On the validity of the Gaussian approximation for performance analysis of TH-CDMA/OOK impulse radio networks

This paper is concerned with error rate performance analysis of ultra-wide bandwidth time-hopping multiple access radio networks employing on-off keying. Under the assumption of rectangular pulses, we derive an exact expression for the probability of bit error of a coherently detected TH-CDMA/OOK signal subjected to K interferers in the AWGN channel. This is used to assess the accuracy of the Gaussian approximation commonly used in the performance analysis of UWB impulse radio networks. It is shown, through numerical results, that bit error rates obtained by Gaussian approximation highly underestimate the exact results even in the cases of a large number of interfering signals.