Antenna Selection with Phase Precoding for High Performance UWB Communication with Legacy WiMedia Multi-Band OFDM Devices

Ultra wide-band (UWB) devices conforming to the WiMediareg specification are set to become ubiquitous, with the adoption of WiMedia for wireless USB and Bluetooth 3.0. However, the performance of these devices at high data rates may be poor, as they operate at low signal powers and experience frequency selective fading. This paper therefore proposes a new transceiver design for improving the robustness and mean throughput when communicating with these devices. Performance is improved using multiple antennas, in conjunction with per subcarrier antenna selection based on channel state information at the transmitter. Legacy compliance is accomplished by using phase precoding to make transmissions appear to have originated from a single antenna system, albeit one with an associated channel that exhibits significantly reduced fading. Performance is benchmarked against legacy operation; and the impact of channel estimation and hardware calibration errors is investigated. Results show that, even with pessimistic assumptions about calibration errors, performance is improved dramatically.