Role of joint antenna-channel dispersions on UWB energy capture in pulsed schemes

It is currently assumed that distorting antennas are less performing than non distorting ones for pulse based ultra wide band (UWB) schemes. By systematically comparing the received signal to noise ratio (SNR) of distorting and of ideal antennas, we show here that such a belief is correct for coherent detection in line of sight or low multipath density channels, but not for dense channels. This statement is based on a simple discrete time analytical model of the input-output relation, and on simulations involving measured antennas and either measured channels or IEEE 802.15.3a simulated channels. In the case of energy integrating incoherent detection, antenna dispersion is also not a problem