Prerake diversity combining for pulsed UWB systems considering realistic channels with pulse overlapping and narrow-band interference

We analyzes the prerake diversity combining schemes for pulsed ultrawideband (UWB) systems to shift the signal processing needs from the receiver to the transmitter. We consider the more realistic case that received multipath pulses could overlap with one another and its optimization based on the zero-forcing and the eigenanalysis technique. We show that in the presence of inter-pulse interference, the optimum linear prerake combining scheme in the sense of maximizing the received SNR performs the same as a conventional rake receiver with maximal ratio combining. Since for UWB systems it is important to consider the effects of narrow-band interference (NBI), we also analyze the different behaviors of prerake and rake schemes in the presence of NBI