An impulse radio UWB transceiver with high-precision TOA measurement unit

This paper describes a monolithic integrated transceiver chipset intended for impulse radio (IR) Ultra-wide band (UWB) applications including indoor communication and indoor localization. The chipset operates in the higher UWB band centered at 7.68 GHz and it is optimized for a pulse bandwidth of about 1.5 GHz. The average pulse repetition rate of 60 MHz and an octagonal pulse position modulation (8-PPM) allow for raw data rates up to 180 MBit/sec. The available high bandwidth is used for precise indoor localization employing a dedicated time-of-arrival (TOA) measurement extension. This unit runs with an on-chip system clock of 3.84 GHz, which allows a measurement accuracy of 260 picoseconds. As demonstrated this UWB transceiver chipset is well suited for two-way ranging (TWR) in potentially harsh RF propagation environments. Under perfect line-of-sight conditions a spatial resolution of about 3.9 centimeter could be achieved.