Maximum eigenvector based weighted non-coherent receiver for IR-UWB PPM signals

This paper proposes a maximum eigenvector based weighted non-coherent receiver (MEV-WNCR) for impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) systems with pulse position modulation (PPM). Capitalizing on the SNR maximization criterion, we derive the optimal combining weights for the MEV-WNCR as the maximum eigenvector of the received signal sample covariance matrix. Unlike the conventional WNCR, the a priori knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) and the noise variance are no longer indispensable for obtaining the combining weights and hence the MEV-WNCR serves as a non-data aided WNCR. Analysis and simulations illustrate that the symbol decision directed estimate (SDDE) of the maximum eigenvector possesses almost the same bit error ratio (BER) performance as the ideal one, and the MEV-WNCR yields significant improvement on the system BER performance, compared to the conventional NCR and WNCR.