UWB pulse propagation through complex walls in indoor wireless communications environments

The ultra-wide hand (UWB) communications systems have been evolving quickly due to the recent FCC approval of the use of 7.5 GHz band of the unlicensed spectrum. To help with the effective implementation of impulse radio it is necessary to carefully characterize propagation in complex environments. This paper reports on the numerical simulation of UWB pulse reflections and transmissions through complex wall structures that are often encountered in indoor propagation environments. The finite-difference time-domain method is employed to accurately and efficiently calculate the field responses. Simulation results show that different structures of the walls have significant effect on the propagation characteristics. It is shown that the scattering due to the complex wall structures leads to complicated reflected and transmitted signals that could result in serious challenges in the design and effective implementation of an UWB communications system.