A non-Gaussian approach to the performance analysis of UWB TH-BPPM systems

We investigate the performance of a time hopped-binary pulse position modulation system in the presence of multi-user interference. Since the exact characteristic function (as well as the pdf) for the multiple access interference is not known, and the Gaussian approximation (especially in presence of a small number of users) has been shown to be very poor, a new, non-Gaussian, approach is proposed. We first present an approximate characteristic function for the multiple access interference and the corresponding probability of error of the system; we then compare the analytical results with simulations and with the common Gaussian approximation.