Packet Acquisition and Band-Tracking in Multi-Antenna UWB

MB-OFDM under RX Front-end Imperfections

Emil Dimitrov and Thomas Kaiser

Institute of Communications Engineering (IKT)

Leibniz University of Hannover
Appelstr. 9A, 30167 Hannover, Germany
emil.dimitrov@ikt.uni-hannover.de and
thomas.kaiser@ikt.uni-hannover.de

Abstract. Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has recently emerged as a response to the ever-
increasing demand for high-speed connectivity between consumer electronics, personal computing
and mobile devices operating within Wireless Personal Area Networks. However, the capacity
and coverage range of conventional single-antenna UWB MB-OFDM systems is still limited by
the available spectrum and level of transmit signal power, as defined by the FCC regulations.
As wireless systems are co-existing in a crowded and limited frequency spectrum, using antenna
arrays provides the unique ability to turn multi-path propagation, usually considered a pitfall
in communications, into an advantage and to satisfy the ever growing demand for higher user
data rates and bigger coverage range, or improve the system performance in fading environments.
Although OFDM-based systems prove to be effective against the effects of multipath propagation,
they are very sensitive to impairments in the analog front-ends of both TX and RX that distort
the orthogonality of the sub-carriers and thus limit the overall performance of the system. Among
these are mainly imperfections of the local oscillators - Carrier Frequency Offset, Phase Noise,
DC-offset, I/Q Mismatch and non-linearities of the power amplifiers, especially in the widely used
direct-conversion receivers.

This work is devoted to the study of the physical layer of multi-antenna UWB MBO systems.
Among its main goals is the extension of a standard-compatible MB-OFDM system to multiple-
antenna transmission based on Spatial Multiplexing schemes for an increase in capacity and im-
provement in the coverage range. A band-tracking packet detection and coarse time synchroniza-
tion algorithm is developed, implemented and verified in IEEE UWB Channel Model simulation
environments. Comprehensive study of the impact of imperfections in the RF front-ends on the
overall system performance is conducted, and frequency domain compensation techniques in the
RX baseband are proposed. The presented system proves to be fully operational, shows reliable per-
formance results and serves as a background for further research on the impact of analog front-end
impairments on UWB systems.

References
[1] A. Batra et al., ”TI Physical Layer Proposal for IEEE 802.15 Task Group 3a”, Texas Instru-
ments, May 2003.
[2] A. van Zelst, T. Schenk, ”Implementation of a MIMO OFDM-Based Wireless LAN System”,
IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 52, pp. 483-494, Feb. 2004.
[3] T. Schenk, P. Schmulders, E. Fledderus, ”Estimation and compensation of TX and RX IQ
imbalance in OFDM based MIMO systems”, IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium, Jan. 2006.