facilitates the
communication and the integration of the DERs into the
Utilities protection and automation systems. Utilities and DER
manufacturers are expected to achieve benefits from utilizing
the IEC 61850-7-420 in terms of reducing the installation,
maintenance costs. Further, offering standardization of all
DERs data models that will improve the interoperability
among distributed automation system (DAS) and DERs and
increase the reliability of the energy grid [20].
IEC 91850-7-420 standard address the information
modelling for various DERs, LNs whereas, other IEC 61850
implementation aspects such as the services modeling,
assigned system configuration language (SCL) and the
mapping schemes over the defined protocols had been
covered within the previous IEC 61850 10 parts first
version. These DERs information modeling LNs defined
by IEC 61850-7-420 standard involve not only for the
local communication among the local DERs and the local
management service systems, however, they may support
the sharing information with the main grids operators or
aggregators who manage the whole electrical grid operation.
The defined DERs LNs based on IEC 61850-7-420 have been
grouped into four groups upon their operation characteristic
(node classes and common data classes (CDC)). These DERs
LNs groups are logical nodes for DER management systems,
logical nodes for DER generation systems, logical nodes
for specific types of DER and logical nodes for auxiliary
systems. These predefined DERs LNs represents all the DERs
operation aspects parameters such as for instance, connecting
status, availability status, economic dispatch parameters,
start/stop time, operating mode etc. however, according to
the islanding detection case study within this paper, two
DER LNs have been considered the DPST and the DRCS
LNs. The DPST provides the real-time ECPs status and
measurements,(the ECPs are usually associated with each
DER, load, lines Buses etc. that need to connect to the local
power system, group of DERs that need to interconnect to
the Utility energy system i.e.). Where, the DRCS LN defined
the control status of individual DER or group of the same
type of the DERs that controlled within individual controller.
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 17

Monitor all the (ECPConn)

III. I SLANDING D ETECTION S CHEME AND C ASE S TUDY DPST LNs for the all ECPs

Performance evaluation of any developed function it may

Monitor all (ModOnConn) DRCS LNs for
require within the first step to define the test scenario that the DERs and Main supply status

supposed to be representing aspects almost related to realty

operation conditions. According to the developed islanding
detection scheme two main operation aspects need to be moni- No Is any of the (ECPConn)
DPST LNs is False
tored, that the status of the all ECPs and the status of the DERs
within the electrical grid. This task can be achieved through
monitoring the DERs LNs that specified by the IEC 61850-7- Yes
Update electrical grid
420 standard for instance the common data object (ECPConn) topology

for the DPSTs LNs take the values True or False that represent
the status of the electrical grids units whether they are elec-
trically connected at the ECPs or not. Whereas, the common No
Is the LNs of the main
(ECPConn) DPST is False or the
data object (ModOnConn) and (ModOffAval) for the DRCSs (ModOffAval) DRCS is True

LNs both take the value True that represents the status of the
Yes
DERs when they are ON and connected electrically within the Is any of the DERs LNs
(ECPConn) DPST are True but not
No Yes
grid or when they are OFF but available to start respectively. connected to the main and the Set the alarm condition
(ModOnConn) DRCS LNs
Where, all the available real time information that provided by are True

the IEC 61850-7-420 DERs LNs standard are gathered through Send signals to The active DERs to
change the values of the
the electrical grid communication network based on the IEC (ModOffConn) DRCSs LNs to True

61850 general object oriented substation events (GOOSE)

messages within the DMMS. In the DMMS, the available Send Trip signals to change the
values of all active DERs
gathered information can be used to detect and prevent the (ECPConn) DPSTS LNs to False

islanding scenarios. As a result, islanding detection algorithm

upon the gathered information from the various microgrid
nodes has been proposed. The proposed islanding detection
algorithm facilitates the updating of the microgrid structure
and the indiscriminating between the normal electrical grid
transient events and the actual islanding scenarios that increase
the reliability and availability of the electric grids as illustrated
in Fig. 1 [22].
First of all in order to better understand the new islanding
detection algorithm, lets firs considered a prototype electrical
microgrid within various circumstances as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 1: Flow chart for the proposed islanding detection algorithm.
measurements lead to false tripping, in which that reduces
the reliability and availability of the electrical power systems.
In addition, the proposed approach reduces the hazard for the
electrical systems persons, since no DERs or energy storages
still continue to supply segment(s) of the electrical micro
grids after the loss of main supply.

The prototype designed electrical microgrid consist of

a medium voltage main supply, transformer, four buses,
three various types of DERs, various types of loads, energy
storage, circuit breakers, lines, communication network based
on IEC 61850 standard and DMMS. Within the DMMS,
information is gathered from all the electrical microgrid units
through the communication network upon the IEC 61850
standard. It is worth noticing here that the new islanding
detection approach possess a flexibility through its operation,
since it is monitoring all the electrical microgrid units and
update its internal operation that related to the dynamic
behavior of the electrical microgrid and takes the decisions
upon the final electrical microgrids topologies. As a result,
the new islanding detection approach overcome the lack of
the existing remote technique (inter-tripping) that it can be
implemented regardless to the electrical network topologies
“plug and play” scheme. Furthermore, the developed islanding
detection approach has overcome the lack of the existing
local (active, passive) detection techniques, since, upon its Fig. 2: Prototyped microgrid designed concept.
implementation, measurements for any electrical parameters
such as frequency, active and reactive power etc., are not Considering the normal operation of the proposed prototype
needed. Where, uncertainties in these electrical parameters electrical microgrid is usually the circuit breaker CB7 is open.
18 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
In case that the CB8 is opened upon failed or maintenance
cases, the DMMS detect the new electrical grid topology
and attempts to closed CB7 to stabilized the electrical grid
operation and update its internal operation that related to
the new toplogy. In case that the CB7 out of operation
in any reason. As a result, islanding scenario has been
occurred; since segment from the electrical grid (Bus 4)
is not connected to the main and has it’s on local energy
suppliers as in this case DER3, Energy storage 1. The second
islanding scenario can be occurred when the CB3 and CB7
are opened, causing that unplanned new electrical microgird
topology, segment form the electrical microgrid (Bus 2) is
islanded upon the local DER1. The third islanding scenario
can be occurred when the CB4 and CB8 are opened, causing
that segment form the electrical grid (Bus 3) is islanded upon
the local DER2. The forth islanding scenario can be occurred
when the CB4 and CB7 are opened, causing that segments
form the electrical grid (Bus 3, Bus 4) are islanded upon the
local DER2, DER3 and energy storage 1. The fifth islanding
scenario can be occurred when the CB3 and CB8 are opened,
causing that segments form the electrical grid (Bus 2, Bus 4)
are islanded upon the local DER1, DER3 and energy storage
1. Lastly, islanding scenario can be occurred when the CB3
and CB4 or CB2 are opened, causing that segments form the
electrical grid (Bus 2, Bus 3 and Bus 4 for the first case and
all Buss within the second case respectively) are islanded
upon the local DER1, DER2, DER3 and energy storage 1.
All the announced expected islanding scenarios can be easily
detected within the new islanding detection techniques and
prevented, since the DMMS attempts to real time monitoring
all the ECPs and DERs status through the DERs LNs upon
the IEC 61850-7-420 standard and within the high speed
electrical grid communication network based on the IEC
61850 standard. However, in order to increase the reliability
of the electrical microgrid and reduces hazard the existing
islanding detection techniques should be used as backup for
the new islanding proposed approach in case of failures of
the communication network.
IV. DATA O BJECT M ODELING WITH IEC 61850-7-420
S TANDARD
In this section virtualization for the proposed prototyped
microgrid system units through data object modeling using
the LNs that predefined by the IEC 61850-7-420 international
standard has been made. Communication among the various
microgrid system units LNs and DMMS through the IEC
61850 communication protocol general object oriented
substation events (GOOSE) using a communication system
network. Communication system network is the essential for
the realization of the proposed islanding detection algorithm
scheme. Matlab/Simulink simulation software has been used
through the microgrid system units LNs, DMMS modeling
and commissioning the entire microgrid system.
In order to achieve a proper implementation of the proposed
islanding detection method and facilitate the communication
among the microgrid system units, DERs and microgrid
instruments need to be modeled in compliance with the
IEC 61850-7-420. In addition these models need to be also
equipped with full communication module which will receive
the final islanding detection decision from the DMMS and
publish their parameters such as the DERs status, ECP
status to the DMMS and microgrid instrument subscribers
upon the control and protection functions implementations.
Fig. 3 illustrates the modeled DRCS and DPST LNs that
represent the generic DERs and the electrical connection
points respectively within the microgrid simulation.
From Fig. 3 the DRCS and DPST LNs consist of several
data object parameters which are listed as “Mandatory” or
“Optinal”. According to the DRCS LN modeling through
the proposed islanding detection algorithm three of the
mandatory DRCS LN data object parameters are used to
represent the various DERs controller status. These data
object parameters are DRCS.ECPConn, DRCS.ModOnConn
and DRCS.ModOffAval. The DRCS.ECPConn indicates that
the DERs are electrically connected to the ECP when this data
parameter is set to “True”. Where, the DRCS.ModOnConn
indicates whether the DER is in operation mode “ON” and
electrically connected when this data parameter is set to
“True”. Lastly, the DRCS.ModOffAval indicates whether
the DER is “OFF” mode and available to start. Whereas,
the DPST LN through the DPST.ECPConn data object
parameter that indicates the connection of the microgrid units
at ECP when this data parameter is set to “True”. Control
status of various microgrid DERs data objects LN can be
extracted from the above mentioned three DRCS data object
parameters. The extracted DERs control status including with
the DPST ECP data object parameter are need to be gathered
by the DMMS through the communication system network
for proper implementation of the proposed islanding detection
function.
Within the DMMS modeled block final islanding detection
decision making functions are designed upon the gathered
information from various microgrid nodes. Where, two
islanding detection decision making functions are designed
that represent two different scenarios. The first islanding
detection decision making function (scenario one_Function1)
is monitoring the main supply status and the ECP to the
electrical grid that will be simulated and explained in depth
within the next section. Whereas, the second islanding
detection decision making function (scenario two_Function2)
is monitoring the entire microgrid ECPs (various islanding
cases are explained in section III) and the DERs status in
order to define and prevent the islanding scenarios both
functions are illustrated in Fig. 4. Various simulation cases
are presented in previous work [23]. It is worth noticing here
that scenario two will not simulate since the idea for islanding
detection is all most the same as in scenario one, where the
only differences are the inputs for the islanding detection
decision making function as illustrated Fig. 4 Function 2.
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 19

requires a validation [23]. In this section the design principles

ECPConn and practical implementation of the islanding detection and
ECPConn preventing algorithm based on IEC 61850-7-420 approach
DPST_block
has been carried out within a simple microgrid that consist of
one incoming feeder (The main power supply) and one out
ECPConn going feeder the include DER for simplicity as illustrated in
ECPConn Fig. 5. However, the same idea can be implemented for big
microgrids. In Fig. 5 the single line diagram (SLD) for the
AutoMen
proposed microgrid within the ABB substation automation
Terminator
builder 600 (SAB600) that the substation structure has been
Loc carried out. Where, the DMMS is used to make and publish
Terminator
the islanding detection decision upon the designed islanding
detection functions. A specifically designated testing is
ModOnConn
applied within scenario one that external signal virtual input
ModOnConn (VI_2) is generated to change the ECP status of the CB1
ModOnAval DPST_CB1.ECPConn data object parameter from True to
Terminator False for the incoming feeder within the DMMS function one.
ModOffAval

ModOffAval

ModOffUnav

Terminator

DRCS_block
Fig. 3: DPST and DRCS LNs blocks.

In_1

In_2
OR

In_3
Fig. 5: SLD within the SAB600 substation structure.

Whereas, the external signals (DI_1, DI_2 and VI_1) are

In_4
Function 1
The entire microgrid ECPs
ststus upon DSPT
AND
The entire microgrid DERs
ststus upon DRCS
Function 2
Fig. 4: Islanding detection decision making functions within DMMS.
V. P RACTICAL I SLANDING D ETECTION AND P REVENTING
I MPLEMENTATION F UNCTION AND VARIABLES L INKING
Substantiate the implementation and operation of the
designed functions and modeled LNs blocks through the
proposed protection scheme are required either within an
experimental testing or a simulation. Simulation is very
attractive since it is cost-effective solution; however it may
used to represent the Utility main power status upon the
LNs parameters DRCS.ECPConn, DRCS.ModOnConn and
DRCS.ModOffAval since there is no commercial IEDs to
provide these parameters based on the IEC 61850-7420 stan-
dard. Changing the ECP status of the CB1 through the
DPST_CB1.ECPConn LN data object parameter to “False”
indicates that the main power supply is not any more elec-
trically connected to the main grid and supplies power, al-
though segment(s) from the electrical grid are still energized
by the DER(s) (islanding scenario). This changing status
of the DPST_CB1.ECPConn LN data object parameter is
monitored through the DMMS islanding detection decision
making function1 Fig. 4. As a result DMMS publish a trip
signal to all the DERs whether to trip out from the electrical
grid or turned off or both to prevent the islanding scenarios.
According to the DMMS COM600 configuration and within
the communication structure Logic_Processer_OPC_Server,
Logic_Processor_Subnetwork and Logic_Processor_IED need
to be added as illustrated in Fig. 6.
From the Logic_Processor_IED and within the
Logic_Editor window for the DMMS Function 1 need
to be configured upon adding the required function block and
20 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

the microgrid within the ABB com600 gateway devise as

illustrated in Fig. 9. However, there is still some issues upon
the final configuration between the COM600 and different
manufacturers IEDS need to be solved.

Fig. 6: COM600 communication tree.

Fig. 8: Cross reference tool to link variables.

Fig. 7: DMMS function 1 configuration within the Logic Editor.

defined the input and output logic variables as illustrate in

Fig. 7. Those logic variables need to be linked to COM600
data objects within the Logic_Process_IED through the cross
reference tool as illustrated in Fig. 8. In addition the logic
variables can be linked directly to COM600 data objects as
before or they can be available as IEC 61850 data object
within the Logic_Processor _IED through the created virtual
LN for any other SAS implementations. From Fig. 8 the four
input variables for the DMMS function have been linked with
the LNs data objects within IED V52r which are digital input
(DI1 and DI2) Virtual input (VI1 and VI2). Where these LN
data objects simulate the IEC 61850-7-420 LNs (DPST and
DRCS) data objects. Where VI2 represent the signal based
on the main power supply circuit breaker positions whether
it is closed or open. If it is closed it send True signal (the
main power supply connected to the grid) and based on the
DMMS islanding function it inverts the input In_4. Therefore
there is no trip signal roaming to the DER circuit breaker.
Whereas, if the mean CB open it send False signal (the
main power supply not connected to the grid) and based
on the DMMS islanding function it inverts the input In_4.
Therefore, the DMMS function initiate a trip signal to the
DER CB to open. This trip signal that has been initiated
from the DMMS function need to be linked with the IED LN
data object such as in our case VI2 within the IED V52 as
illustrated in Fig. 8. Then the VI2 roaming signal has been
used in IED V52 to open the CB for the DER (trip out from
the grid). Upon the above mentioned process that the DMMS
gathered the information from the various LNs and executing
the islanding designed internal function and roaming the
trip signal that preventing the islanding scenarios within
Fig. 9: COM600 units’ connection status.
VI. C ONCLUSION
This paper has presented the design principles and practical
implementation of the islanding detection and preventing algo-
rithm approach that involves the IEC 61850-7-420 LNs (DPST
and DRCS) within monitoring the electrical microgrid units
status tasks. The DMMS with the internal islanding detection
function is used to gather the available information from the
microgrid units, to detect and prevent the islanding scenarios.
Thanks to the IEC 61850 standard that offers a high speed
communication system network for the various manufacturers’
electrical units. As a result, the islanding detection and pre-
venting practical implementation has been carried out in which
that overcomes the lack of the existing islanding detection
techniques remote and local techniques, for instance, upon
the local techniques it has overcomes the lack of the existing
(active, passive) local detection techniques. Since, upon its
implementation, measurements for any electrical parameters
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 21

such as frequency, active and reactive power etc., are not
needed, where, uncertainties in these electrical parameters
measurements lead to false tripping, in which that reduces
the reliability and availability of the electrical power systems.
In addition, it reduces the hazard for the electrical systems
persons, since no DERs or energy storages are still continue
to supply segments of the electrical grids after the loss of
main supply. The designed DMMS and data objects modeling
for the predefined LNs within the IEC 61850-7-420 and their
implementations through a specifically designated testing is
applied within the commercial instruments. The obtaining
results show that the correctness for the design of the islanding
protection function through the DMMS approach and the data
modeling of various IEC 61850-7-420 predefined data object
LNs. In addition, they show the successful implementations
of the designed islanding protection function and the mod-
eled microgrid units LNs upon the reliable detection of the
islanding scenarios.
[17] Xu, W., & Mauch, K., “An Assessement of Distbuted Generation
Islanding Detection Method and Issues for Canada”, CETC-Varennes
2004.
[18] Vivek, M., & Hashem, M., “A Hybrid Islanding Detection Technique
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[19] IEC 61850-7-420, “Communication Networks and Systems for Power
Utility Automation for Distributed Energy Resources (DER)”, 2009.
[20] T. Selim, C. Ozansoy, and A. Zayegh,"Simulation of Communication
Infrastructure of a Centralized Microgrid Protection System Based on
IEC 61850-7-420", IEEE Smart Grid Standard Symposium, vol. 27, No.
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[22] M. Mekkanen and E. Antila, “Islanding Detection Algorithm Using
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[9] Dysko, A., Burt, G., & Bugdal, R., “Novel Protection Methods for
Active Distribution Networks with High Penetrations of Distributed
Generation”, University of Strathclyde report 2006.
[10] X. Ding, P. A. Crossley & D. J. Morrow, “Islanding Detection for
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[11] C. Hsieh, J. Lin and S. Huang, “Enhancement of islanding-detection of
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22 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Feedforward and Feedback Control of Smart
Material Actuators
Mohamed Edardar1
Abstract—Smart materials are used widely in many appli-
cations in nano-positing industry. The objective of this paper
is to compare different control schemes of these materials in
order to have perfect positioning. Although they have nice
features, the smart materials exhibit high nonlinearity, which
requires careful control strategies. The plant is represented as
a linear system preceded by a nonlinear operator. We discuss
both feedforward and feedback control methods used to improve
system tracking. The feedforward scheme relies on using an
approximate operator as a feedforward compensator. The design
and analysis of three different feedback methods is presented
including the conventional Propertional-integral, sliding-mode,
and adaptive control. A comparison of the performance for these
methods is given in the simulation section.
I. I NTRODUCTION
CTUATORS which used in nanopositioning nowadays
A are made of smart materials such as piezoelectrics [1],
magnetostrictives [2], and shape memory alloys [3]. These
actuators have many desirable features such as high resolution,
high stiffness, and fast frequency response [4]. However, they
exhibit some nonlinear phenomena such as hysteresis, creep,
and resonance harmonics which badly affect the positioning
or tracking process [5]. In this paper, we will discuss the
hysteresis and how to compensate for it. Some research is
dedicated for the other drawbacks. However, they do not have
major effects as the hysteresis and we will not consider them
in this paper.
Hysteresis is a complex nonlinearity which can be found in
many applications such as nanopositioning. This phenomenon
is seen in some materials by applying a quasi-static voltage
on it. By increasing the applied input, then deceasing it we
see a loop which is known by hysteresis loop. If this loop is
formed by applying the full range, it is called the major loop.
By branching from any point on the major loop we obtain
smaller side-loops known as minor-loops. One important
characteristic about hysteresis that when the input decreases
to zero the output may display some reading. This property of
storing energy describes the hysteresis as a memory element.
All of these characteristics of the hysteresis make the task
of controlling it hard. The obvious first task is to model
the hysteresis. Some researches tried to describe hysteresis
by differential equations but their models failed to capture
all the hysteresis properties. Instead, different mathematical
operators are used to describe them.
Control methods are suggested to improve the positioning
by eliminating the nonlinear behavior of these actuators.
1 Mohamed Mohamed Edardar is with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, University of Tripoli, Libya, E-mail: edardarm@gmail.com (M. E.).
Fig. 1: A general control system for nonlinear actuators.
Some of these methods are using the feedforward principle
by inverting the nonlinearity of the system. This usually
requires modeling the non-linearity in order to find the
inverse of the model and combine them to cancel it. Some
good results for this scheme are reported in the literature [6],
[7]. Those methods have all the disadvantages of open-loop
system such as model imperfection and deviations due to
environmental effects. Feedback control methods are used
with considering any nonlinearity as a disturbance and
assuming an upper-bound of the nonlinearity is known [8],
[9]. Alternatively, combining the two controls as shown in
Fig. 1. reported to give better results which is very important
in systems require perfect tracking as in nano-positioning
actuators [2]. Modeling of hysteresis and its inverse is the
most tough task. Fortunately, many models are available
with different accuracy and complexity. The most popular
ones are Preisach operator [10], [11], Prandtl–Ishlinskii (PI)
operator [12], [13].
Researchers also attempt different control methods to
improve the system tracking. Conventional PID controller
is examined with good results [14], [15]. More complicated
robust [16]–[22] and adaptive methods [23]–[26] are also
presented.
In this paper, we compare different feedback methods under
three main categories used in controlling systems comprising
hysteresis. Actually, these methods among others are explored
by researches and they are well-established in the literature.
However, the comparison among these methods still requires
a lot of work. For instance, a method succeeds to produce
a good performance may fail if we have a different input
trajectory. Sometimes, the tracking results presented by
authors are excellent when the operating frequency is low
for a certain method compared with others. But, it would not
outperform them if the frequency is increased. We start by
showing how to model the hysteresis by different operators
and how to compensate it by using feedforward compensation.
Then, we present different feedback control methods which is
integrated with the feed-forward compensation in all of them.
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
40
exp. data
Magnitude, dB
plant model
20
0
500
0
Phase, deg
−200
−400
500
Frequency, Hz
Fig. 2: Experimental results used to model the linear dynamics.
A proportional-integral (PI) control is a simple controller
which gives good results at low frequency. A feed-forward
branch is added to the PI controller to improve the tracking.
We also present another robust method used frequently in
nonlinear systems, which is known by Sliding-Mode-control
(SMC). Then a Model Reference-Adaptive-control (MRAC)
is chosen to compare an adaptive method with the former
robust method.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In
Section II, we presented the modelling of the Piezo-electric
actuator. This is followed by describing the feedforward
compensation in Section III. In Section IV, we provided
the design of three different feedback control approaches.
Simulation results of these methods are presented in
Section V. Finally, we sum-up by concluding remarks in
Section VI.
II. P IEZO - ELECTRICAL ACTUATOR M ODELING
It is common to model the Piezo-electrical actuator by
linear plant followed or preceded by hysteresis. The hysteresis
in this work is modeled by Prandtl–Ishlinskii (PI) operator
which is sub-class of Preisach operator. We will give a brief
introduction to both of them in this section.
A. Linear dynamics modeling
The linear dynamics of the system for our example are
identified as in Fig. 2. It is noted Fig. 2 that the plant has large
bandwidth and a second order system is a good approximation
of the system. We used MatLab code to find the best fit for
these data which can be written in the state form as
ẋ1 = x2
ẋ2 = −a1 x2 − a0 x1 + a0 (ud + d)
where x1 = y denotes the position and x2 denotes the velocity
of the positioner.. The parameters a0 and a1 are positive, and
their values are given in the simulation section.
23
5000
5000
Fig. 3: The relay operator with parameters α and β .
B. Nonlinear Operators
Models of hysteresis have evolved from two different
branches of physics: ferromagnetism [27] and plasticity theory
[28]. The roots of both branches go back to the end of th 19th
century [6]. The core of this theory is formed by the so-called
hysteresis operators which describe hysteretic transducers as
a mapping between function spaces. It is only in the 1970’s
when researchers started to couple the mathematical theory of
ordinary differential equation with hysteresis operators [29],
[30]. In the 1990s, engineers employed this theory on a
larger scale to develop modern strategies for the linearizion
of hysteretic nonlinearities with an inverse feedforward con-
troller [6].
The Preisach model [31]–[37] for electromagnetic hysteresis
dates from 1935 [38]. This model uses a superposition of
simple independent relay operators shown in Fig. 3. It has
been successful in the modeling of hysteresis observed in
ferromagnetic, magentostrictive, and piezoelectric materials.
However, in designing with these smart materials, one has to
determine the density function for the preisach operator by
using input-output behavior of the material at hand [39]. This
requires complex algorithms and computations to implement
it.
Recent papers also reference the so-called Prandtl-Ishlinskii
(PI) operator [6], [13], [24], [40] which belongs to an im-
portant subclass of the Preisach operator [12]. The main
advantages of this approach are reduced model complexity of
the PI-operator in comparison with the Preisach operator and
the fact that the compensator of an invertible Prandtl-Ishlinskiii
operator can be calculated analytically. This allows an efficient
implementation of the compensator for real time application.
C. Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) Operator
(1) The PI operator dates to 1944 [38], and was proposed as
a model for plasticity-elasticity. The foundation of this model
is using elementary hysteresis operators, which have simple
mathematical structures. One of the most familiar and most
important elementary hysteretic mapping between the input
24 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

Fig. 4: The play operator with threshold paramter r. Fig. 5: Illustration of a hysteresis loop with piecewise linear characteristics.

signal V and the output U is so called play or backlash

operator, which is shown in Fig. 4 and described by the
following equation. The output of a PI operator [13] can be
represented as
Γ[V ] = wT Hr [V, z0 ](t) (2)
where, Hr = [Hr0 Hr1 . . . Hr,n−1 ]T is the vector of individual
play operators, wT = [w0 w1 . . . wn−1 ] is the vector of weights
Fig. 6: A system with hysteresis preceded by an inverse operator.
for individual play operators, rT = [r0 r1 . . . rn−1 ] with 0 =
r0 < r1 < . . . < rn−1 < ∞ represents the set of thresholds for
the play operators, zT0 = [z00 z01 . . . z0,n−1 ] denotes the initial
Krasnoselskii-Porkovskii (KP) operator [41] among others.
condition of the PI operator, and n is the number of play
operators.
Fig. 6 illustrates the system with a feedforward inverse
The play operator is defined by
hysteresis compensator. We assume that the actual hysteresis
Hri [V, z0 ] = max{V − ri , min{V + ri , z0i }} (3) is represented by an operator Γ p , defined by a vector of play
thresholds and a vector of play weights w∗ . We further assume
where i = 0, 1, . . . , n. that a nominal model Γm for the hysteresis is identified for
To simplify the notation, we will not explicitly put the initial implementation of Γ−1 m , an approximate inverse to Γ p . It is
condition for operators Hri , Γm , etc. assumed that Γm shares the same set of play thresholds with
Γ p , but its weight vector w differs from that of Γ p , which
represents the source of model uncertainty. In particular, we
III. F EEDFORWARD C ONTROL write w∗ = w + ∆w , with ∆w denoting the weight perturbation.
The control ud is applied to the inverse model and d = ud − u
The control methods that deal with hysteresis are classi-
is the inversion error.
fied into open-loop inverse compensation or feedback control
The uncertainty in the weight vector is translated into
methods, which usually include the inverse operator. Inverse
uncertainties in the slope and intercept of each segment i of
open-loop methods [6], [7], [13] demonstrate that they can
the hysteresis loop, denoted as ∆mi and ∆γi , and i = 1, 2, · · · , l,
reduce the tracking error appreciably, but they are susceptible
where l is the number of segments. Let the input-output
to model uncertainties and environmental changes.
relationship for the operator be
We calculate a bound on the inversion error by representing
the hysteresis nonlinearity as piecewise linear characteristics; u = m jv + γ j (4)
in other words, all hysteresis loops (major loops and minor
loops) consist of linear segments, where each segment si has and the input-output relationship for the inverse-operator be
a slope mi and an intercept γi with the output axis, and 1
i = 1, 2, · · · , l, where l is the number of segments. See Fig. 5 v= ud + γinv, j (5)
mj
for illustration. The bound on the inversion error is calculated
using the slopes and intercepts of linear segments. Note that By inserting (5) into (4) we obtain
this method is not confined to the PI operator; indeed, it applies 1
to wide class of models used in the literature, including the u =m j ( ud + γinv, j ) + γ j
mj
piecewise linear model adopted in [7], the Prandtl-Ishlinskii
(PI) operator [6], [24], the modified PI operator [13], and the = ud + m j γinv, j + γ j (6)
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Fig. 7: Inversion error bounds using slop-intercept method.
Hence, for perfect inversion we require
m j γinv, j + γ j = 0
Fig. 7 illustrates how these uncertainties can be used to
determine an upper-bound on the inversion error. The term
u1 represents the output u when the inversion is perfect, and
its slope is one, while u2 represents the output in the presence
of uncertainties,
u1 (t) = ud (t) (8)
∆m j
u2 (t) = (1 + )ud (t) + ∆dc, j
mj
where ∆dc, j can be obtained from (7) by including the uncer-
tainties as
∆dc, j =∆m j γinv, j + ∆γ j
∆m j γ j − m j ∆γ j
= (10)
mj
The difference between u2 and u1 represents the size of the
uncertainty and is denoted by d(t):
d(t) =u2 (t) − u1 (t)
∆m j
=(1 + )ud (t) + ∆dc, j − ud (t)
mj
The upper bound for each segment is
|γmax ||∆m,max |
|∆dc,max | ≤ |∆γ,max | +
mmin
The upper bound for all segments is
25
Fig. 8: Hysteresis inverse in the feedback path.
IV. F EEDBACK C ONTROL
A general approach in coping with hysteresis is to
construct an inverse operator and integrate it with feedback
techniques. An example of the nonlinear actuators is the
piezo-actuated positioner which is used to demonstrate our
(7)
results in simulation section. These actuators are modeled as
an operators followed by linear dynamics. In this paper, The
PI operator is used for demonstrating the results because its
inverse can be calculated analytically.
The tracking error defined as
e = y − yr
where y = x1 is the measured position and yr is the reference
(9)
trajectory.
A. PI Controller
In this section we will briefly describe the components of the
closed-loop system as illustrated in Fig. 8. The linear dynamics
of the plant are represented by a singularly perturbed system.
The bandwidth of the dynamics ωn is assumed to be large and
of the order 1/ε, where ε is a small positive parameter. The
model of the linear plant is given by
(11) ε ż = Az + Bu, y = Cz (16)
where A is a Hurwitz matrix, B and C are matrices with
proper dimensions, and z is the state vector. We assume that
the feedback controller is a proportional-integral controller,
(12)
represented as
  ẋ = e = yr − y = yr −Cz, w = ki x + k p e (17)
 ∆mmax 
|d(t)| ≤ 
  |ud (t)| + |∆dc,max | (13)
mmin  where e is the tracking error and w is the output of the
where mmin is the smallest slope, |∆mmax | is the largest slope proportional-integral controller. A feedforward path with a
uncertainty, and |∆dc,max | is the largest intercept uncertainty gain g is used to compensate for the DC gain of the linear
among segments and can be obtained from (10) as dynamics. When g = 0, the scheme falls back into the general
scheme that combines hysteresis inversion (in the feedback
|∆mmax γmax | + |mmax ∆γmax | loop) and feedback control. The DC gain of the plant is
∆dc,max ≤ (14)
mmin h = −CA−1 B.
A bound on the inversion error can be obtained from (13) as The input to the inverse operator, ud , and its output, v, are
expressed as
|d| ≤ k1 + k0 |ud | (15)
|∆mmax | 1
where ≤ k0 and |∆dc,max | ≤ k1 . ud = gyr + ki x + k p e, v = (ud − γ) (18)
|mmin | m
26 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

Note that v in (18) is essentially the inversion process for The first and second derivatives of the tracking error e are
the piecewise linear hysteresis model, and it requires tracking
ė = ẏ − ẏr = x2 − ẏr (26)
which linear segment the hysteresis characteristic is on at each
time instant. Such an assumption is standard in hysteresis
inversion as the past history of v is available. We further ë = −a1 x2 − a0 x1 + a0 (ud + d) − ÿr (27)
note that (18) requires knowing the slope and intercept of the
current linear segment; when such knowledge is not precise, From (26) and (27), we obtain
we can represent it as follows. Let us denote the corresponding ṡ = ë + σ1 ė + σ2 e
slope of the plant hysteresis Γ p by m p and the intercept by γ p
= −a1 x2 − a0 x1 + a0 (ud + d) − ÿr
with parameter uncertainties ∆m and ∆γ , where m p = m + ∆m
and γ p = γ + ∆γ , which implies +σ1 (x2 − ẏr ) + σ2 (x1 − yr ) (28)

u = (m + ∆m )v + (γ + ∆γ ) (19) Now, we may write the control ud as the sum of an

equivalent component ueq and switching component us control
By substituting ud and v from (18) into (19), we express u as
ud = ueq + us (29)
m + ∆m m∆γ − γ∆m where,
u= [gyr + ki x + k p (yr −Cz)] + (20)
m m us = −β sgn (s) (30)
The singularly perturbed closed-loop system, obtained by
inserting u from (20) into (16), is given by 1
ueq (t) = ([a1 − σ1 ]x2 + [a0 − σ2 ]x1 + ÿr
a0
+σ1 ẏr + σ2 yr ) (31)
ẋ =yr −Cz
k p (m + ∆m ) Using (29), we can write the bound on d as
m + ∆m
ε ż =[A − BC]z + B (g + k p )yr  
m m |d(t)| ≤ k1 + k0 us (t) + ueq (t)
m + ∆m m∆γ − γ∆m  
+B ki x + B( ) (21) ≤ k1 + k0 |us (t)| + k0 ueq (t) (32)
m m
Define
The solution e(t) of (21) is derived in [42] and expressed as
φ (|ueq (t)|) = k1 + k0 |ueq (t)| (33)
e = e0 + εeε + εωeεω + O(ε 2 ) (22) which implies
where e0 , eε , and eεω are bounded uniformly in ε and ω. In |d(t)| ≤ φ (|ueq (t)|) + k0 |us (t)| (34)
other words, |e0 | < k1 , |eε | < k2 , and |eεω | < k3 , where k1 , k2 ,
and k3 are some positive constants independent of ε and ω. Substituting (31) and (29) in (28), we obtain
The contribution from the eε term can be ignored because it ṡ = a0 (d(t) + us (t)) (35)
is multiplied by a small number ε. The term eεω becomes
significant at high frequency when its coefficient εω is not For the stability analysis, we define a Lyapnov function V =
1 2
small. Then e0 (t) becomes 2 s . Then by taking the derivative of V , we obtain

ω2 V̇ = sṡ
e0 (t) = A0i ϕ + B0i Ac sin(ωt) + A12 ψ (23)
A20 + ω 2 = a0 s (d(t) + us (t))
It is noted that for a sufficiently high frequency (|A0 |  ω  ≤ a0 (|s(t)| |d(t)| + s(t)us (t))
2
1/ε), A2ω+ω 2 becomes constant and almost independent on (36)
0
frequency. Now we substitute the bound on d from (34) into (36)
V̇ ≤ a0 (|s| [φ (|ueq (t)|) + k0 |us |] + sus )
B. SMC Controller
≤ a0 (|s| [φ (|ueq (t)|) + k0 β ] − β |s|)
The second-order linear system defined in (1) will be used
= a0 (− [1 − k0 ] β + φ (|ueq |)) |s|
to explain the idea of design the system. The sliding surface
is formed as follows (37)
Therefore V̇ < 0 for
s = ė + σ1 e + σ2 z (24)
φ (|ueq (t)|)
where z is the integration of the error, which is added to reduce β> (38)
1 − k0
the DC component of the error due to the shift in the hysteresis
Following the discussions in Section III, we assume 0 < k0 <
loop when the tracking error signal enters the boundary layer. φ (|ueq (t)|)
σ1 and σ2 are positive constants. 1. By choosing β = 1−k 0
+ β0 for some small positive
constant β0 , we guarantee that any trajectory starting away
ż = e (25) from the surface s = 0 reaches it in finite time. Note that β
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Fig. 9: The MRAC control system preceded by the inverse operator.
depends on the equivalent control component ueq and hence
on the state and time variables.
With the signum function in the switching controller (30),
the error would asymptotically converge to zero. The signum
function, however, results in chattering in practice. Therefore,
we replace the signum function with the saturation function
given by
us = −β sat (s/µ)
where µ determines the size of the boundary layer.
To analyze the performance of the control with the switching
component (39), we examine the derivative of the Lyapunov
function V = 12 s2 outside the boundary layer.
Plugging (39) into the first inequality (37), we have
V̇ ≤ a0 (|s|[φ (|ueq (t)|) + k0 | − β sat(s/µ)|]
−β ssat(s/µ))
Then for |s| ≥ µ, we get
V̇ ≤ a0 (− [1 − k0 ] β + φ (|ueq |)) |s|
Thus, with the same β in (38) , |s| will decrease until it enters
the boundary layer |s| ≤ µ and never leaves it thereafter.
C. MRAC Controller
In the following part, we discuss the design of a Model
Reference Adaptive Control Scheme in the case of the
presence of plant linear dynamics. The design is based on the
assumption that inversion of the hysteresis model is affecting
the parameter of the linear part and make them uncertain. The
design of MRAC control will take care of these uncertainties.
The linear dynamics are expressed as
Z p (s)
G(s) = k p
R p (s)
The transfer function of the reference model is expressed in
the same form as
Zm (s)
Gm = km (43)
Rm (s)
The linear dynamics are identified as
a0
G(s) = 2
s + a1 s + a0
27
The reference model is chosen to be
200
Gm = (45)
s + 200
In MRAC, the desired behavior of the system is described by a
linear system with a transfer function Gm (s) and is driven by a
reference input r(s). The control law C(s, θc ) is then developed
so that the closed-loop plant has a transfer function equal to
Gm (s). Fig. 9 shows the structure of Model-Reference-Control
(MRC). The plant transfer function is G(s, θ p ), where θ p is a
vector of all the coefficients of G(s).
The controller is designed such that
yP ym (s)
= Gm (s) = (46)
r r(s)
This requires G(s) and Gm (s) to satisfy certain assumptions.
This transfer function matching of (46) guarantees that the
tracking error e1 = y p − ym converges to zero for any given
input signal r. If the plant parameter θ p∗ is known, then the
controller parameter θc∗ can be calculated as a function of
them and the controller C(s, θc ) is implemented. When these
parameters are unknown, they are replaced by their estimates
θ p and θc , leads to adaptive control scheme referred to as
(39) indirect or direct MRAC.
We can meet the control objective if we choose the con-
troller parameters such that the closed-loop poles are stable
and the closed-loop transfer functions Gc (s) = Gm (s).
The design of Lyapunov function for a system with rela-
tive degree n = 2 requires Gm (s) to be Strictly-positive-real
SPR. In [43], the system is modified by using the identity
(s + p0 )(s + p0 )− 1 for some p0  0. We can follow steps
(40) similar to Theorem 5.4.3 in [43] to show the boundedness
of the tracking error. The only difference that we added a
bounded disturbance d ∈ L∞ , and we show that the tracking
(41) error is bounded.
The MRAC scheme is summarized by the equations:
ud = θ T w = θ1T w1 + θ2T w2 + θ3 y p + θ4 r (47)
w˙1 = Fw1 + gud (48)
w˙2 = Fw2 + gy p (49)
where w1 0 = 0 and w2 0 = 0. The functions F and g are the
state realization of α(s)
Λ(s) .
Because the order of the plant is n = 2, we used α(s) = 1. In
addition, Λ(s) was chosen to be monic, Hurwitz with degree
n − 1 and it contains the zeros of the reference model as a
factor. Consequently, Λ(s) was chosen to be Λ(s) = s + 2.
(42)
The adaptive law, based on the gradient algorithm, is given
by
kp
θ̇ = −Γ.e.w.sgn( )
km
= −Γ.e.w (50)
where e = yp − ym and k p and km are the high frequency gains
of the plant and reference model respectively. Γ is a diagonal
(44) matrix representing the adaptation gain. Based on Theorem
28 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

80 10
Operator Input Non feedforward method
feedforward (Scheme 1)
Position ( µ m )
60 Operator Output

40
5

Error ( µ m)
20
0
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

0 −5
Inversion Error ( µ m)

−1

−2
−10
−3 0.4 0.42 0.44 0.46 0.48 0.5
Time ( s )
−4

−5
Fig. 11: PI simulation results of the tracking error with and without forward-
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 path compensation.
Time ( s )

Fig. 10: The output and inversion error of a perturbed PI operator. 60

Position (µ m)
position
40 reference
5.4.1 of [43], the above MRAC scheme has the following 20
property; all signals in the closed-loop plant are bounded, and 0
the tracking error e1 converges to zero asymptotically with
time for any reference input r ε L∞ . 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Error (µ m)

V. S IMULATION R ESULTS 0.5

The simulation is based on the parameters identified 0

experimentally for a commercial nanopositioner. The −0.5
hysteresis is modeled by PI operator with 5 play operators 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
with the threshold vector r = [0, 0.6364, 1.2727, 2.54, 4.45]T 4
x 10
and the vector of weights for the operator is 1
s(µ/s)

wT = [5.88, 1.58, 0.47, 0.98, 0.4]. The linear dynamics 0

are fitted with a second-order system with parameters
a1 = 1.7168 × 108 and a0 = 5743.
Simulation results are based on perturbing the model such
that they result in an error close to the one comes from
cascading the inverse-operator with the actual positioner
hysteresis. Each component on the weight vector is perturbed
by a maximum value of ∆w,max = 0.15. Fig. 10 shows the
error results from cascading the inverse-operator with the
perturbed hysteresis operator.
For PI controller, Fig. 11 depicts the tracking errors
for a reference of 50 Hz for the general feedback scheme
(without the feedforward term) and for the method when the
feedforward term is added, where perfect hysteresis inversion
is assumed. From these results we confirm that feedforward-
augmented feedback outperforms feedback alone.
To validate the proposed SMC method, non-sinusoidal
reference signals are generated using van der Pol oscillator
with traveling ranges of 20 µm to 50 µm. In our design we
have k0 = 0.1282 and k1 = 10.53 Fig. 12 depicts the output,
tracking error and s for a reference that has a “fundamental
frequency” of 15 Hz. From these results we notice that the
trajectories enter the boundary layer in a very short time
and the output tracks the reference after a few cycles. The
maximum tracking error for this signal is 1.47%. Fig. 13
shows that the tacking error is increased as the frequency
increases.
For MRAC control, The adaptation constants were chosen
−1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
Time ( s )
Fig. 12: The SMC simulation results on tracking non-sinusoidal reference:
position, tracking error and s trajectories.
1
γ = 0.5 for all parameters. The filters are s+200 . The model
reference is a first-order linear plant. This simplify the
tracking as the bandwidth of the plant is large and can
approximated by a first order system. The reference model is
b0
selected as Gm = s+b 0
, where b0 = 104 .
Fig. 14 shows the results of tracking a triangular reference
of 25 µm traveling range and 5 Hz. The tracking error will
be evaluated in terms of the maximum value of the absolute
error ( Max |e(t)|) at steady state. The system has a good
tracking with ( Max |e(t)| = 0.8µ m).
In Fig. 15, a comparison between the tracking of the system
when the inverse-operator is inserted and removed from the
closed-loop system. It shows an improvement when the input
is a pure sin-wave, where the tracking error is improved by
decreasing from 2.5µm to 0.6µm.
Finally, we made a comparison for three control methods
in Table I. The maximum value of the of the tracking error
(Max |e(t)|) is compared at 10–400 Hz frequencies. A refer-
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 29

50 Hz a) without inverse−operator

Tracking Error ( µ m)
5
0.5
Error ( µ m )

0
0

−0.5

−5
−1 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45
b) with inverse−operator

Tracking Error ( µ m)
15 Hz 1

0.2
0.1
0
Error ( µ m )

0
−0.1
−0.2 −1
0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
−0.3 Time ( s )
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 Fig. 15: MRAC simulation results: tracking errors for a sine- reference with
Time ( s ) and without inserting the inverse-operator.

Fig. 13: SMC simulations: Tracking errors for references with different
“fundamental frequencies”. has almost constant tracking error in the frequency band from
80–200 Hz. Yet, we cannot say SMC is the best method in
general because there are some other restrictions. For instance
30 SMC has chattering phenomena when it is run over 100 HZ
Reference in real setup. Moreover, high order derivative of the input is
Position

20 Output required in the design of SMC which can be obtained when

it is sinusoidal, but is hard to obtain that with arbitrary shape
10 signals or even with simple triangular waveforms. This is not
required with MRAC control.
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
TABLE I: S IMULATION R ESULTS P ROVIDING A C OMPARISON B ETWEEN
M AXIMUM T RACKING E RRORS FOR PI, H∞ , AND N EURAL SMC C ONTROL
Tracking Error

20
freq. PI MRAC SMC
Max |e(t)| Max |e(t)| Max |e(t)|
10 10 Hz 0.03 0.2 0.05
20 Hz 0.065 0.32 0.07
0 50 Hz 0.15 0.45 0.08
80 Hz 0.22 0.5 0.09
100 Hz 0.265 0.58 0.09
−10 200 Hz 0.4 0.8 0.085
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 400 Hz 0.7 0.9 0.08
Time ( s )

Fig. 14: MRAC simulation results: position, and tracking error.

ence sinusoidal signal of amplitude 50 µm is applied to the
system. We checked how this error scales with frequency. We
notice that below 10 Hz the PI-controller outperforms the other
controllers. This is expected because the PI-controller has a
very high gain at frequencies close to zero, which dominates
uncertainties. The MRAC has the larger tracking error at all
frequencies presented in Table I. It is also slower in response
as we see in Fig. 14. On the other hand, the Sliding-Mode
controller (SMC) outperforms the other two methods when the
frequency is more than 10 Hz. It is also notable that SMC also
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, Feedforward and feedback control methods are
compared when they are used for controlling smart materials.
These materials exhibit some nonlinear phenomenon such
as hysteresis. A PI operator, which is used to model the
hysteresis and its inverse is implemented in the forward path
to reduce the disturbance to the linear plant. The feedforward
method reduces the tracking error appreciably, but integrating
it with feedback methods improves the results as required in
many nano-positioning applications.
Each feedback method has its advantages and drawbacks.
The conventional Proportional-Integral PI control is the
30 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
simplest and gives good results at low frequency. For higher
frequency, we discussed the robust SMC control which
outperforms the PI controller. Yet, it is hard to design SMC,
particularly, for high order system. The MRAC Adaptive
method is also examined and shows moderate performance
results. Adding the inverse-operator is not improving the
results for it as in the robust methods.
Although, the SMC has the best tracking results, but there
are other things which is should be considered. For instance,
we cannot operate it with any arbitrary-shape waveform. It
also produces chattering when it is experimentally run at
high frequency. As an extension to this work, I suggest for
future to compare these methods under different experimental
setup. This makes all the miscellaneous factors available for
the designer to determine their best choice, depending on the
application and the working environment.
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ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
An Overview of Mobile Indoor Coverage: A Case
Study of a Local Mobile Operator
Maoloud Dabab1
Abstract—With the significant increase in large building de-
signs and rapid growth in indoor mobile traffic, indoor coverage
solutions have become the highest priority for many operators.
As a result, wireless vendors and research centers have raced
to innovate new practical solutions for indoor coverage. This
article discusses the importance of providing indoor coverage
for mobile operators, by focusing on Almadar Aljadid Company,
a leading mobile operator in Libya. Moreover, it summarizes
the factors that lead to poor coverage inside buildings and
provides examples to clarify this issue in non-technical terms.
Additionally, the article describes several solutions that Almadar
Aljadid has implemented, and presents Wi-Fi calling technology
as a potential solution that will enable the Company to enhance
indoor coverage.
Index Terms—Indoor Coverage, Mobile Indoor, DAS, Wi-Fi
Calling, Indoor solution, Poor Coverage, Almadar Aljadid.
I. I NTRODUCTION
OBILE operator companies must overcome numerous
M obstacles in order to provide satisfactory services.
According to several studies [1], [2], around 70-80% of all
mobile traffic is located inside buildings. As a result, the
most important issues that mobile operators need to focus
on relate to the lack of indoor coverage – inside offices,
high buildings, and floors located underground. Although it
is difficult to provide exhaustive indoor mobile coverage,
providing subscribers with the ability to make high quality
calls and to have reliable data connection everywhere inside
buildings can be regarded as complete coverage by the
subscribers [3]. Indeed, providing a satisfied indoor coverage
is an important factor for attracting and retaining subscribers.
Providing indoor coverage from outdoor sites can be in
some cases, but the outdoor sites must be installed near the
buildings with proper transmitting power in order to provide
indoor services [4]. Overpower, however, can lead to network
interference [2]. The necessity of providing multi-layer
cellular architectures is one of the strategies that is used to
enhance mobile network coverage and full mobility for the
traffic. In general network structures, there are three layers,
umbrella, macro and micro [5]. From this initial concept, the
indoor solutions have become increasingly popular.
According to Almadar Aljadid Company, a leading mobile
operator in Libya, the most common customer complaint is
poor coverage, specifically inside buildings . Thus, improving
1 Maoloud Y. Dabab is Radio Network Planning and Optimization
Engineer – Almadar Aljadid Company, E-mail: m.dabab@almadar.ly;
dabab@pdx.edu.
2 Resource: Almadar Aljadid Data Base with permission.
31
indoor coverage is the main challenge for Almadar Aljadid
and other mobile operators around the world, particularly due
to the increasing size of buildings, as significant developments
in new mobile technologies and mobile devices.
The objectives of this article are: (1) to highlight the
main reasons mobile operators care about improving indoor
coverage; (2) to explain the two fundamental concepts of
cellular system, which are network capacity and network
coverage; (3) to analyze the common causes of poor indoor
coverage and summarize the impact of smart phones,
frequencies and buildings; (4) to describe solutions for
enhancing indoor coverage used by Almadar Aljadid
Company; and (5) to present a simple comparison between
those solutions in terms of certain factors that operators
consider very important, including type of building, capacity
of the solution, difficulty of installation and cost.
II. W HY I NDOOR C OVERAGE IS N ECESSARY
Mobile operators have varying perspectives on the necessity
of providing indoor coverage. Their points of views can be
divided into two categories:
A. Customer Service
Customer service is considered one of the most important
areas in which many telecom companies compete to provide
good services that satisfy their customers. As such, it is
considered key to these companies’ success. The leading
companies have studied the requirements of the market and
have taken into account subscriber demands. Nowadays, the
most common customer complaint is poor indoor coverage.
Almadar Aljadid receives hundreds of complaints monthly
about low coverage and difficulty of connection2 some of
which are related to indoor environments. In response, Al-
madar Aljadid is focusing on providing indoor coverage to
satisfy customers.
B. Market Forecast
The number of mobile subscribers has boomed in the
last 10 years [9], so there is a positive relationship between
the number of subscribers and the amount of traffic. An
estimated 70-80% of the total traffic occurs inside buildings in
developing countries [1], [2]. For this reason, mobile operators
are competing to provide the best indoor environment services.
Fig. 1 projects the future growth of traffic in global mobile
32 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
data traffic by region [10]. Fig. 2 illustrates the particular
example of Almadar Aljadid’s western region network traffic
during the period in the past. Due to the unstable situation in
Libya nowadays, it cannot be relied upon Almadar Aljadid
Network to take live data because of the lack of the network
stability.
Fig. 1: The growth of traffic in global mobile data by regions from 2014 to
2019.
Fig. 2: Almadar Aljadid western region network traffic in quarters from 2009
to 20101 .
III. T HE I MPORTANT C ONCEPTS OF C ELLULAR S YSTEMS
To understand the ecosystem of mobile indoor coverage, one
must understand two key concepts: the capacity of the mobile
network, and the level and quality of the signal strength. These
factors are relevant when seeking a suitable indoor solution.
A. Network capacity
The general meaning of network capacity is the number
of subscribers and the amount of traffic that can be handled
by the network at the same time. It is challenging to calculate
mobile traffic exactly because it depends on many factors such
as the estimated number of subscribers who are connected to
1 Resource: Almadar Aljadid Data Base with permission.
the system at the same time, the period of each connection, and
the type of service that subscribers use. However, the traffic
and how many subscribers the network can handle can be
estimated using several techniques. One technique that is used
to calculate Erlang (E) per subscriber in a GSM network is
as follows [6]:
n×T
A= (1)
3600
A = Offered traffic from one or more users.
n = Number of calls per hour.
T = Average call in seconds.
E = Erlang = unit of measurement of traffic.
Using these techniques and the marketing target for
subscribers, planners who design mobile networks can
determine the network capacity. Then, the planners can define
the number of base stations (BS) and their capacity. Each
BS has a certain number of transceivers (TRX). A TRX
can handle between 75-300 subscribers [7]. However, this
calculation is not necessary for existing networks in which
the traffic can be calculated more easily and accurately.
For instance, for Almadar Aljadid the average amount
of traffic per subscriber is about 33mE 1 . However, the
network planners still face the problem of estimating the
number of subscribers to calculate the target network capacity.
Therefore, they always add a margin ratio to avoid congestion.
B. Network coverage
The area in which cellular services are offered for sub-
scribers is known as network coverage. Telecom companies’
top priority is to provide good services to their subscribers, and
the most important service is providing coverage in all places.
Due to the increasing demand for coverage inside buildings,
companies tend to build in various indoor coverage solutions.
In fact, while planners are designing the coverage network,
they calculate the required signal strength in places that should
be covered, taking into account many factors. The required
signal strength (SSreq ) is calculated as shown below [8]:
SSreq = M Ssen + RFmarg + IFmarg + BL (2)
M Ssen = Mobile Station Sensitivity.
RF marg = Rayleigh Margin.
IF marg = Interference Margin.
BL = Body Loss.
A big challenge for the planner is to provide contented
key performance indicators (KPIs), especially inside buildings.
Indoor solutions build on different factors, including amount
of traffic inside crowded buildings like airports and stadiums.
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016
Another factor is the strength of the indoor signal, where the
outdoor sites do not cover the inside of large buildings like
hospitals and hotels effectively [8].
IV. R EASONS FOR P OOR C OVERAGE I NSIDE B UILDINGS
To find a suitable solution for poor indoor coverage, the
network planners must understand what weakens coverage.
Among other factors, signal obstacles stand out as the main
cause. In this section, these factors can be separated into two
categories: the obstacle to the signal, which is buildings, and
characteristics of the signal, which are frequencies and smart
phones.
A. Buildings
Urban development has a significant impact on the quality
of coverage, in particular buildings’ structures. Heavy concrete
buildings that lead to a high ratio of reflection disrupt the
signal strength of mobile phones. Indoor path loss is clearly
affected by several factors and is a function of time and
location. The value of International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) path loss (L) for an indoor propagation model can be
estimated with this equation [8]:
L = 20LOG(f ) + N Log(d) + Lf (n) − 28dB
N = The distance power loss coefficient.
f = Frequency in MHz.
d = Distance in meters.
Lf (n) = The floor penetration loss factor.
n = Number of floors between the RX and TX.
The penetration loss factor (PLF) depends on the type of wall
and its thickness. Therefore, buildings with solid walls and
a greater number of floors may cause increased path loss.
Moreover, PLF is a function of frequency, high and t of the
building materials. Table I below shows specific examples
of PLF influence [10]. It clear that PLF is higher at thick
walls, which are made of reinforced concrete, than thin board
dividing walls with all frequencies.
TABLE I: P ENETRATION L OSS FACTOR FOR T WO D IFFERENT T YPES OF
WALL AS A F UNCTION OF F REQUENCY
Frequency Loss for thin walls Loss for thick walls
(GHz) (dB) (dB)
2 3.3 10.91
3.5 3.4 11.4
5 3.4 11.8
33
B. Frequencies
In addition to its impact on path loss, frequency has a direct
influence on coverage range. To understand why frequency
leads to poor coverage, the article discusses the concept of
wavelength, which is the distance between peaks of a radio
wave, and it is measured in meters. There is an inverse rela-
tionship between frequency and wavelength, which determines
by the following equation [2]:
Speed
W avelength(λ) = (4)
F requency
Whereas speed of light = 3 × 108 m/s (in space).
Therefore, the wavelength of f = 900M Hz is:
3 × 108 m/s
W avelength = = 0.33m (5)
900M Hz
On the other hand, the wavelength of f = 1800M Hz is:
3 × 108 m/s
W avelength = = 0.167m (6)
1800M Hz
The distance of the Global System of Mobile GSM
900 coverage is larger than that of GSM 1800. From this
example, it is obvious that when the frequency increases,
the wavelength decreases. Therefore, the range of coverage
(3) depends on frequency of the technology. The first frequency
band Almadar Aljadid Company used was 900MHz. They
have since increased the frequency to 1800MHz and may
increase it in the near future to 2.1GHz. The frequency has
been gradually climbing, resulting in a lower coverage range.
Additionally, it is obvious from Equation (3) that the path
loss rises slightly as frequency increases.
C. Smart phones
It is obvious from Fig. 3 that smart phone usage is climbing
rapidly [11], and planners must take this into account in their
calculations. The mobile station (MS) has a significant role
in determining signal strength, in which each type of MS has
different varying output power and sensitivity [8].
The new generations of phones have a small patch
antenna that has a negative affect on their mobile coverage
performance. Additionally, the greater number of applications
that are open, the more coverage is reduced [12]. Table II
below shows a simple comparison between two groups of
users in terms of the problems they face. The first group
is smart phone users and the second is other cell phone
users [13].
V. S OLUTIONS TO I MPROVE I NDOOR M OBILE C OVERAGE
It follows from the previous discussion that buildings have
been the most complex problem, and most variable factor
affecting indoor coverage. This is because all buildings are
different. Therefore, the solution will be unique for each
34 ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016

important to cover, some Almadar Aljadid sale centers, and

various rural farms are examples of locations covered by this
solution1 .

Fig. 3: The growth of smart phone shipment forecast worldwide from 2006
to 2020 with estimation of Compound Annual Growth Rate as 16% in the
future. Fig. 4: A simple diagram shows the main parts of an indoor RF repeater and
an outdoor RF repeater.
TABLE II: S MART P HONE OWNERS C ONFRONT C HALLENGING M OBILE
P ROBLEMS % IN EACH G ROUP WHO H AVE E NCOUNTERED M OBILE P HONE
P ROBLEMS AT L EAST W EEKLY
B. Small cells
Smartphone Other cell Micro cells, pico cells and femtocells are types of small
owners owners
cells, which have low output power and a limited range of
Dropped calls (among cell owners) 35%* 28% coverage, installed to cover small areas, especially the spots
Unwanted sales, marketing calls that cannot converged by macro cells to provide good indoor
(among cell owners) 26% 23% coverage, such as enclosed malls and playgrounds. However,
Spam, unwanted text (among own- the range of the small cells are limited in comparison to
ers) 29%* 20%
the macro cells, and they have a low capacity. Therefore,
Slow download speeds (among mo-
bile internet / email / app users) 49%* 31% they are used to enhance indoor coverage for areas with
* Denotes statistic a GYU lly significant difference limited space and low traffic capacity. Fig. 5 illustrates the
differences between macro cell and micro cells, pico cells and
femtocells [15]. Almadar Aljadid once had many locations
covered by micro cells, but they have decreased, having been
case, regardless of common factors, such as sensitivity of
replaced in many locations with macro cells. However, there
phones and frequencies that are used in networks. The indoor
are still places that have small cells, such as Zwara Airport
solutions, which have been used by Almadar Aljadid and will
and certain oil fields1 .
be used in the future, are:

A. Repeater
A Radio Frequency (RF) repeater can provide indoor cov-
erage for small buildings or enclosed areas. The RF repeater,
which consists of a receiver antenna, cable, signal processor
and transmitter antenna, amplifies the signal from the Base
Station (BS) to the Mobile Station (MS), and uses the capacity
of the BS. There are two types of RF repeaters, indoor and
outdoor, and the main difference between them is the location
of the transmitter antenna. In addition, there are many repeater
brands with different characteristics and coverage range, and
some of them have higher performance than others [14]. Fig. 5: Different kind of small cells compared with a macro cell.
Fig. 4 diagrams the basic indoor RF repeater and outdoor
RF repeater. This solution has been used in various locations
throughout Libya. For instance, Almadar Aljadid installed C. Distribution Antenna System
indoor and outdoor RF repeaters in the house of high-level
executives, small government buildings that cannot be cov- The most effective solution for in-building coverage to
ered by outdoor cells, and in private buildings that are very crowded buildings is a Distribution Antenna System (DAS),
which distributes RF through the building to supply all areas
1 Resource: Almadar Aljadid Data Base with permission. with good signal strength. The DAS has a network of cables,
ALMADAR JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 03, NO. 01, APRIL 2016 35

couplers, splitters and antennas as seen in Fig. 6. DAS can be
passive, using passive components without any amplification
of signal, or it can be active, using optical distribution with
a number of remote units, or hybrid, which is a combination
of passive and active, and may be used in some solutions.
The advantage of DAS is its ability to support many operators
in the same indoor network, as well as provide satisfactory
services to customers with high capacity traffic [16], [17].
Almadar Aljadid has constructed many DAS sites that cover
large buildings such as the Corinthia Hotel, the Tripoli Tower,
and the Tibesti Hotel. It is currently seeking to extend its
VI. C OMPARISON B ETWEEN S OLUTIONS
Operators consider technical solutions from several angles,
unlike subscribers who look only at the quality of service.
Table III displays a simple comparison between the indoor
solutions in terms of building types, the capacity of the
solution, the difficulty of installation, and the cost, which are
the most important for operators.
TABLE III: C OMPARISON B ETWEEN THE I NDOOR S OLUTIONS IN T ERMS
OF S IGNIFICANT FACTORS TO O PERATORS

Installation
capacity
building
Type of

Notes
indoor network and include other buildings requiring indoor

Cost
coverage in the near future1 .
Some types have

Repeater
bad effect on
Small N/A Easy Low network
performance

Small
Short range of

cell
Open plan Low Easy Medium
structure coverage

DAC
Very common in
Large High Hard High
large buildings

Calling
With

Wi-Fi
Internet High N/A N/A New technology
connection

Fig. 6: A simple diagram of distribution antenna system network inside

buildings from different angel.
D. Wi-Fi calling
Currently, Wi-Fi Internet connections are in use everywhere,
especially inside buildings. Mobile operators can take
advantage of this feature to enhance their mobile services.
The most recent solution to improving indoor environment
is Wi-Fi calling technology. This simple solution involves
making phone calls through Wi-Fi connections using voice
over IP when the mobile network is not available. However,
the main issue with this technology is that the quality of calls
depends completely on the condition of internet connection
services. In addition, this solution is only applicable to phones
that support Wi-Fi calling technology, which is problematic
for many subscribers who still use older generations of
phones [18]. For some mobile operator companies that use IP
networks as backhaul, Wi-Fi calling is a very good solution.
For instance, T-Mobile, an operator in the U.S., offers a
Wi-Fi calling service, and it provides voice calls and short
message services to its subscribers. T-Mobile hosts around 40
million Wi-Fi calls per month [19]. Indeed, Almadar Aljadid
network is not currently ready to provide this technology
because it requires voice over IP. Also, there are no high
speed internet connections in Libya. These limited resources
prevent Almadar Aljadid from taking advantage of the Wi-Fi
calling for indoor coverage, but as resources expand, the
company may be able to utilize this technology.
1 Resource: Almadar Aljadid Data Base with permission.
VII. C ONCLUSION
The need for indoor coverage emerges mainly inside high
buildings, large malls and basements where subscribers suffer
from poor coverage. This article discussed the concept of
mobile indoor coverage in terms of challenges and solutions
as well as the importance of providing it in the first place.
Like other mobile operators, Almadar Aljadid Company has
been using a variety of methods to solve this problem, and
it continues researching and exploring new technologies.
This an overview also serves as prelude to a series of more
specialized and advanced future studies on indoor coverage
and related topics.
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