On Schmidl-Cox-like frequency estimation applied to UWB Impulse Radio systems

This paper presents a frequency offset estimation approach to ultra wide band Impulse Radio (UWB-IR) systems based upon the classical idea by Schmidl and Cox. The approach secures low complexity by exploiting the low duty cycle of the time hopping access, assures estimation robustness for all UWB-IR bands by working in the frequency domain, attains quasi optimal performances (at 0.5 dB from the Cramer Rao lower bound) by a careful settings choice, and accomplishes robustness at low signal to noise ratio by a suitable combining algorithm. Performance in a realistic IEEE 802.15.4a scenario are also provided.