An overview of synchronization algorithms for IR-UWB systems

Ultra wideband (UWB) radio has emerged as an attractive candidate for short-range wireless communications in recent years due to its unique features. However, implementation of UWB radios in order to utilize these features is coupled with some pronounced design challenges. To achieve precise timing synchronization is one of the most crucial task among them and is a key factor to ensure a reliable performance of such systems. In this paper, we present a brief review of IR-UWB synchronization algorithms which are based on either correlation or code matching or energy detection. The performance is then analyzed under realistic propagation environment that takes into account the severe multipath, inter-frame interference (IFI) & inter-symbol interference (ISI) and multi-user interference (MUI).