BER analysis in a generalized UWB frequency selective fading channel with randomly arriving clusters and rays

Abstract

In this paper, we present an analytical method to evaluate the bit error rate (BER) of the ultra-wideband (UWB) system in the IEEE 802.15.4a standardized channel model. The IEEE 802.15.4a UWB channel model is more general and based on more measurements than the earlier IEEE 802.15.3a model. It also poses new challenge in analyzing UWB performance in such a channel. First, the power delay profile become a function of randomly arriving cluster and ray arrival time. Second, the signal amplitude in the IEEE 802.15.4a channel is modeled by a Nakagami random variable of which the Nakagami fading parameter is log-normally distributed. Thus, the signal amplitude is a nonlinear function of a log-normally distributed random variable. By means of counting integral of Lebesgue measure theory, the analytical expression for the BER performance in the IEEE 802.15.4a UWB channel is presented. We apply this analytical model to investigate the impacts of various UWB channel parameters on the system performance and provide some useful insights into the design of UWB transceiver.