A New Modulation Scheme for Rapid Blind Timing Acquisition using Dirty Template Approach for UWB Systems

Timing acquisition is one of the major challenges in ultra-wideband (UWB) communications. The timing with dirty template (TDT) approach is an attractive technique for UWB systems, which is characterized by its low complexity and fast acquisition in the data-aided (DA) mode. However, in the non-data-aided (NDA) mode, the performance of this approach degrades due to the random symbol effect. In this paper, we propose to overcome this issue by adopting orthogonal pulse-shape modulation (PSM) proposed in L.B. Michael et al. (2002), (M. Pinchas and B.Z. Bobrovsky, 2003). Our algorithm uses a train of alternating orthogonal Hermite pulses to modulate the transmitted symbols. The application of the TDT approach to the proposed scheme shows an enhancement of synchronization speed in the NDA mode. Simulations confirm performance improvement of TDT with the proposed modulation relative to the original TDT in terms of the mean square error (MSE) and the acquisition probability.