Reverberation time (RT) is an important indicator of room acoustics, however, most studies focus on the mid-high frequency RT, and less on the low-frequency RT. In this paper, a hybrid approach based on geometric and wave methods was proposed to build a more accurate and wide frequency-band room acoustic impulse response. This hybrid method utilized the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method modeling at low frequencies and the Odeon simulation at mid-high frequencies, which was investigated in a university classroom. The influence of the low-frequency RT on speech intelligibility was explored. For the low-frequency part, different impedance boundary conditions were employed and the effectiveness of the hybrid method has also been verified. From the results of objective acoustical parameters and subjective listening experiments, the smaller the low-frequency RT was, the higher the Chinese speech intelligibility score was. The syllables, consonants, vowels, and the syllable order also had significant effects on the intelligibility score.

The study presents the analysis of the effects occurring at the propagation of electromagnetic waves within an area containing non-ideal, non-homogenous and absorbing dielectric. The analysed models are connected with housing constructions and include single and double-layered walls made of clay hollow bricks. The influence of the size of holes, the contained clay mass percentage and conductivity of brick on the distribution of electric field is presented. Double-layered wall causes more heterogeneity in distribution of electric field and numerous maxima and minima to compare with singlelayered construction. The presented results refer to the electromagnetic field generated by a wireless communication system (Wi-Fi), operating within the standard frequencies (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz). A FDTD method was used to the analysis of electric field distribution. Also in this paper all formulations of difference method (FDTD) is presented. The possibilities of modifying the described method are indicated too. The obtained values of electric field intensity allow to determining the attenuation coefficient for different variants of the walls. Detailed analysis of influence of different types of building construction will make it possible to better understand the wave phenomena and counteract local fading at planning of wireless networks systems.

In this work the influence of the cavity parameters on optical losses of a simple intensity-based in-line refractive index sensor utilizing a micromachined side-hole fibre was studied by means of numerical simulations. To perform these simulations, the Authors used the finite-difference time-domain method. The proposed sensor setup consists of light source, micromachined optical fibre as a sensor head, and a detector which makes it low-cost and easy to build. The changes of the external refractive index can be, therefore, recovered by direct measurements of the transmitted intensity from which insertion loss values can be calculated. By changing geometry of the cavity micromachined into the side-hole optical fibre, it was possible to determine its influence on the final sensor sensitivity and measurements range. Based on the provided analysis of simulations results, a simple fibre optic sensor can be fabricated mainly for sensing external liquids refractive index for application in biochemistry or healthcare.

Fibre optic microlenses are small optical elements formed on the end-faces of optical fibres. Their dimensions range from a few tens to hundreds of micrometres. In the article, four optical fibre microlenses are modelled and analysed. Microlenses are used for light beam manipulation and quantitative metrics are needed to evaluate the results, for example, the size of focusing spot or intensity distribution. All four lenses tested are made of rods of the same refractive index; they were welded to a single-mode fibre. Two modelling methods were used to analyse the lenses: ray-tracing and finite-difference time-domain. The ray-tracing algorithm moves rays from one plane to another and refracts them on the surfaces. Finite-difference time-domain consists of calculating Maxwell’s equations by replacing spatial and temporal derivatives by quotients of finite differences. In this paper, the results of the microlenses analyses obtained from ray-tracing and finite-difference time-domain methods were compared. Both methods of analysis showed the presence of undesirable side lobes related to lens design, namely rods too long for lens fabrication. The test results were compared with the measurements made with the knife-edge method. The use of a single tool to determine parameters of an optical fibre lens does not allow for precise determination of its properties. It is necessary to use different tools and programs. This allows a complete analysis of the beam parameters, letting us find the causes of technical issues that limit the performance of the lenses.