A reduced-complexity acquisition algorithm for UWB impulse radio

UWB (ultra-wideband) is a promising technology for short-range wireless communications, like in WPAN (wireless personal area networks) applications. In the context of UWB impulse radio, one of the crucial challenges remains the acquisition of synchronization in terms of time, precision and number of operations. In this paper, we present a novel strategy for reducing the number of operations required for the coarse acquisition of pseudo-noise sequences (at the chip level), thus speeding up the overall synchronization process. Also, we discuss the trade-off between computational load and synchronization performance.