Optimal receiver bandwidth for energy-detection PPM UWB systems

Non-coherent UWB receivers are often implemented using energy detection architectures which are very sensitive to noise in the channel and interference. Therefore, the receiver bandwidth plays an important role since the total noise and interference energy is proportional to this bandwidth. This work provides analytical expressions to find the optimal receiver bandwidth and quantifying the effect on the bit-error-rate (BER) due to channel noise and adjacent-channel interference (ACI). A reduction in receiver bandwidth beyond the optimal point is shown to have minimal impact on BER performance when ACI is negligible.