Direct Yaw Moment Control (DYC) is an effective way to alter the behaviour of electric cars with independent drives. Controlling the torque applied to each wheel can improve the handling performance of a vehicle making it safer and faster on a race track. The state-of-the-art literature covers the comparison of various controllers (PID, LPV, LQR, SMC, etc.) using ISO manoeuvres. However, a more advanced comparison of the important characteristics of the controllers' performance is lacking, such as the robustness of the controllers under changes in the vehicle model, steering behaviour, use of the friction circle, and, ultimately, lap time on a track. In this study, we have compared the controllers according to some of the aforementioned parameters on a modelled race car. Interestingly, best lap times are not provided by perfect neutral or close-to-neutral behaviour of the vehicle, but rather by allowing certain deviations from the target yaw rate. In addition, a modified Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller showed that its performance is comparable to other more complex control techniques such as Model Predictive Control (MPC).

The evolution of the railway sector depends, to a great extent, on the deployment of advanced railway signalling systems. These signalling systems are based on communication architectures that must cope with complex electromagnetical environments. This paper is outlined in the context of developing the necessary tools to allow the quick deployment of these signalling systems by contributing to an easier analysis of their behaviour under the effect of electromagnetical interferences. Specifically, this paper presents the modelling of the Eurobalise-train communication flow in a general purpose simulation tool. It is critical to guarantee this communication link since any lack of communication may lead to a stop of the train and availability problems. In order to model precisely this communication link we used real measurements done in a laboratory equipped with elements defined in the suitable subsets. Through the simulation study carried out, we obtained performance indicators of the physical layer such as the received power, SNR and BER. The modelling presented in this paper is a required step to be able to provide quality of service indicators related to perturbed scenarios

A model for fully integrated CMOS linear power amplifiers (PAs) is presented. The model predicts the performance of the CMOS PA in terms of power-added efficiency (PAE) and output power (P-OUT) with respect to the main design parameters, such as supply voltage, current consumption, gain and inductor quality factors (Qs). In order to demonstrate the usefulness of the model, several studies showing the impact of these design parameters on the PA performance are presented. Finally, a 0.18 mu m fully integrated CMOS PA has been fabricated and compared with the model, showing good agreement. The fabricated PA presents 23 dBm of 1 dB compression point (P-1dB) and 27 dBm of saturated power (P-SAT) at 4.2 GHz with high maximum PAE of 32%.

Transmitting antenna in a Railway Spot Signalling System needs to be optimized in order to ensure data transfer reliability and minimize the required power. This paper analyses the improvement of the HF transmitting antenna taking into account the size of the receiving antenna, the presence of metallic objects and the misalignment between transmitting and receiving antennas. A novel HF transmitting antenna structure is proposed and verified to improve the read range.

Low-frequency (flicker) noise is one of the most important issues in the design of direct-conversion zero-IF front-ends. Within the front-end building blocks, the direct-conversion mixer is critical in terms of flicker noise, since it performs the signal down-conversion to baseband. This paper analyzes the main sources of low-frequency noise in Gilbert-cell-based direct-conversion mixers, and several issues for minimizing the flicker noise while keeping a good mixer performance in terms of gain, noise figure and power consumption are introduced in a quantitative manner. In order to verify these issues, a CMOS Gilbert-cell-based zero-IF mixer has been fabricated and measured. A flicker noise as low as 10.4 dB is achieved (NF at 10 kHz) with a power consumption of only 2 mA from a 2.7 V power supply. More than 14.6 dB conversion gain and noise figure lower than 9 dB (DSB) are obtained from DC to 2.5 GHz with an LO power of -10 dBm, which makes this mixer suitable for a multi-standard low-power zero-IF front-end. Copyright

This chapter provides guidelines on modelling the smart low¿cost near¿field wireless objects and on how to integrate their behavior in traditional network discrete event simulation (DES) tools. The ultimate aim is to provide an insight into the available tools in order to study their behavior and their impact on the access and core communication infrastructures of intelligent transportation system (ITS). The chapter details the two most common near¿field wireless technologies, including radio frequency identification (RFID) and near¿field communication (NFC). Currently two different approaches can be distinguished regarding the characterization of near¿field communications, namely theoretical calculations based on electrical models and electromagnetic simulators. As a result of the characterization, a transfer function of the near¿field communication is obtained. This transfer function can be employed in the DES framework as the model of the link level near¿field zone between the communication devices.