Ultra Wideband

Communication
Module 6
Introduction

The fact that UWB transmissions have

UWB, ultra wide band technology, is a Typically this will be many Gigahertz, such a wide bandwidth means that they
form of transmission that occupies a and it is this aspect that enables it to will cross the boundaries of many of the
very wide bandwidth. carry data rates of Gigabits per second. currently licensed carrier-based
transmissions.

As such one of the fears is that UWB

In many instances they are lower than
transmission may cause interference.
the spurious emissions from electronic
However the very high bandwidth used
apparatus that has been certified. In
also allows the power spectral density to
view of this it is anticipated that they will
be very low, and the power limits on
cause no noticeable interference to
UWB are being strictly limited by the
other carrier based licensed users.
regulatory bodies.
Introduction

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) provides

an interesting new technology It supports a bit rate greater The advantages of UWB include
for short range ultra-high-speed than 100 Mbps within a 10- low-power transmission,
communications in the meter radius for wireless robustness for multi-path fading
frequency band 3.1 GHz to 10.6 personal area communications. and low power dissipation.
GHz.

The low power transmission of

the UWB is the key characteristic
that might allow it to coexist
with other wireless networking
standards such as 802.11 LAN,
802.16 MAN and WAN.
 Extremely simple radio, and thus low cost

High data rates

Features of
UWB Multipath immunity

technology Large processing gain in presence of narrowband

interference

Easy implementation of location

Long battery life

Advantages and benefits of UWB
 UWB technology has been approved for indoor and short-range
outdoor communication, but with restrictions on the frequencies
over which the transmission can spread as well as the power
limits.

This will enable the UWB transmissions to communicate

successfully, but without affecting existing 'narrowband'

UWB indoor
transmissions.

channel UWB transmissions can legally operate in the range 3.1 GHz up
to 10.6 GHz, at a limited transmit power of -41dBm/MHz.

The transmissions must occupy a bandwidth of at least 500 MHz,

as well as having a bandwidth of at least 20% of the centre
frequency.
UWB indoor
channel
•Power spectrums of narrowband,
CDMA, and UWB signals
•Fig says, For a given transmit
power, the UWB has the lowest
PSD
UWB indoor channel
 • In indoor environments, measurements show that
shadowing dominates the channel.
• At a given distance d, the received signal has a path
loss that is log-normally distributed about the mean

Large-scale
channel
model
• where d0 is the reference distance, α is the
exponent of path loss, Xσ is a zero-mean
lognormally distributed random variable with
standard deviation σ dB, and PLfs is the free space
path loss.
 For UWB communications, the frequency-dependence of the
propagation loss may be significant, and this can be considered in
the UWB path loss model by multiplying the distance-dependent
PLfs(d) term by a factor that is associated with frequency PLf(f)

In the channel model adopted in IEEE 802.15.3a, PLfs is calculated

by using the center frequency fc =√fHfL, where fH and fL are
Large-scale obtained at the −10dB edges of the spectrum; Xσ (dB) has a zero-
mean normal distribution with σ = 3.
channel
model Measurements show that some LOS environments provide
better path loss than free space(that is, α<2).

This is due to the additional power collected via reflections

in indoor channels with a LOS path, and the received signal
power is greater than that in free space
 • The small-scale fading of the UWB channel is
very different from that of the narrowband
channel. The two major differences are :
• The number of multipath components received
at the receiver within the period of an UWB
Small-scale waveform is very small. Thus, channel fading is
not as severe as that in the narrowband
fading model channel, and many resolvable multipath
components can be observed at the receiver.
• Due to the fine time resolution, the time of
arrival of the multipath components will not be
continuous but is in clusters. This is different
from the continuous case for the narrowband
channel.
 For link budget analysis, the narrowband Friis transmission
formula is not applicable, since it applies only to the power
in continuous-wave (CW) sinusoidal signals and does not
account for pulse distortion effects at either the transmit or
receive antenna or even the type of waveform.

Pulse radio transmission differentiates from a narrowband

UWB continuous wave system in the distortion introduced by
practical transmit and receive antennas.
capacity
However, the narrowband model can be used to
approximate the path loss for a UWB system.
 • Given the 7.5GHz UWB band, the operating bandwidth can be
estimated by link budget analysis. Assuming that the transmitted
PSD is flat, the received signal power PRX is given by:

UWB capacity

• where fL and fU are the lower and upper frequencies in the UWB
band as per the FCC rules, f is the geometric mean of fL and fU, d
is the distance in meters, α is the exponent of the path loss, and c
= 3×108 m/s is the speed of light. According to this equation,
given fL =3.1GHz at a distance of 10 m, the received power
increases as fU increases.
UWB capacity
• The SNR at the receiver can be determined
as:

• where L is an additional implementation

loss, N0 =−114dBm/MHz is the standard
thermal noise PSD, and a noise figure of
UWB capacity versus distance.
6dB is applied.
• The Shannon capacity for a single user in
the AWGN channel is given by :
 • UWB has the attractive features of the time-domain nature of
signal transmission.
• The UWB system can be designed as a single-band or
multiband system, with each sub-band greater than 500MHz.
• A single sub-band can occupy up to 7,500MHz UWB spectrum.
• These schemes generate different performance tradeoffs and
design challenges.
• Early single-band UWB systems generate simple, short pulses

Pulsed UWB with wide spectral occupation.

• Multiband UWB systems use high-order modulation on
constrained bandwidth to enable channelization.
• The single-band approach is commonly treated as pulsed or
carrier-free communications.
• Information is directly modulated into a sequence of impulse-
like waveforms that occupy a bandwidth of up to 7.5GHz.
• The single-band approach is the traditional method for UWB
implementation.
 • A typical pulse shape for UWB is the Gaussian doublet. This
waveform can be easily generated from a square pulse by
exploiting pulse shaping and filtering effects of the transmit and
receive antennas.
• The fast switching on and off at nanosecond order or shorter for
square pulse generation generates a Gaussian-like pulse shape
that approximates a Gaussian function:
Pulsed UWB:
Pulse shape

• This waveform is known as a Gaussian pulse.

 • The transmit antenna has the highpass filtering effect
of a derivative operation, and the transmitted
waveform is known as a Gaussian monocycle.
• The receive antenna has the same effect as a
derivative operation, and thus the received second-
Pulsed UWB: derivative of the Gaussian pulse is known as a
Pulse shape Gaussian doublet.

Pulse generation for the TH-UWB system. (a) Square pulse. (b) Gaussian pulse. (c) Gaussian
monocycle. (d) Gaussian doublet.
Pulsed UWB: Pulse shape

• The basic Gaussian pulse is represented by:

• where τ is the time-scaling factor and K1 is a constant.

Derivative of the equation is similar to a high pass
filtering the Gaussian pulse.
 • UWB pulse modulation: baseband
modulation: information
modulated into amplitudes,
phases, or positions of pulses
• Pulse-amplitude modulation
Modulation (PAM)
• On-off keying (OOK),
• Phase shift keying (PSK),
• Pulse-position modulation
(PPM)
UWB Pulse Modulation: PPM
• Popular UWB communication systems modulation technique
• Information carried in the fine time shift of pulse
• Less sensitive to noise than PAM or PSK signals
• Pseudorandom code sequence of pulse positions
• reduce discrete lines in the PSD
• In binary PPM signaling, ‘1’ and ‘0’ are represented by a pulse without any delay
and by a pulse with a delay relative to the time reference, respectively.
• For the M-ary PPM system, the set of time shifts for representing different
symbols is specified.
• The orthogonal PPM scheme uses UWB pulse shape that is orthogonal to its
time-shifted version. These time shifts depend on the UWB pulse.
 Modulation
• PAM modulates the bits using
different amplitudes, OOK
represents bits by the presence of
a pulse, while biphase modulation
denotes the bits using the pulse
polarity.
• Orthogonal pulse modulation
requires special pulse shapes that
are orthogonal to one another.
Modulation
• PPM and biphase modulation are the most common techniques.
• Orthogonal pulse modulation is useful for multiple access.
• PAM and OOK are rarely used.
• For PAM, a signal with smaller amplitude is more susceptible to noise
interference than its larger amplitude counterpart, and also more power
is required to transmit the higher amplitude pulse.
• For OOK, the presence of multipaths makes the determination of the
absence of a pulse very difficult.
• Also, OOK, like biphase modulation, cannot be extended to M-ary
modulation.
Modulation
• Biphase modulation and binary PPM have similar performance, but
OOK is inferior in error performance.
• However, the OOK signal can be detected by a simple energy
detection scheme.
• On the other hand, PAM inherently provides smoother PSD than OOK
and PPM, both generating discrete spectrum lines, which may
become severe interference to existing narrowband radios.
UWB Pulse Modulation: PAM
• PAM
• Information conveyed in the amplitudes of pulses
• M-ary PAM signal: sequence of modulated pulses with M different amplitude
levels

• am(k) amplitude of the kth pulse, depends on the M-ary information symbol m
{0, 1, …, M-1}.
• Tf frame interval also known as pulse repetition time
UWB Pulse Modulation: PAM

2-ary PAM Signals

Higher amplitude pulse 1

Lower amplitude pulse 0
UWB Pulse Modulation: PAM
• PAM signal, simple to generate, vulnerable
to channel noise, may cause false detection
• Pulse transmitted periodic, discrete lines on
PSD of UWB PAM Signals
the PSD of UWB signals (see Fig. given here)
• Discrete spectral lines interfere to systems
sharing a frequency spectrum
• Overcomed by using spectrum-whitening or
time dithering techniques

PSD UWB PAM Signals after time dithering

UWB Pulse Modulation: OOK
UWB Pulse Modulation: OOK
UWB Pulse Modulation: OOK
UWB Pulse Modulation: PSK
UWB Pulse Modulation: PSK

BPSK Signals
UWB Pulse Modulation: PPM
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• UWB deliver large amounts of data with low PSD, useful for short-
range, high-data-rate applications
• Require several transmitters in an area
• Require proper multiple-access techniques, proper channelization of
multiple users
• Typical multiple-access communications: several users transmit
information simultaneously, independently over a shared channel
A typical multiple-access communication
system
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• Received signal, combination of desired signal, MAI and AWGN
r(t)=s(t)+MAI+w(t)
• Deteriorating effect of MAI severe in UWB systems (strict transmit
power limitation)
• Two common multiple-access techniques:
(a) Time-hopping (TH) UWB: theoretically sound, difficult practical
implementations
(b) Direct-sequence (DS) UWB: promising scheme for IR UWB
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
TH-UWB
• Divide frame interval into multiple smaller chip intervals, one segment
carries the transmitted monocycle or doublets
• Unique TH code assigned to each user, specify which segment in each
frame interval is used for transmission
• Fig. below shows: Frame interval Tf divided into Nc segments of Tc
seconds where Nc Tc < Tf.

Pulse train with TH sequence {1,0,3, …}

UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• Notation: TH sequence {c(k)}, 0≤c(k)≤Nc-1.
• Provides additional time shift of c(k)Tc seconds to the kth monocyle or
doublet, allow multiple access without catastrophic collisions
• Pulse train with TH sequence c(k)={1,0,3,…}
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• Synchronized network: orthogonal TH sequence satisfies cu(k)≠cu’(k)
for all k’s and for any two users u≠u’ adopted to minimize interference
between the users
• Asynchronous system: orthogonal TH sequence do not guarantee
collision free transmission.
• TH technique used PAM, PSK or PPM
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
DS-UWB
• DS-UWB employs a train of high-duty-cycle pulses whose polarities
follow pseudo-random code sequences
• Specifically, each user in the system is assigned a pseudo-random
sequence that controls pseudorandom inversions of the UWB pulse
train
UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• In a DS-UWB with BPSK modulation, the binary symbol d(k) to be
transmitted over a kth frame interval is spread by a sequence of
multiple monocycles or doublets

• whose polarities are determined by the spreading sequence

UWB Multiple Access Techniques
• A different spreading code is assigned to each user
• Similar to TH-UWB, an orthogonal spreading sequence may be used
to mitigate MAI in a synchronous network

• A pulse has positive polarity if the information bit is 1 {d(k)=1},

whereas it has negative polarity if the information bit is 0 {d(k)=0}
Pulsed-UWB transceivers
• Pulsed-UWB uses baseband pulse shapes having rise and fall times at
the sub-nanosecond level.
• Such pulses have a broadband spectrum, ranging from near-dc to
several gigahertz.
• The pulse shape is applied directly to a transmit antenna, without
using upconversion.
• Spectral shaping can be performed by tuning the shape of the ultra-
short duration pulse, or by tuning the loading parameters of the
transmit antenna.
Pulsed-UWB transceivers
• The most attractive feature of pulsed-UWB technology is its low complexity
and low cost.
• The simplest TH-UWB transmitter may just contain a pulse generator, a
timing circuit, and an antenna.
• The low complexity enables its inclusion in consumer electronics.
• For M-ary systems, a bit-to-symbol mapper is also required, and the symbols
rather than bits are mapped to pulses.
• Precise timing circuitry is required, and is especially restricted for PPM.
• Pulses may be amplified before transmitting.
• FEC schemes may also be included in the system.
Block diagram of a digital pulsed-UWB
receiver
Pulsed-UWB transceivers
• The correlator and control circuitry is used for acquisition and tracking of the
required pulses among the other signals.
• The correlation receiver, also known as matched filter, is the optimal
receiving technique.
• The correlator multiplies the received pulse by a template waveform, and
then integrates the output over the duration of the pulse to generate a
single dc voltage, from which the relative time positions are estimated for
PPM.
• The template waveform is generated by using the pulse generator. For a
multipath indoor channel, the matched filter receiver becomes the rake
receiver.
 Multiband UWB
• The traditional TH-UWB scheme faces a number of difficulties for
implementation.
• On the other hand, due to the technical maturity of DS-CDMA and OFDM, the
DS-UWB and MB-OFDM UWB schemes are more popular.
• For UWB communications, DS-UWB is preferred for low-data-rate systems,
while MB-OFDM UWB is preferred for high-data-rate systems.
• For example, IEEE 802.15.4a employs the DS-UWB scheme; IEEE 802.15.3a has
an MB-OFDM UWB proposal and a DS-UWB proposal, but favors the MB-
OFDM scheme.
• For location purpose, short pulsed UWB is preferred. PulsON is a UWB chipset
developed by Time Domain Corporation to enable precise location services.
Multiband UWB
• In the UWB system, there is ISI caused by multipath delays.
• For DS-UWB, interpath interference may be caused by multipath components received
within the observation window of a particular symbol. There is a high probability of collision
for TH-UWB.
• Multiband UWB enables digital filtering for transmitter pulse shaping, although the
computation load is still very high.
• Information can be processed over a much smaller bandwidth, reducing the complexity of
design and the power consumption, and improving spectral flexibility and worldwide
compliance.
• Multiband UWB also allows the transmit power in each sub-band to be independently
managed.
• The multiband approach can deal with both in-band and out-of-band interference rejection.
Modulation of pulsed multiband UWB

• For pulsed multiband UWB modulation, the UWB pulse must be

shaped to the specified bandwidth of each sub-band.
• The pulses must be modulated to each band with different center
frequencies.
• Multiple UWB pulses on different sub-bands can be transmitted at the
same time.
• Modulation to sub-band i with carrier fi can be achieved by mixing a
sinusoidal signal
• The Fourier transform is given by:
Modulation of pulsed multiband UWB

• By removing the unwanted band, we get the modulated pulsed UWB

signal. When signals at many different bands are transmitted
simultaneously, we have:

• where NB is the number of bands. The resulting spectrum is spread

over the full frequency band. When a band is interfered by other
sources, that band is just not used. This leads to a null in the
spectrum.
MB-OFDM UWB

• MB-OFDM is now the leading technology for use in high-speed wireless

UWB communications.
• It is supported by WiMedia and ECMA.
• In the ECMA standard, the 7.5GHz UWB spectrum is divided into 14 sub-
bands, each having a bandwidth of 528MHz.
• This is also applicable for the MB-OFDM proposal of IEEE 802.15.3a.
• For each sub-band of 528MHz, OFDM is applied with 128 subcarriers.
• Among the 128 subcarriers, 100 are used for data transmission, 12 as
pilot subcarriers, 10 as guard subcarriers, and 6 are unused by setting
them to zero.
MB-OFDM UWB

• The subcarrier bandwidth in each sub-band is ∆f =528/128

=4.125MHz, and the FFT period is 1/ ∆ =242.42ns.
• The guard interval is 9.5ns, and the prefix length is 60.6ns.
• This yields an OFDM symbol length of 242.42 + 9.5 + 60.6 = 312.5ns.
• QPSK is used to modulate the symbols to be transmitted at each
subcarrier.
• The use of QPSK is due to the limitation of the transmitter power,
which must be lower than−41.3dBm/MHz.
MB-OFDM UWB
• OFDM is used to modulate the information in each sub-band so as to
capture the multipath energy efficiently. The smaller bandwidth of each
sub-band eases the requirement on the sampling rate of the ADC.
• The channel characteristics in the conventional OFDM system and in the
MB-OFDM UWB one are quite different.
• Channels in the conventional OFDM system are less dispersive than those in
the MB-OFDM UWB system, since the latter has a much larger bandwidth.
• Multipath channel coefficients in the conventional OFDM system are
Rayleigh distributed, while those in the MB-OFDM UWB system are
independent log-normally distributed
MB-OFDM UWB
• Antenna dispersion faced by pulsed-UWB is not a problem for OFDM-based UWB.
In the MB-OFDM UWB system, the linearity of the phase response over the entire
UWB band is not important as long as the bandwidth of each subchannel is
sufficiently small.
• Also, OFDM is normally used in multipath environments, where the multipath
delay spread is much higher than any time delays created by the antennas.
• For the purpose of detection and avoidance (DAA), at the MB-OFDM transmitter,
the most common technique for frequency notching is to zero out tones that
overlap the interfering bands at the FFT stage to achieve notches in the transmit
spectrum.
• There is no increase in the transmitter complexity. At the receiver, tones carrying
no information show a deep frequency notch.
• To achieve a desired notch depth, multiple tones have to be zeroed
out.
• A deeper notch can be obtained by inserting data-specific dummy
tones that are subject to a constraint on the amount of energy on
either side of the interfering band; this method sacrifices fewer tones
in order to achieve a notch-specific depth.
Impact of timing jitter

• Nonideal sampling clocks in OFDM-based UWB systems introduce

random timing jitter, which results in ICI.
• For OFDM-based UWB systems, the ICI for a system with white timing
jitter is bounded by :

• where PJ is the average ICI power caused by timing jitter, σ2s is the variance of the
symbol transmitted on each subcarrier, B is the bandwidth of a sub-band of at least
of 500MHz, and σ2 J is the variance of the timing jitter. σJ is typically 10 to 150ps.
• The impact of timing jitter can be reduced by oversampling.