A simple chip-discrimination technique is presented for use with ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio (IR) that improves performance for large near-far interference power ratios. A typical spread-spectrum IR that employs a matched-filter sum for bit decisions is susceptible to small numbers of large power pulses that can dominate the bit decision-threshold statistics. This letter describes a technique for chip discrimination prior to the spreading summation, that can greatly reduce the effects of large near-far power ratios among interferers. The technique exploits the very narrow pulsewidth and resulting low-duty-cycle characteristic only achievable with ultra-wide bandwidth. A statistical model is developed that predicts bit-error performance for binary offset pulse position modulation as a function of near-far density and power for varying discrimination thresholds. An analytic solution for perfect chip blanking is developed, and is in good agreement with chip discrimination for large near-far power ratios. We find that even a small number of very near interferers can greatly reduce the performance of a system without blanking or discrimination. Results show substantial improvement using this method for near interferers with near-far power ratios greater than 20 dB.

Impulse radio (IR) is a promising ultra-wideband technique for tactical military communications. A key feature of time-hopping IR are the very narrow pulses used to convey information. Analysis of such time-hopping schemes under a variety of assumptions have been reported in the literature. However, none of these studies to date consider the effects of timing jitter and tracking on time-hopping in a ultra-wideband (UWB) setting. We consider the effects of timing jitter and tracking on the performance of binary and 4-ary UWB communications. We find that the performance of IR is very sensitive to timing jitter and tracking, at least in part due to the very narrow pulses. We also find that in the presence of timing jitter and tracking, orthogonal 4-ary pulse position modulation (PPM) out performs binary offset PPM at all jitter levels in thermal and pulse noise. Simulation results are presented that quantify the sensitivity of binary and 4-ary IR to timing jitter and tracking error.