A receiver architecture for pulse-based electromagnetic nanonetworks in the Terahertz Band

Graphene-enabled wireless communications set the Terahertz Band as the frequency band of operation of future nanodevices (0.1-10 THz). Amongst others, femtosecond-long pulse-based modulation schemes have been recently proposed to enable the communication among nanodevices. Within this context, a receiver architecture suitable for nanodevices must be ultra compact, must have high sensitivity and must be ultra-low power. Unfortunately, common receiver architectures used in other communication schemes, such as IR-UWB, show a strong compromise between low complexity and performance. In this paper, a novel receiver architecture for pulse-based communication based on a Continuous-time Moving Average (CTMA) symbol detection scheme is presented. This scheme bases its symbol decision on the received signal power maximum peak after the CTMA, which is implemented with a single low-pass filter. Moreover, an analytical model for the symbol detection is provided and it is quantitatively shown that the proposed CTMA scheme outperforms previous symbol detection schemes for pulse-based modulations in terms of Symbol Error Rate (SER). The low complexity and relaxed synchronization needed for this symbol detector makes this structure specially suited for the development of future transceivers for nano-devices.