Complex multipath effects in UWB communication channels

Multipath effects in complex environments can result in distortion and time elongation of received UWB pulses. These effects have been analysed using a ray tracing channel model with a PPM-TH modulation scheme and a RAKE receiver architecture. The resultant BER has been calculated using both this model and a generalised statistical model from the literature. Results indicate that the late arrival multipath components allowed for in the ray tracing model have a significant effect on system performance for bit rates of the order 100 Mbit/s. The generalised channel model is shown to be in general agreement with the ray tracing approach for low bit rate systems but somewhat optimistic for high bit rates in a complex multipath scenario.