Optimization of energy detector receivers for UWB systems

Practical and low complexity implementation of receivers is of vital importance for the successful penetration of the ultrawideband (UWB) technology. Energy detector receiver is an attractive solution for UWB signal reception trading off complexity with performance. In this paper, joint estimation of the optimal threshold, synchronization point, and integration interval for energy detection based ultrawideband signal reception with on-off keying (OOK) modulation is developed. Suboptimal reception derived from the optimal solution is also given for practical implementations. Gaussian approximation of the received signal statistics enables low complexity solutions at the expense of some performance degradation. The performances of the optimal and suboptimal solutions are evaluated and compared.