Multiple sensor node synchronization for parallel UWB communication and ranging

Using UWB for wireless short range, low rate communication is attracting growing interest due to its low power consumption and very high bandwidth. Regarding these qualities, it is comprehensible that there is an interest in the automation industry to use ultra wideband based wireless sensor nodes to replace wired systems, to save energy and to save costs without reducing the reliability of the whole system. Furthermore UWB has the ability to provide ranging information. For this reason synchronization performance of the standard IEEE.802.15.4a were investigated in order to reduce synchronization time and to allow ranging, bidirectional and multiple communication at the same time.