A weighted autocorrelation receiver for transmitted reference ultra wideband communications

Transmitted reference ultra wideband (TR-UWB) communication systems have gained increasing interest lately, because of their ability to solve the timing and channel estimation problems encountered in conventional UWB systems. Traditionally, an autocorrelation receiver is employed in a TR-UWB system, which is based on correlating the signal with a delayed version of itself. To reduce the noise squaring effect related to this autocorrelation receiver, we propose to split up the correlation interval leading to a number of smaller correlations, which are then linearly combined in some efficient manner. We refer to this receiver as a weighted autocorrelation receiver. We present both optimal and practical design algorithms for this receiver. We also carry out a number of simulations using real UWB channel measurements, and show that the weighted autocorrelation receiver significantly outperforms the conventional one. Moreover, we illustrate that the proposed TR-UWB system can compete favorably with a realistic digital implementation of a conventional UWB system.