Implementation Aspects of a Transmitted-Reference UWB Receiver

In this paper, we discuss the design issues of an ultra wide band (UWB) receiver targeting a single-chip CMOS implementation for low data-rate applications like ad hoc wireless sensor networks. A non-coherent transmitted reference (TR) receiver is chosen because of its small complexity compared to other architectures. After a brief recapitulation of the UWB fundamentals and a short discussion on the major differences between coherent and non-coherent receivers, we discuss issues, challenges and possible design solutions. Several simulation results obtained by means of a behavioral model are presented, together with an analysis of the trade-off between performance and complexity in an integrated circuit implementation

A Suboptimal Receiver with Turbo Block Coding for Ultra-Wideband Communications

In this paper, the performance of adaptive equalization and turbo product coding is investigated for pulse-based UWB communications in short-range indoor environments. The sensitivity of adaptive LMS linear and nonlinear (decision-feedback) equalizers with respect to the number of training symbols and number of taps is considered. To reduce the error performance variation with respect to changing channel conditions, a turbo product code (TPC) with two component (31,26,3) Hamming codes is proposed. We report simulation results showing that channel coding not only improves error performance, but also reduces significantly the sensitivity of UWB systems in short-range indoor wireless communications

One-Bit Massive MIMO: Channel Estimation and High-Order Modulations

We investigate the information-theoretic throughout achievable on a fading communication link when the receiver is equipped with one-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The analysis is conducted for the setting where neither the transmitter nor the receiver have a priori information on the realization of the fading channels. This means that channel-state information needs to be acquired at the receiver on the basis of the one-bit quantized channel outputs. We show that least-squares (LS) channel estimation combined with joint pilot and data processing is capacity achieving in the single-user, single-receive-antenna case. We also investigate the achievable uplink throughput in a massive multiple-input multiple-output system where each element of the antenna array at the receiver base-station feeds a one-bit ADC. We show that LS channel estimation and maximum-ratio combining are sufficient to support both multiuser operation and the use of high-order constellations. This holds in spite of the severe nonlinearity introduced by the one-bit ADCs

A low-cost time-hopping impulse radio system for high data rate transmission

We present an efficient, low-cost implementation of time-hopping impulse radio that fulfills the spectral mask mandated by the FCC and is suitable for high-data-rate, short-range communications. Key features are: (i) all-baseband implementation that obviates the need for passband components, (ii) symbol-rate (not chip rate) sampling, A/D conversion, and digital signal processing, (iii) fast acquisition due to novel search algorithms, (iv) spectral shaping that can be adapted to accommodate different spectrum regulations and interference environments. Computer simulations show that this system can provide 110Mbit/s at 7-10m distance, as well as higher data rates at shorter distances under FCC emissions limits. Due to the spreading concept of time-hopping impulse radio, the system can sustain multiple simultaneous users, and can suppress narrowband interference effectively.Comment: To appear in EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing (Special Issue on UWB - State of the Art

A Belief Propagation Based Framework for Soft Multiple-Symbol Differential Detection

Soft noncoherent detection, which relies on calculating the \textit{a posteriori} probabilities (APPs) of the bits transmitted with no channel estimation, is imperative for achieving excellent detection performance in high-dimensional wireless communications. In this paper, a high-performance belief propagation (BP)-based soft multiple-symbol differential detection (MSDD) framework, dubbed BP-MSDD, is proposed with its illustrative application in differential space-time block-code (DSTBC)-aided ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) systems. Firstly, we revisit the signal sampling with the aid of a trellis structure and decompose the trellis into multiple subtrellises. Furthermore, we derive an APP calculation algorithm, in which the forward-and-backward message passing mechanism of BP operates on the subtrellises. The proposed BP-MSDD is capable of significantly outperforming the conventional hard-decision MSDDs. However, the computational complexity of the BP-MSDD increases exponentially with the number of MSDD trellis states. To circumvent this excessive complexity for practical implementations, we reformulate the BP-MSDD, and additionally propose a Viterbi algorithm (VA)-based hard-decision MSDD (VA-HMSDD) and a VA-based soft-decision MSDD (VA-SMSDD). Moreover, both the proposed BP-MSDD and VA-SMSDD can be exploited in conjunction with soft channel decoding to obtain powerful iterative detection and decoding based receivers. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in DSTBC-aided UWB-IR systems.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, accepted to appear on IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, Aug. 201