The growing diffusion of pervasive collaboration environments and technical advancement of sensing technologies have fostered the development of a new wave of online services whose functionalities are based on users’ physical position. Thanks to the widespread diffusion of mobile devices (e.g. cell phones), many services can be greatly enriched with data reporting where people are, how they are...

During the last decade several standards for Mobile telecommunications have been developed. The best known is without any doubt the Global Standard for Mobile Communications (GSM) which is operational in many countries, both within and outside Europe. It is now the most successful standard for mobile communications. Also the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) was successfully i...

Since their inception, mobile communications have become sophisticated and ubiquitous. However, as the popularity of mobile communications surged in the 1990s, Second Generation (2G) mobile cellular systems such as IS-95 and Global System for Mobile (GSM) were unable to meet the growing demand for more network capacity. At the same time, thanks to the Internet boom, users demanded better and fa...

1 Introduction This Report identifies the key adaptive antenna concepts and describes their technical aspects. The traditional approach to the analysis and design of wireless systems has generally been to address antenna systems separately from other key systems aspects, such as: Adaptive antenna technologies are best implemented with an overall system approach, where all the system components,...

Global Maritime Distress Safety System (GMDSS) is one of the best and most efficient systems for emergency. The systems have been developed to provide mariners global communications and locating network. This system includes land stations for all INMARSAT services to reporting at sea, and so far using this communication system, in marine emergency situations has helped rescue thousands of lives...

For cellular communication systems, mobility and limited radio coverage of a cell require calls to be handed over from one Base Station System (BSS) to another. Due to the limited band width available in various cells, there is a finite probability that an ongoing call, while being handed off, may get dropped. Minimizing the dropping of ongoing calls during hand off is an important design crite...