A Novel Timing Acquisition Algorithm for Differential Transmitted Reference UWB Receivers

The timing acquisition constitutes a major challenge in ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR). The challenge is not only in detecting pulses with very short duration, but also in considering RMS delay spread caused by multipath channel. This paper presents a novel data-aided synchronization acquisition algorithm. With judiciously designed algorithm and training sequence, the proposed algorithm overcomes the impact of RMS delay spread. This algorithm is based on differential transmitted reference receivers. It can be applied for low complexity and low-data-rate (LDR) applications, such as sensors networks. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed acquisition algorithm has better performance in probability of detection than conventional acquisition algorithms. In addition it has low complexity.