A differential detector for an ultra-wideband communications system

Systems using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology have been shown to achieve very high data rates (100 Mbps and above) for short-range, indoor applications. UWB signals exhibit a number of performance advantages in terms of multipath resolution and fading reduction. However, UWB systems can also exhibit significant implementation complexity in timing, synchronization, and signal correlation. This paper presents a differential detector that "rakes" in some of the multipath energy, while relaxing some of the stringent implementation requirements. We analyze the performance and the implementation of the differential detector, and compare it to a "RAKE" receiver with a correlator detector in the presence of AWGN and multipath.