Low-Complexity Multisampling Multiuser Detector for Time-Hopping UWB Systems

Multiple access interference (MAI) in time hopping (TH) ultra-wideband (UWB) systems is known to be non-Gaussian. Much previous research in TH-UWB receiver design has attempted to propose better single-user UWB detectors by introducing more accurate models for the distribution of the MAI. Recently, it was shown that some of the single-user receivers track closely the optimum achievable single-user performance. Although, these receivers are simple, all suffer from error rate floors, and hence limited user capacity. Multiuser detection (MUD) is considered for offering high performance at the cost of complexity that grows exponentially with the number of users. Thought to be too complex for low-cost UWB receivers, MUD applied in TH-UWB systems benefits from the low duty cycle implying that the number of effective interfering users is small compared to the number of active users. A novel low-complexity multisampling multiuser detector inspired by the inferiority of single-user receivers and the small number of effective interfering users in TH-UWB systems is proposed. Simulation results show that this detector achieves the performance of the conventional matched filter receiver operating in a single-user system.