Pulse interval modulation for UWB communications with energy detection

Performances of pulse interval modulation (PIM) used in energy-detection-based ultra-wideband (UWB) communications have not been addressed in the literature. This article discusses basic properties of PIM in UWB channel environment. The modulation scheme suitable for impulse radio UWB systems is presented. Transmission efficiencies and error performances of the PIM-based UWB system are analyzed and numerical results are provided in one of IEEE 805.15.4a channel models. It is shown that for the same modulation order, the error performance of PIM is inferior to that of position modulation (PPM), but PIM has a significant advantage over PPM on transmission efficiency. With high modulation orders, PIM achieves better error performances than on-off keying (OOK) at the cost of certain data rate.