A VHDL-AMS Simulation Environment for an UWB Impulse Radio Transceiver

Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) communication based on the impulse radio paradigm is becoming increasingly popular. According to the IEEE 802.15 WPAN Low Rate Alternative PHY Task Group 4a, UWB will play a major role in localization applications, due to the high time resolution of UWB signals which allow accurate indirect measurements of distance between transceivers. Key for the successful implementation of UWB transceivers is the level of integration that will be reached, for which a simulation environment that helps take appropriate design decisions is crucial. Owing to this motivation, in this paper we propose a multiresolution UWB simulation environment based on the VHDL-AMS hardware description language, along with a proper methodology which helps tackle the complexity of designing a mixed-signal UWB System-on-Chip. We applied the methodology and used the simulation environment for the specification and design of an UWB transceiver based on the energy detection principle. As a by-product, simulation results show the effectiveness of UWB in the so-called ranging application, that is the accurate evaluation of the distance between a couple of transceivers using the two-way-ranging metho

Ultra-Wideband Transceiver Design And Optimization

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2015. Major: Electrical Engineering. Advisor: Ramesh Harjani. 1 computer file (PDF); xiii, 128 pages.The technology landscape has quickly changed over the last few years. Developments in personal area networks, IC technology, DSP processing and bio-medical devices have enabled the integration of short range communication into low cost personal health care solutions. Newer technologies and solutions are being developed to cater to the personal operating space(POS) and body area networks(BAN). Health care is driving towards using multiple sensor and therapeutic nodes inside the POS. Technology has enabled remote patient care where the patient has low cost on-body wearables that allow the patient/physician to access vital signs without the patient physically visiting the clinic. Big semiconductor giants want to move into the wearable health monitor space. Along with the developments in fitness based health wearables, there has been a lot of interest towards developing BAN devices catering to the 'mission-critical' wearables and implants. Hearing aids, EKG monitors, neurostimulators are some examples. This work explores the use of the 802.15 ulta wideband (UWB) standard for designing a radio to operate in the a wireless sensor network in the BAN. The specific application targeted is a hearing aid. However, the design in this work is capable of working in a low power low range application with the ability to have multiple data rates ranging from a few kHz to 10's of MHz. The first radio designed by Marconi using spark-gap transmitters was an impulse radio (IR). The IR UWB technology boasts of low power, low cost, high data rates, multiple channels, simultaneous networking, the ability to carry information through obstacles that more limited bandwidths cannot, and also potentially lower complexity hardware design. The inherent timing accuracy associated with the technology gives UWB transmissions immunity to multipath fading and are hence make them more suitable for a cluttered indoor environment. The key difference with the traditional narrowband transceiver is that instead of using continuous wave (CW) transmission, impulses in time are used. The timing accuracy associated with these impulses require synchronization in time, rather than synchronization in frequency for carrier-based CW systems. A complete fully integrated system is presented in thesis. This work presents a low-power noncoherent IR UWB transceiver operating at 5GHz in 0.13um CMOS. A fully-digital transmitter generates a shaped output pulse of 1GHz 3-dB bandwidth. DLLs provide a PVT-tolerant time-step resolution of 1ns over the entire symbol period and regulate the pulse generator center frequency. The transmitter outputs -31dBm (0.88pJ/pulse at 1Mpulse/s) with a dynamic (energy) efficiency of 16pJ/pulse. The transmit out pulse is FCC part 15 compliant over process voltage and temperature (PVT) variations. The transmitter is semi-compliant with IEEE 802.15.6 and IEEE 802.15.4 standards and will become completely compliant with minor modifications. The receiver presented in this work is a non-coherent energy detect IR UWB receiver. The receiver has an on-chip transformer preceding the LNA, which is followed by a super-regenerative amplifier (SRA), envelope detector, sample-and-holds, and a bank of comparators. The design is SRA based energy-detection receiver. Measured results show a receiver efficiency of 0.32nJ/bit at 20.8Mb/s and operation with inputs as low as -70dBm. The SRA based energy-detection receiver utilizes early/late detection for a two-step baseband synchronization algorithm. An integrated solution to the issue of synchronization is also proposed. The system proposed is capable of synchronization and tracking control. The system in this work utilizes early/late detection for a two-step baseband synchronization algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in Matlab and the time to synchronization is observed to be between 250us to a few couple of ms. Measurements have also been made using the receiver and manually implementing the algorithm. This work addresses all aspects time synchronization in an IR transceiver. The initial mismatch is addressed by two methods. Beyond the initial synchronization, the system presented in this system is also capable of tracking. This would mean that once the transceiver has been synchronized, the timing generation would continue to track the phase and the frequency changes depending upon crystal drift over time or movement between the receiver and the transmitter. A test was also performed on the complete transceiver system with two radios talking to each other over a highly attenuated wired channel

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationSince the late 1950s, scientists have been working toward realizing implantable devices that would directly monitor or even control the human body's internal activities. Sophisticated microsystems are used to improve our understanding of internal biological processes in animals and humans. The diversity of biomedical research dictates that microsystems must be developed and customized specifically for each new application. For advanced long-term experiments, a custom designed system-on-chip (SoC) is usually necessary to meet desired specifications. Custom SoCs, however, are often prohibitively expensive, preventing many new ideas from being explored. In this work, we have identified a set of sensors that are frequently used in biomedical research and developed a single-chip integrated microsystem that offers the most commonly used sensor interfaces, high computational power, and which requires minimum external components to operate. Included peripherals can also drive chemical reactions by setting the appropriate voltages or currents across electrodes. The SoC is highly modular and well suited for prototyping in and ex vivo experimental devices. The system runs from a primary or secondary battery that can be recharged via two inductively coupled coils. The SoC includes a 16-bit microprocessor with 32 kB of on chip SRAM. The digital core consumes 350 μW at 10 MHz and is capable of running at frequencies up to 200 MHz. The integrated microsystem has been fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology and the silicon has been fully tested. Integrated peripherals include two sigma-delta analog-to-digital converters, two 10-bit digital-to-analog converters, and a sleep mode timer. The system also includes a wireless ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter. The fullydigital transmitter implementation occupies 68 x 68 μm2 of silicon area, consumes 0.72 μW static power, and achieves an energy efficiency of 19 pJ/pulse at 200 MHz pulse repetition frequency. An investigation of the suitability of the UWB technology for neural recording systems is also presented. Experimental data capturing the UWB signal transmission through an animal head are presented and a statistical model for large-scale signal fading is developed

Data-aided timing synchronization for FM-DCSK UWB communication systems

Frequency-modulated differential chaos shift keying (FM-DCSK) ultrawideband (UWB) communication systems convey information by transmitting ultrashort chaotic pulses (in the nanosecond scale). Since such pulses are ultrashort, timing offset may severely degrade the bit error rate (BER) performance. In this paper, a fast data-aided timing synchronization algorithm with low complexity is proposed for FM-DCSK UWB systems, which capitalizes on the excellent correlation characteristic of chaotic signals. Simulation results show that the BER performance of such systems is fairly close to that of perfect timing thanks to the proposed new algorithm. Moreover, the new algorithm requires less synchronization searching time and lower computa-tional complexity than the conventional one for transmitted reference (TR) UWB systems existing in the current literature

Ultra-wideband indoor communications using optical technology

La communication ultra large bande (UWB) a attiré une énorme quantité de recherches ces dernières années, surtout après la présentation du masque spectral de US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Les impulsions ultra-courtes permettent de très hauts débits de faible puissance tout en éliminant les interférences avec les systèmes existants à bande étroite. La faible puissance, cependant, limite la portée de propagation des radios UWB à quelques mètres pour la transmission sans fil à l’intérieur d’une pièce. En outre, des signaux UWB reçu sont étendus dans le temps en raison de la propagation par trajet multiple qui résulte en beaucoup d’interférence inter-symbole (ISI) à haut débit. Le monocycle Gaussien, l’impulsion la plus commune dans UWB, a une mauvaise couverture sous le masque de la FCC. Dans cette thèse, nous démontrons des transmet- teurs qui sont capables de générer des impulsions UWB avec une efficacité de puissance élevée. Une impulsion efficace résulte dans un rapport de signal à bruit (SNR) supérieur au récepteur en utilisant plus de la puissance disponible sous le masque spectral de la FCC. On produit les impulsions dans le domaine optique et utilise la fibre optique pour les transporter sur plusieurs kilomètres pour la distribution dans un réseau optique pas- sif. La fibre optique est très fiable pour le transport des signaux radio avec une faible consommation de puissance. On utilise les éléments simples comme un modulateur Mach-Zehnder ou un résonateur en anneau pour générer des impulsions, ce qui permet l’intégration dans le silicium. Compatible avec la technologie CMOS, la photonique sur silicium a un potentiel énorme pour abaisser le coût et l’encombrement des systèmes optiques. La photodétection convertit les impulsions optiques en impulsions électriques avant la transmission sur l’antenne du côté de l’utilisateur. La réponse fréquentielle de l’antenne déforme la forme d’onde de l’impulsion UWB. Nous proposons une technique d’optimisation non-linéaire qui prend en compte la distorsion d’antenne pour trouver des impulsions qui maximisent la puissance transmise, en respectant le masque spectral de la FCC. Nous travaillons avec trois antennes et concevons une impulsion unique pour chacune d’entre elle. L’amélioration de l’énergie des impulsions UWB améliore directement la SNR au récepteur. Les résultats de simulation montrent que les impulsions optimisées améliorent considérablement le taux d’erreur (BER) par rapport au monocycle Gaussien sous propagation par trajet multiple. Notre autre contribution est l’évaluation d’un filtre adapté pour recevoir efficacement des impulsions UWB. Le filtre adapté est synthétisé et fabriqué en technologie microstrip, en collaboration avec l’Université McGill comme un dispositif de bande interdite électromagnétique. La réponse fréquentielle du filtre adapté montre une ex- cellente concordance avec le spectre ciblé de l’impulsion UWB. Les mesures de BER confirment la performance supérieure du filtre adapté par rapport à un récepteur à conversion directe. Le canal UWB est très riche en trajet multiple conduisant à l’ISI à haut débit. Notre dernière contribution est l’étude de performance des récepteurs en simulant un système avec des conditions de canaux réalistes. Les résultats de la simulation montrent que la performance d’un tel système se dégrade de façon significative pour les hauts débits. Afin de compenser la forte ISI dans les taux de transfert de données en Gb/s, nous étudions l’algorithme de Viterbi (VA) avec un nombre limité d’états et un égaliseur DFE (decision feedback equalizer). Nous examinons le nombre d’états requis dans le VA, et le nombre de coefficients du filtre dans le DFE pour une transmission fiable de UWB en Gb/s dans les canaux en ligne de vue. L’évaluation par simulation de BER confirme que l’égalisation améliore considérablement les performances par rapport à la détection de symbole. La DFE a une meilleure performance par rapport à la VA en utilisant une complexité comparable. La DFE peut couvrir une plus grande mémoire de canal avec un niveau de complexité relativement réduit.Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication has attracted an enormous amount of research in recent years, especially after the introduction of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectral mask. Ultra-short pulses allow for very high bit-rates while low power eliminates interference with existing narrowband systems. Low power, however, limits the propagation range of UWB radios to a few meters for indoors wireless transmission. Furthermore, received UWB signals are spread in time because of multipath propagation which results in high intersymbol interference at high data rates. Gaussian monocycle, the most commonly employed UWB pulse, has poor coverage under the FCC mask. In this thesis we demonstrate transmitters capable of generating UWB pulses with high power efficiency at Gb/s bit-rates. An efficient pulse results in higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver by utilizing most of the available power under the FCC spectral mask. We generate the pulses in the optical domain and use optical fiber to transport the pulses over several kilometers for distribution in a passive optical network. Optical fiber is very reliable for transporting radio signals with low power consumption. We use simple elements such as a Mach Zehnder modulator or a ring resonator for pulse shaping, allowing for integration in silicon. Being compatible with CMOS technology, silicon photonics has huge potential for lowering the cost and bulkiness of optical systems. Photodetection converts the pulses to the electrical domain before antenna transmission at the user side. The frequency response of UWB antennas distorts the UWB waveforms. We pro- pose a nonlinear optimization technique which takes into account antenna distortion to find pulses that maximize the transmitted power, while respecting the FCC spectral mask. We consider three antennas and design a unique pulse for each. The energy improvement in UWB pulses directly improves the receiver SNR. Simulation results show that optimized pulses have a significant bit error rate (BER) performance improvement compared to the Gaussian monocycle under multipath propagation. Our other contribution is evaluating a matched filter to receive efficiently designed UWB pulses. The matched filter is synthesized and fabricated in microstrip technology in collaboration with McGill University as an electromagnetic bandgap device. The frequency response of the matched filter shows close agreement with the target UWB pulse spectrum. BER measurements confirm superior performance of the matched filter compared to a direct conversion receiver. The UWB channel is very rich in multipath leading to ISI at high bit rates. Our last contribution is investigating the performance of receivers by simulating a system employing realistic channel conditions. Simulation results show that the performance of such system degrades significantly for high data rates. To compensate the severe ISI at gigabit rates, we investigate the Viterbi algorithm (VA) with a limited number of states and the decision feedback equalizer (DFE). We examine the required number of states in the VA, and the number of taps in the DFE for reliable Gb/s UWB trans- mission for line-of-sight channels. Non-line-of-sight channels were also investigated at lower speeds. BER simulations confirm that equalization considerably improves the performance compared to symbol detection. The DFE results in better performance compared to the VA when using comparable complexity as the DFE can cover greater channel memory with a relatively low complexity level

Compressed sensing approach to ultra-wideband receiver design

One of the scarcest resources in the wireless communication system is the limited frequency spectrum. Many wireless communication systems are hindered by the bandwidth limitation and are not able to provide high speed communication. However, Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication promises a high speed communication because of its very wide bandwidth of 7.5GHz (3.1GHz-10.6GHz). The unprecedented bandwidth promises many advantages for the 21st century wireless communication system. However, UWB has many hardware challenges, such as a very high speed sampling rate requirement for analog to digital conversion, channel estimation, and implementation challenges. In this thesis, a new method is proposed using compressed sensing (CS), a mathematical concept of sub-Nyquist rate sampling, to reduce the hardware complexity of the system. The method takes advantage of the unique signal structure of the UWB symbol. Also, a new digital implementation method for CS based UWB is proposed. Lastly, a comparative study is done of the CS-UWB hardware implementation methods. Simulation results show that the application of compressed sensing using the proposed method significantly reduces the number of hardware complexity compared to the conventional method of using compressed sensing based UWB receiver

Feasibility Study of a Mm-Wave Impulse Radio Using Measured Radio Channels

Abstract in Undetermined A millimeter-wave (mm-wave) impulse radio is an attractive alternative to existing high-speed mm- wave radio systems because of the potential for a simpler transceiver architecture. This paper studies the feasibility of a mm-wave impulse radio system for home and office use by considering state-of-the- art transceivers and multiple-input multiple-output measured propagation channels as well as the IEEE 802.15.3c channel model. Our analysis reveals that reliable data transmission is infeasible even in line-of-sight (LOS) scenarios because of a low power level at the Rx if we do not use beamforming. However, introducing 7×7 beamforming at the Tx dramatically improves the coverage beyond 5 m distance in the LOS scenario and up to 5 m in a non- line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario, though the performance varies in the NLOS scenario, depending on the Tx and Rx locations. We propose an adaptive transmit signaling scheme that adjusts the pulse repetition frequency depending on the delay dispersion of the propagation channel in order to avoid intersymbol interference and keep the Rx structure simple. The proposed transmit signaling scheme leads to a pulse transmission rate of 250 Mpulses/s in all measured channels while the rate is lower when the 802.15.3c model is considered because of a more multipath-rich characteristics than our measured channels

Ultra Wideband

Ultra wideband (UWB) has advanced and merged as a technology, and many more people are aware of the potential for this exciting technology. The current UWB field is changing rapidly with new techniques and ideas where several issues are involved in developing the systems. Among UWB system design, the UWB RF transceiver and UWB antenna are the key components. Recently, a considerable amount of researches has been devoted to the development of the UWB RF transceiver and antenna for its enabling high data transmission rates and low power consumption. Our book attempts to present current and emerging trends in-research and development of UWB systems as well as future expectations

Soft information for localization-of-things

Location awareness is vital for emerging Internetof- Things applications and opens a new era for Localizationof- Things. This paper first reviews the classical localization techniques based on single-value metrics, such as range and angle estimates, and on fixed measurement models, such as Gaussian distributions with mean equal to the true value of the metric. Then, it presents a new localization approach based on soft information (SI) extracted from intra- and inter-node measurements, as well as from contextual data. In particular, efficient techniques for learning and fusing different kinds of SI are described. Case studies are presented for two scenarios in which sensing measurements are based on: 1) noisy features and non-line-of-sight detector outputs and 2) IEEE 802.15.4a standard. The results show that SI-based localization is highly efficient, can significantly outperform classical techniques, and provides robustness to harsh propagation conditions.RYC-2016-1938