Joint synchronization and demodulation for IR-UWB

This paper addresses the problem of synchronisation and data demodulation for impulse radio ultrawideband systems. A novel non-coherent non-data aided joint synchronization and data demodulation algorithm is proposed. The scheme consist of a coarse estimation phase which is performed over a single symbol period, followed by a fine synchronization stage that estimates the timing with high accuracy based on a frequency domain ToA estimation algorithm. In turn, the demodulator exploits the high time resolution characteristics of UWB signals by taking decisions directly over the timing estimates.