Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology exploits modulated coded impulses over a wide frequency spectrum with very low power over a short distance for digital data transmission. Today's leading edge modulated sinusoidal wave wireless communication standards and systems achieve power efficiencies of 50 nJ/bit employing narrowband signaling schemes and traditional RF transceiver architectures. However, such designs severely limit the achievable energy efficiency, especially at lower data rates such as below 1 Mbps. Further, it is important that peak power consumption is supportable by common battery or energy harvesting technologies and long term power consumption neither leads to limited battery lifetimes or an inability for alternate energy sources to sustain them. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for next generation applications to exploit inventive transceiver structures and communication schemes in order to achieve the sub nJ per bit energy efficiencies required by next generation applications.

The invention relates to a method and device for estimating angle information (50) of a received ultra-wideband wireless signal. Upon reception of a wireless signal emitted from a transmitting device (20) with known sounding sequence, the receiving device (10) estimates the channel impulse response (CIR), selects a portion of the channel impulse response (CIR), and estimates angle information (50) given the angle-dependent antenna transfer functions of either the transmitting device (20), the receiving device (10), or both. For this, the selected portion of the channel impulse response of the signal is fed into a neural network (73) which outputs an angle information probability distribution for the ultra-wideband wireless signal (50).

The invention relates to a method and device for estimating angle information (50) of a received ultra-wideband wireless signal. Upon reception of a wireless signal emitted from a transmitting device (20) with known sounding sequence, the receiving device (10) estimates the channel impulse response (CIR), selects a portion of the channel impulse response (CIR), and estimates angle information (50) given the angle-dependent antenna transfer functions of either the transmitting device (20), the receiving device (10), or both. For this, the selected portion of the channel impulse response of the signal is fed into a neural network (73) which outputs an angle information probability distribution for the ultra-wideband wireless signal (50).

A polar transmitter is provided. The polar transmitter includes a baseband generation unit configured to generate phase data bits and amplitude data bits of an output pulse. The polar transmitter further includes a bandwidth control unit downstream to the baseband generation unit configured to regulate the width of the output pulse. Moreover, the polar transmitter includes a pulse shaping unit downstream to the bandwidth control unit configured to generate a predefined amplitude envelope of the output pulse. In this context, the pulse shaping unit includes a delay-line with a plurality of taps, where each tap output is configured to be amplitude weighted in order to generate the amplitude envelope of the output pulse.

A method is provided for radar ranging using an IR-UWB radar transceiver. The range is determined by measuring a time required by a transmitted pulse to be reflected by an object and returned to the transceiver. The method includes transmitting a ranging signal having a predetermined sequence of positive and negative pulses using a transmitter of the transceiver. A receiver of the transceiver receives a signal having a reflected portion and a feedthrough portion. In the method, the receiver cancels the feedthrough portion using a delayed pulse polarity signal such that when the delayed pulse polarity signal is multiplied and accumulated with the received signal, the feedthrough portion is canceled, and the reflected portion is amplified. In another embodiment, a transceiver is provided that cancels the feedthrough portion while amplifying the reflected portion. Cancelling the feedthrough portion allows short-range operation by removing a blind range of the transceiver.

An ultra-wideband pulse generator, for radio communication at frequencies of 2 to 11 GHz comprises an oscillator providing an output signal at carrier frequency F0 followed by a radiofrequency switching transistor and a control circuit controlling the gate of the transistor to turn it on for duration T corresponding to the desired duration of a UWB pulse. The control circuit is arranged to successively apply, during the same UWB pulse, a first gate voltage turning the transistor on with first internal resistance value for a first part of duration T, a second gate voltage that turns the transistor on with second internal resistance value, different from the first, for a second part of duration T. These internal resistances cause the oscillation to be attenuated differently for duration T of the pulse, allowing the spectrum of the pulse to maintain it within the spectral templates imposed by the radio communication standards.

An impulse radio (IR) ultra-wide band (UWB) transceiver adapted for a rake receiver is provided herein. This may be implemented as follows: on the transmitter side, the input data is converted to N-parallel streams having different delays, each stream is transmitted by an impulse radio signal with defined different carrier frequency. On the receiver side, the multicarrier RF signal is converted into base band signal, emulating multipath channels, so that rake receiver technique is used for an optimal demodulation of the received signal.

An ultra-wideband (“UWB”) communication system comprising a transmitter and a receiver. In one embodiment, the symbol mapper circuit in the transmitter is adapted, in a first mode, to develop symbols having the number of pulses as currently defined in the 4z Standard; and, in a second mode, to develop symbols having fewer pulses than as currently defined in the 4z Standard. In an optional third mode, each data bit is mapped to a single pulse.

A communication system comprising: a pulse generation system comprising one or more pulse repetition frequency (PRF) oscillators and one or more pulse generators wherein each PRF oscillator is connected to a pulse generator, and wherein each pulse generator is configured to generate a pulse; and three or more transmitters 310aN, wherein each transmitter is connected to the pulse generation system and wherein the pulse generation system is configured to send a pulse to each transmitter, each transmitter comprising: a pulse delay block configured to introduce a time delay to the pulse sent to the transmitter; and an antenna 314a-N.

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology exploits modulated coded impulses over a wide frequency spectrum with very low power over a short distance for digital data transmission. Today's leading edge modulated sinusoidal wave wireless communication standards and systems achieve power efficiencies of 50 nJ/bit employing narrowband signaling schemes and traditional RF transceiver architectures. However, such designs severely limit the achievable energy efficiency, especially at lower data rates such as below 1 Mbps. Further, it is important that peak power consumption is supportable by common battery or energy harvesting technologies and long term power consumption neither leads to limited battery lifetimes or an inability for alternate energy sources to sustain them. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for next generation applications to exploit inventive transceiver structures and communication schemes in order to achieve the sub nJ per bit energy efficiencies required by next generation applications.