Non-Gaussian MAI modeling to the performance of TH-BPSK/PPM UWB communication systems

This paper investigates the impact of multiple access interference (MAI) on the performance of ultra-wideband (UWB) communication systems. Since the exact characteristic function for the MAI is not known and the Gaussian distribution is not considered an accurate model for approximating the probability density function (PDF) of the MAI in UWB systems. To this end; we approximate the PDF of the MAI by the Laplacian, Generalized Gaussian and the Symmetric α-Stable distributions. It has been shown that a Gaussian PDF is not a good approximation even when there are a moderately large number of interferers in the UWB system and the Generalized Gaussian distribution gives a much better approximation than both the Laplacian and Gaussian distributions. In this paper, it has been observed that the symmetric α-stable distribution gives the best approximation to the PDF of the MAI. The bit error rate (BER) performance of the time hopping UWB communication systems in the presence of MAI using these non-Gaussian modeling approaches is numerically investigated, validated with simulation results, and compared with the common Gaussian approximation.