Low-power ultra-wide band pulse generator based on a PIN diode

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags (passive kind) are typically not designed to include ultra-wide band (UWB) pulse generators, but may be in the future. The reason is that the very short pulses produced by the RFID tags could be used to estimate their positions with errors of solely a few centimetres using time difference of arrival techniques. Currently, the method most commonly used to estimate tag positions relies on received signal strengths (less accurate). An UWB pulse generator based on a PIN diode is presented in this study. This pulse generator was designed to produce a positive unipolar pulse for each high-to-low transition (1.8 V to 0) it receives at its input. This trigger signal is generated by a microntroller-based battery-free RFID tag. The end result is a pulse with an amplitude of ~300 mV and a duration of slightly <;2 ns measured using a 50 Ω load.