Section 8.5. Summary

8.5. Summary

Simulation of UWB communication systems, in contrast to the simulation of other communication systems, emphasizes the transient nature of UWB systems. Transient effects can include frequency-dependent pulse distortion imparted by RF components or the wireless channel, pulse dispersion produced by the antenna, or timing jitter generated by non-ideal oscillators. For traditional communication systems, these transient effects are only a small fraction of the symbol duration and can often be ignored. In UWB systems, they directly affect the performance of the overall communication system and must be included in the simulation. Additionally, sampling the pulse at a very high rate and then simulating every sample is an effective but highly inefficient methodology. Event-driven simulation techniques provide a much more efficient way to evaluate the performance of a UWB communication system.

This chapter has presented a discussion outlining several challenges introduced by the simulation of I-UWB systems, including architectural approaches and challenges unique to I-UWB systems, as well as the determination of models appropriate to I-UWB communication systems. Examples were provided for the simulation of pulse generation and modulation, amplification, antenna effects, and channel models. A thorough treatment of I-UWB simulation techniques would, unfortunately, require an entire book. In spite of these space limitations, we have hopefully provided sufficient coverage of the basic techniques to allow the reader to develop accurate and efficient simulations.