Combined high-resolution ranging and high data rate wireless communication system in the 60 GHz band

In this paper, we present a high data rate communication system with an integrated high-resolution ranging feature. The point-to-point communication system is based on an OFDM baseband processor (BB) with data rates up to 3.9 Gbps, a medium access controller (MAC), and an analog frontend (AFE) for the 60 GHz band. The ranging system determines the distance between two stations using the round trip time of flight method (RTToF) in line-of-sight (LOS) environments. The MAC coordinates the channel access between the communication part and the ranging part. The system is integrated in a demonstrator platform based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). The ranging performance was simulated and measured in an indoor environment. The resolution is up to centimeter range.