Exact BER analysis of DS PPM UWB multiple access system under imperfect power control

Bit error rate (BER) performance of various UWB systems has been analyzed in numerous literatures. Most of the BER evaluation in these publications is based on some approximations. In this paper, we propose a method based on characteristic function (CF) to derive exact BER of DS UWB systems using pulse position modulation (PPM) under imperfect power control. In contrast to the widely used Gaussian approximation (GA) method, CF method deals with the exact distribution of total noise (including multiple-access interference and AWGN noise) other than making any assumptions on the distribution of total noise. Therefore CF method offers much more accurate BER prediction than GA method does. Our analytical derivations are validated by simulation results