Timing Acquisition for Differential Transmitted Reference (DTR) Ultra Wide Band (UWB) Receivers: Architecture, Performance Analysis and System Design

In [1]–[3] we have presented a new two–step timing acquisition algorithm, we have outlined the suitability of Differential Transmitted Reference (DTR) receivers for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) timing acquisition in multipath channels and we have developed a general framework for performance analysis. In the present paper, we exploit the theoretical framework for the evaluation of UWB code and pulse timing acquisition in multipath fading scenarios. We first substantiate the framework developed in [1] via an extensive campaign of simulations and then illustrate various numerical results aiming at comparing the two–step solution with the simple one–step scheme and with Rake receivers. In particular, the specific contribution of this paper can be summarized as follows. i) We propose a robust technique for defining the set of “in–phase” cells from a Bit Error Probability (BEP) perspective. The approach relies only on the knowledge of the channel Multipath Intensity Profile (MIP), but can be used for each impulse response of the wireless channel. ii) We develop a very accurate yet simple analytical framework for the estimation of BEP with respect to synchronization errors. iii) We analyze and compare the performance of one–, two–step and Rake solutions with respect to one crucial design parameter for synchronization operations, i.e. the acquisition threshold. iv) We specifically investigate two approaches to estimate the Mean Acquisition Time (MAT) and the Overall Acquisition Probability (P ov D ) in multipath fading channels, i.e. “Tacq Average” and “Pd Average’, and we show that they