Short integration time for inter-pulse interference mitigation in UWB communications

Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is foreseen to support a physical layer in Body Area Networks (BAN). The nature of the channel leads to the spread of the signal energy through the numerous paths from the reflexions in the environment. With such a multipath channel, inter-pulses interference (IPI) may occur if the channel delay spread is longer than the interval between two consecutive pulses. An energy detector (ED) receiver must define an appropriate integration time to collect enough energy as the integration period determines its performance. The wider the ED integration length is, the more energy is aggregated by the receiver, but also the more noise and IPI. The work presented thereafter aims at evaluating the choice of the integration length in a dense interpulse interference context from a multipath channel. The analysis presented shows the way a short integration period of the energy detector could improve the receiver performances by mitigating the negative impact of IPI in UWB communications.