Non-coherent TOA estimation in IR-UWB systems with different signal waveforms

In this paper, signal waveform designs for TOA estimation with non-coherent receivers based on ultrawideband impulse radio are discussed. Four different transmit signal waveforms are analyzed, both with respect to their design constraints, and their precision ranging performance in IEEE 802.15.4a multipath channels. We introduce novel searchback and thresholding algorithms, and show that the ranging performance can be improved considerably with a-priori knowledge of noise variance. Simulation results show that it is possible to achieve sub-meter ranging accuracy with 90% confidence by using such energy detecting (non-coherent) receivers.