Integration interval and threshold evaluation for an energy detector receiver with PPM and OOK modulations

In this paper, we are evaluating the performances of energy detector receiver with on-off-keying (OOK) and pulse position modulation (PPM) in ultra wideband (UWB) communications. Energy detector (ED) receivers are considered as a lowcomplexity and low-power consumption option for the more complex coherent receivers. Obviously, the tradeoff for low complexity is degraded detection performance. A challenge of the energy detector receiver is to define an optimized integration time and with OOK, defining the optimal energy threshold for the decision of the received bit. Here, we define these variables using two different channel models for comparison purposes: the IEEE 802.15.6 channel model 3 and a real, measured hospital channel model. Performance of the energy detector receiver with two different modulation methods, OOK and PPM, is compared using the two aforementioned channel models. The system model is based on the IEEE 802.15.4-2011 standard UWB physical layer signal structure and a modified version of it, suggested earlier.