Performance of coherent UWB Rake receivers with channel estimators

In this paper, the performances of DS-UWB and TH-UWB for a single-user link are compared for a data rate of 100 Mbps using the newly proposed, realistic UWB channel model from IEEE P802.15. The performance of suboptimal, fractionally spaced (FS), coherent Rake receivers with a pulse-matched filter is numerically evaluated with two channel estimation algorithms. DS-UWB and TH-UWB with antipodal modulation perform basically the same. The FS-Rake receiver performs much better than chip- and symbol-spaced Rake receivers. The best evaluated channel estimation algorithm gives only a fractional loss compared with the perfectly estimated channel. However, since TH-UWB is more difficult to synchronize, the conclusion is that DS-UWB is more suitable for high-speed indoor links.