Initial synchronisation of wideband and UWB direct sequence systems: single- and multiple-antenna aided solutions

This survey guides the reader through the open literature on the principle of initial synchronisation in single-antenna-assisted single- and multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) as well as Direct Sequence-Ultra WideBand (DS-UWB) systems, with special emphasis on the DownLink (DL). There is a paucity of up-to-date surveys and review articles on initial synchronization solutions for MIMO-aided and cooperative systems - even though there is a plethora of papers on both MIMOs and on cooperative systems, which assume perfect synchronization. Hence this paper aims to ?ll the related gap in the literature

Timing Acquisition Performance Metrics of Tc-DTR UWB Receivers over Frequency-Selective Fading Channels with Narrow-Band Interference: Performance Analysis and Optimization

International audienceThe successful deployment of Impulse Radio (IR) Ultra Wide Band (UWB) wireless communication systems requie that they coexist and contend with a variety of interfering signals co–located over the same transmission band. In fact, if on the one hand the large transmission bandwidth of IR–UWB signals allows them to resolve multipath components and exploit multipath diversity, on the other hand it yields some new coexistence challenges for both unlicensed commercial and military communication systems, which are required to be robust to unintentional and intentional jammers, respectively. In particular, the design and analysis of low–complexity receiver schemes with good synchronization capabilities and high robustness to Narrow–Band Interference (NBI) is acknowledged as an important issue in IR–UWB research. Motivated by this consideration, in [1] we have recently proposed a low–complexity receiver design, the so–called Chip–Time Differential Transmitted–Reference (Tc–DTR) scheme, and have shown that it is more robust to NBI than other non–coherent receiver schemes available in the literature. In this paper, we aim at generalizing the results in [1] and at developing the enabling analytical tools for the analysis and design of timing acquisition algorithms for non–coherent receivers over frequency–selective fading channels with NBI. Furthermore, we move from the proposed analytical framework to tackle the optimization problem of devising optimal signature codes to reduce the impact of NBI on the performance of the Tc–DTR synchronizer. Analytical frameworks and findings are substantiated via Monte Carlo simulations

Impulse radio ultra wideband over fiber techniques for broadband in-building network applications

In recent years, the demand for high bandwidth and mobility from the end users has been continuously growing. To satisfy this demand, broadband communication technologies that combined the benefit of both wired and wireless are considered as vital solutions. These hybrid optical wireless solutions enable multi-Gbit/s transmission as well as adequate flexibility in terms of mobility. Optical fiber is the ideal medium for such hybrid solution due its signal transparency and wide bandwidth. On the other hand, ultra wideband(UWB) radio over optical fiber technology is considered to be one of the key promising technologies for broadband communication and sensor network applications. The growing interest for UWB is mainly due to its numerous attractive features, such as low power spectral density, tolerance to multipath fading, low probability of interception, coexistence with other wireless services and capability of providing cost-effective > 1 Gb/s transmission. The main idea of UWB over fiber is to deliver UWB radio signals over optical channels, where the optical part serves as a backbone communication infrastructure to carry the UWB signal with a bandwidth of several GHz. This enables multiple novel applications such as: range extension of high speed wireless personal area networks (WPANs), low cost distributed antenna systems, secure and intelligent networks, or delivering broadband services to remote areas. In particular, this thesis deals with novel concepts on shaping and generation of IR-UWB pulses, theoretical and experimental demonstrations over different fiber types, routing of integrated wired/wireless IR-UWB services and effect of fiber types on ranging/localization of IR-UWB-over-fiber systems. Accordingly, this thesis investigates techniques for delivery of high data rate wireless services using impulse radio ultra wideband (IR-UWB) over fiber technology for both access and in-building network applications. To effectively utilize the emission mask imposed for UWB technologies by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC), novel pulse shaping techniques have been investigated and experimentally demonstrated. Comparison of the proposed pulses with conventional ones in terms of the compliance to the FCC-mask requirements, spectral power efficiencies and wireless coverage has been theoretically studied. Simple and efficient optical generation of the new pulse has been experimentally demonstrated. Furthermore, performance evaluation of 2 Gb/s transmission of IR-UWB over different types of fiber such as 25 km silica single-mode, 4.4 km silica multi-mode and 100 m plastic heavily-multi-mode fiber have been performed. To improve the functionalities of in-building networks for the delivery of wireless services; techniques that provide flexibility in terms of dynamic capacity allocation have been investigated. By employing wavelength conversion based on cross-gain modulation in optical semiconductor amplifiers(SOA), routing of three optical channels of IR-UWB over fiber system has been experimentally realized. To reduce the cost of the overall system and share the optical infrastructure, an integrated testbed for wired baseband data and wireless IR-UWB over 1 km SMF-28 fiber has been developed. Accordingly, 1.25 Gb/s wired baseband and 2 Gb/s wireless IR-UWB data have been successfully transmitted over the testbed. Furthermore, to improve the network flexibility, routing of both wired baseband and wireless signals has been demonstrated. Additionally, the ranging and localization capability of IR-UWB over fiber for in-door wireless picocells have been investigated. The effect of different fiber types (4 km SMF, 4.4 km GI-MMF and 100 m PF GI-POF) on the accuracy of the range estimation using time-of-arrival (ToA) ranging technique has been studied. A high accuracy in terms of cm level was achieved due to the combined effect of high bandwidth IR-UWB pulses, short reach fiber and low chromatic dispersion at 1300nm wavelength. Furthermore, ranging/ localization using IR-UWB over fiber system provides additional benefit of centralizing complex processing algorithms, simplifying radio access points, relaxing synchronization requirement, enabling energy-efficient and efficient traffic management networks. All the concepts, design and system experiments presented in this thesis underline the strong potential of IR-UWB for over optical fiber(silica and plastic) techniques for future smart, capacity and energy-efficient broadband in-building network applications

Filter Bank-based Transceiver Design for Ultrawideband

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Design and realisation of a microwave three-dimensional imaging system with application to breast-cancer detection

An active microwave-imaging system for non-invasive detection of breast cancer based on dedicated hardware is described. Thirty-two transceiving channels are used to measure the amplitude and phase of the scattered fields in the three-dimensional (3D) imaging domain using electronic scanning. The 3D inverse electromagnetic scattering problem is then solved in order to reconstruct the distribution of the complex permittivity in the imaging domain. The dedicated hardware is based on an array architecture allowing for a short acquisition time while maintaining a high sensitivity, which is important for measurement accuracy and reproducibility as well as for patient comfort. The dedicated hardware achieves a receiver noise figure of 2.3 dB at a gain of 97 dB. The operating frequency range is from 0.3 to 3 GHz. The image acquisition time at one frequency is approximately 50 s and an image is created within 2 h using the single-frequency reconstruction algorithm. The performance of the system is illustrated by an analysis of the standard deviations in amplitude and phase of a series of measurements as well as by a simple image reconstruction example