A new parameter for UWB indoor channel profile identification

This paper proposes a new parameter for identifying the room typology when the receiver is in ultra wideband (UWB) indoor environments. The method proposed does not imply any estimation process at the received signal. The proposed parameter is not only able to clearly distinguish between line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions, but it is also capable of ordering the quality of the received signal in two different LOS or NLOS rooms, although the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is the same. Moreover, this parameter is able to distinguish between LOS and NLOS macro groups clearly and, at the same time, to order conditions within these two macro groups (for example, clear LOS condition from Quasi-LOS, i.e., when an object partially shadows the link, etc.). The method proposed in this paper is based on the calculation of the kurtosis index of the sampled received signal. The kurtosis index can be successfully applied to the received signal in order to identify the typology of the link between transmitter and receiver (LOS, Quasi-LOS, high-NLOS, low-NLOS, extreme-low-NLOS). Results are achieved by both real measurements and simulations with IEEE802.15.3a and 4a channel models.