Transmitter measurements and analysis of frame synchronization of an Impulse Radio Ultra-wideband system

Abstract

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is a promising radio technology which is well suited to low power short-range wireless applications. At Holst Centre/imec, there is a research program on the design and implementation of ultra low power, Impulse Radio-UWB (IR-UWB) wireless systems suitable for audio streaming and real time localization systems. Some key technology challenges for IR-UWB systems are Direct Current (DC) power consumption, Link-budget and Quality of Service (QoS). The first part of this thesis focuses on measurement of DC power consumption; transmit output power and spectrum using the IR-UWB transmitter. As the hardware supports several modes, an automated measurement setup with programmable parameters has been created. In the second part, a mathematical model for the preamble and Start of Frame Delimiter (SFD) detection stages of the receiver operation is provided. This part of the receiver is a critical one and is challenging for IR-UWB type of signals due to the low transmit power. A method to estimate the signal to noise ratio (SNR) per pulse from the output of the preamble detection block is proposed. A theoretical approach for setting the threshold for SFD detection is described. It is shown through simulations that this method of threshold setting provides a significant improvement in receiver performance.