A New Approach for UWB Channel Estimation

In this paper, a new channel estimation approach is proposed for ultra-wideband (UWB) communication systems. Performance of UWB systems employing RAKE receivers highly depends on the channel knowledge. Because UWB systems operate in dense multipath environments, channel estimation task becomes more complicated. Some channel estimation methods have been proposed for UWB systems. Here a very simple and cost effective channel estimation method is presented. We develop a data-aided estimation of channel parameters in UWB systems employing time-hopping pulse-position-modulation (TH-PPM). This method can be used in time-hopping pulse-amplitude-modulation (TH-PAM) and direct-sequence (DS) spread-spectrum systems as well. Computer simulations show that the proposed method is competitive with the maximum likelihood (ML) method, in both single-user and multi-user scenarios, with less computational complexity and the ability to extract the exact parameters of the impulse response of the channel. The latter property does not exist in the ML method in dense multipath environments