Ultra-Wideband Wireless Link Characterization Utilizing Software Radio

The object of this doctoral dissertation is the study of wireless transmission and reception of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) signal. Moreover, this thesis focuses on software radio techniques. A theoretical study of the reception system is derived using the criterion of the probability of error as a function of channel estimation, noise, analog to digital restrictions and the characteristics of the digital matched filtering for signal detection. An UWB transmitter has been implemented. The transmitter is fully reprogrammable and is able to transmit UWB pulses using pulse position modulation as well as on-off keying modulation. Within this thesis, wireless transmission and reception has been realized, using the transmitter that we designed and constructed and a digital oscilloscope. The stages of reception and signal processing are performed by software on a personal computer. Furthermore, an appropriate experimental procedure has been introduced in order to characterize the indoor wireless channel. In addition, a proper type of UWB antenna has been studied experimentally and via simulations.