Capacity bounds for an ultra-wideband channel model

There is an ongoing effort by the IEEE 802.15.3a subcommittee to reach a UWB personal area network standard. We estimate the achievable rates for such networks using a channel model specified by the same group. The analysis of this channel model is of interest in light of recent information-theoretic work on multipath fading channels which show that in order to take full advantage of such channels' capacity the transmitted signals have to be "peaky" in a certain sense. The immense bandwidth of the UWB channel also suggests at first that peaky signals should be used. However, unlike the many other wireless systems where the transmitter energy is limited, in the UWB channel only the power spectral density of the transmitted signal is constrained. As a result, the signal power can grow in proportion to the utilized bandwidth and peaky signals are not needed.