A Non-Coherent 802.15.4a UWB Impulse Radio

Abstract

The new IEEE 802.15.4a standard for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) extends the capabilities of its popular predecessor IEEE 802.15.4, and enables accurate range/distance estimation between communicating devices. In addition to its ranging capabilities, the new standard also defines several new data rates ranging from 100 kb/s to 27Mb/s and a variety of options that give IEEE 802.15.4a compliant devices a high degree of flexibility and scalability. In this article we describe our implementation of an UWB impulse radio device, which is compliant with the 802.15.4a standard. Our implementation uses non-coherent energy-detection based receivers both to demodulate data and to detect ranges. We will present our prototype system and discuss some implementation details (energy detection, sampling rates, acquisition/synchronization) specific to non-coherent receivers. The performance of our prototype system is discussed as well. The reported range estimation error is less than 30cm, which agrees well with theoretical predictions. IEEE International Conference on Ultra-Wideband (ICUWB)This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprofit educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. estimation between communicating devices. In addition to its ranging capabilities, the new standard also defines several new data rates ranging from 100 kb/s to 27 Mb/s and a variety of options that give IEEE 802.15.4a compliant devices a high degree of flexibility and scalability. In this article we describe our implementation of an UWB impulse radio device, which is compliant with the 802.15.4a standard. Our implementation uses non-coherent energy-detection based receivers both to demodulate data and to detect ranges. We will present our prototype system and discuss some implementation details (energy detection, sampling rates, acquisition/synchronization) specific to non-coherent receivers. The performance of our prototype system is discussed as well. The reported range estimation error is less than 30cm, which agrees well with theoretical predictions.

An Ultra Wideband Survey: Global Regulations and Impulse Radio Research Based on Standards

“…A. Implemented Systems [39] - [61] The majority of the articles concerning hardware implementation can be roughly sub-divided into prototype studies [40]- [50], pulse generation [51]- [55], and power consumption/efficiency studies [56]- [59].…”

“…The work in [40] introduces one of the first published WPAN standard compliant prototypes. The authors demonstrate a system with non-coherent receivers capable of both data transmission and ranging with 15 cm accuracy up to 10 m distance using the authors' own designed algorithm.…”

Distance Bounding with IEEE 802.15.4a: Attacks and Countermeasures

“…The choice of transmitter is of little consequence to our investigation, any standard-compliant transmitter is acceptable, e.g., [19], [20]. We consider two types of receivers: a low-complexity and low-cost non-coherent energy-detection receiver, and a sophisticated coherent rake receiver.…”

Effectiveness of distance-decreasing attacks against impulse radio ranging

“…The choice of transmitter is of little consequence to our investigation, any standard-compliant transmitter is acceptable [26,27]. The architecture of the receiver used by honest devices is described in Section 2.3.…”