Analysis and design of a frequency-hopped spread-spectrum transceiver for wireless personal communications

Personal communications services (PCS) require low-power radio technologies. One such transceiver architecture employing frequency-hopped spread-spectrum techniques is presented. System features such as antenna diversity with equal-gain combining and sequential hop combining are incorporated into the transceiver design to achieve robust wireless digital data transmission over fading channels. A direct-conversion architecture from radio frequency (RF) to baseband reduces the overall power consumption by eliminating intermediate frequency (IF) components. High-rate frequency hopping with frequency-shift keying (FSK) modulation is implemented using a direct digital frequency synthesis technique. A multiplierless correlation FSK detector, suitable for direct-conversion receivers, has been designed for quadrature noncoherent detection. Robust acquisition algorithms based on energy detection and pattern matching and tracking architectures using digital phase-locked loops are also described for system synchronization. The proposed transceiver is well-suited for low-power PCS applications and other portable wireless communications.