An Energy-Detector for Noncoherent Impulse-Radio UWB Receivers

This study proposes an energy detector for a noncoherent impulse-radio UWB receiver, designed in a 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The squaring functionality is realized exploiting the quadratic characteristic of MOS transistors, and the deviation from such a characteristic due to short channel effects and device mismatch is carefully considered in the paper. The squared signal is integrated using a Gm-C integrator that is interfaced with the squarer using a flipped voltage follower current sensor as a current to voltage converter. The proposed circuit dissipates 5.4 mW for a receiver sensitivity at the antenna of -89 dBm. Synchronization is demonstrated at the system level and some considerations on robustness to narrowband interferers are presented.