Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, a system that facilitates receiving a first group of electromagnetic waves, wherein the first group of electromagnetic waves propagate along a first span of a transmission medium without requiring an electrical return path and without traversing a first supporting device or a second supporting device. The first span of the transmission medium is supported by the first supporting device and the second supporting device, and the first group of electromagnetic waves convey a first communication signal. The first communication signal is extracted from the first group of electromagnetic waves, and the first communication signal is transmitted to a communication device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

A pulse position modulation circuit includes a delay locked loop circuit configured to include a plurality of delay circuits coupled in a cascade, each of the plurality of delay circuits being configured to delay an input signal by a time width corresponding to a control signal so as to generate an output signal, a plurality of pulse generation circuits, each of which is configured to generate a pulse with a pulse width corresponding to a phase difference between a first signal and a second signal which have different phases from each other at different timings corresponding to states of the first signal and the second signal, each of the first signal and the second signal being the input signal or the output signal of the plurality of delay circuits, and a selection circuit configured to select pulses generated by the plurality of pulse generation circuits.

A pulse position modulation circuit includes a delay locked loop circuit configured to include a plurality of delay circuits coupled in a cascade, each of the plurality of delay circuits being configured to delay an input signal by a time width corresponding to a control signal so as to generate an output signal, a plurality of pulse generation circuits, each of which is configured to generate a pulse with a pulse width corresponding to a phase difference between a first signal and a second signal which have different phases from each other at different timings corresponding to states of the first signal and the second signal, each of the first signal and the second signal being the input signal or the output signal of the plurality of delay circuits, and a selection circuit configured to select pulses generated by the plurality of pulse generation circuits.

A narrowband impulse radio system includes a transmitter, transmitting a plurality of harmonic signals, and a receiver, receiving the signals, wherein the signals cooperate in a constructive alignment to yield a narrowband impulse signal of amplitude approximately equal to the sum of the amplitudes of the plurality of harmonic signals. The transmitter or the receiver may employ a plurality of phase shifters to effect the cooperation in the transmitted or received signals, respectively. The harmonic signals cooperate to yield a quasi-DC signal whose pulse rate equals the fundamental harmonic frequency. In a preferred embodiment, the narrowband impulse transmitter further includes a plurality of transmit modules each transmitting one of the plurality of harmonics. The plurality of transmit modules may employ magnetic antennas characterized by a magnetic axis aligned at an angle of approximately 55 degrees relative to a common axis, or in other embodiments, may employ mechanically rotating permanent magnets.

In an ultra-wideband (UWB) communication system comprising a pair of UWB transceivers, methods for securely performing channel sounding. In a first GCP Sync method, a pre-determined set of Golay Complementary Pairs is added to an 802.15.4a frame. In a second CLASS method, a cyphered low auto-correlation sum set is added to frame. In a third LCSSS method, a low cross-correlation sidelobe sum set is added to the frame. In general, these methods are adapted to transmit a pseudo-randomly generated codeset which may have inherent sidelobe distortions, and then, in the receiver, to compensate for this, and any channel-induced, distortion by selectively modifing the cross-correlation codeset.

Disclosed herein is a design, simulation, and hardware build of a photonic compressed sensing Nyquist folding receiver that is able to directly undersample wideband RF signals and detect the original Nyquist zone and frequency information. According to an exemplary embodiment, this is achieved by generating a frequency modulated optical impulse train for directly undersampling the RF environment at the antenna. The impulse train undersamples the signals using an optical modulator configuration at 1550 nm and collects the detected samples in a low pass interpolation filter which is subsequently processed to extract the undersampled signals.

A pulse generator comprising: a first signal generating arm comprising a first inductor and a plurality of switching elements, each arranged to draw current through the first inductor; and a controller arranged to activate the plurality of switching elements in a predetermined sequence so as to generate a predetermined pulse waveform at a pulse generator output. The switching elements of the signal generating arm and the inductor together form a pulse synthesizer that takes the signal from the controller and uses it to synthesize an output pulse. Compared with conventional transmitter architectures, the functions of the upconversion mixer, the DAC, and the power amplifier are all performed by a single simplified circuit. This is both area efficient and power efficient.

Aspects described herein include devices and methods for smart ultra wideband transmissions. In one aspect, an apparatus includes pulse generation circuitry configured to output a plurality of transmission (TX) pulse samples at a selected signal sample rate, where each pulse sample of the plurality of TX pulse samples comprises a value associated with a pulse amplitude at a corresponding sample time The apparatus includes a plurality of power amplifier (PA) cells, with each PA cell of the plurality of PA cells comprising a corresponding current source and associated gates, and where the associated gates of a PA cell are selectable to configure an on state and an off state. Logic circuitry of the apparatus is configured to set the on state or the off state for each PA cell.

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.

In ultra-wideband or impulse radio terahertz wireless communication, the electromagnetic signal may experience group delay dispersion (GDD). Without correction, this can degrade the achievable data transmission rate. An apparatus comprising a stratified structure having a front portion and a back portion is disclosed. The structure comprises a plurality of adjacent layers of differing refractive indices, wherein each layer has a refractive index different from an immediately adjacent layer. The structure further includes a backing layer at the back portion. The structure defines a GDD, which can be adjusted, and the structure is configured to introduce the GDD to an incident electromagnetic signal and thereby produce a dispersion-compensated electromagnetic signal when the incident signal is reflected by the structure. The GDD of the structure is configured to substantially cancel out the dispersive effects experienced by the electromagnetic signal in the signal path.