Analysis of the QAC IR-UWB Receiver for Low Energy, Low Data-Rate Communication

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. I, Regular papers Vol. 55; no. 8; pp. 2423 - 2432
• Main Authors: Verhelst, M., Dehaene, W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-09-2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Body area networks; Energy consumption; Energy efficiency; Gaussian noise; Impulse radio ultra-wide-band (IR-UWB); low data-rate; low power; Matched filters; Physical layer; quadrature analog correlation (QAC) receiver; Receivers; Transceivers; Ultra wideband technology; Wireless communication; low power; QAC receiver; energy-efficiency; Impulse Radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB); low data-rate
• ISSN: 1549-8328; 1558-0806
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSI.2008.918230

The interest in low energy, low data-rate communication is growing steadily, e.g., for use in sensor networks, body area networks, localization. The high energy efficiency required for these applications can only be reached by carefully balancing transceiver complexity, power consumption and performance. The quadrature analog correlation (QAC) receiver is an impulse radio ultra-wide-band (IR-UWB) receiver that pursues this optimal tradeoff. In this paper, the QAC receiver is studied into detail. This low complexity receiver benefits from a smartly chosen correlation template and simplified, but powerful channel compensation. Its feasibility is shown and implementation specifications are derived. Secondly, the receiver is compared against other ultra-low-power pulsed UWB receivers. The QAC receiver demonstrates an excellent energy efficiency in realistic channels both in the presence of Gaussian noise and in interference dominated environments.