Implementation of a Low Complexity UWB Transmitted Reference Pulse Cluster System

This paper describes the implementation detail of an ultra wideband transmitted reference pulse cluster (TRPC) system. The newly proposed TRPC signaling structure consists of multiple pulses with uniform and compact spacing. It overcomes the major hurdle to practical implementation of conventional transmitted reference (TR) systems, that is, the long wideband delay line requirement. In addition, TRPC offers superior error performance and increases the data rate over conventional TR. A modular prototyping platform implemented with discrete commercial off the shelf components and commercial test equipment is built. It adopts binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation scheme, employs the TRPC signaling method, and communicates over a wireless link using a direct conversion architecture. The experimental results presented demonstrate that the TRPC system can work stably and robustly, and is able to achieve a transmission rate of 1-10 Mbps in dense multipath environments. The prototype can assist the design and verification of the analog front end and digital baseband models for future commercial integrated UWB TRPC systems.