Noncoherent IR-UWB Receiver Using Massive Antenna Arrays for Wireless Sensor Networks

Noncoherent impulse radio ultrawideband (UWB) receivers do not require channel state information and are also robust against pulse shape distortions. However, their performance is suboptimal, especially at low signal-to-noise ratios. In this article, we propose simple noncoherent UWB receivers for wireless sensor network applications using massive antenna arrays. Two receivers are proposed: based on instantaneous received UWB signal energy and based on weighted instantaneous received UWB signal energy. The proposed receivers use the law of large numbers resulting from the massive receiver arrays and utilize the large degrees of freedom available in a UWB multipath channel. Furthermore, the proposed receivers do not require training symbols for the estimation of decision threshold. Both these receivers outperform the existing noncoherent receivers as verified using simulation results on the standardized IEEE 802.15.4a UWB multipath channel.