Asymptotically optimal UWB receivers with noisy templates: design and comparison with RAKE

For pulsed ultra-wideband (UWB) radios, a major challenge in receiver design is to collect sufficient energy from ultrashort pulses exposing to strong multipath scattering. We develop a UWB receiver structure along with low-complexity timing synchronization and data demodulation schemes based on noisy templates (NTs). The NT receiver enjoys full multipath diversity, and achieves asymptotically optimal detection performance with robustness to mistiming. The detection error performance of the NT receiver is analyzed and compared with that of RAKE receivers, under realistic channel and timing estimation errors. Insights on the design tradeoffs of NT versus RAKE reception are provided, using unifying metrics that capture the relative importance of various performance-critical factors of individual receivers. The NT receiver outperforms the RAKE with a limited number of fingers under practical operating conditions.