CAREER: High-Performance Ultra-Wideband Radio Design

University Of Texas At Dallas, Richardson TX

Investigators

Abstract

0134629 Namgoong Ultra-wideband (UWB) radio systems are emerging as one of the key technologies for high bandwidth digital wireless communications. The rationale for deploying UWB radio systems lies in the benefits of exceptionally wide bandwidths: covertness (very low power density signal), very accurate ranging (down to a few centimeters), good material penetration (at low frequencies) and high performance in dense multipath (because of fine time resolution). A common concern among UWB proponents is that an integrated, high-performance radio may not be achievable, because of the extremely high bandwidth, dynamic range, and clock speeds required. Such concern appears to lead to two alternative development paths. In the first, the UWB radio system is scaled down to operate at a much reduced bandwidth, compromising much of the benefits of an UWB system. In the other, advanced process technology with numerous discrete components is employed, albeit at the expense of significantly higher cost and power consumption. In this proposal, the PI presents a promising approach to realizing an integrated high-performance UWB radio using today's low-cost standard CMOS technology without compromising the signal bandwidth. To meet the design requirements of a high-performance UWB radio, which are currently far from being practical, he proposes an architecture that channelizes the incoming signal into frequency subbands, then processes them in parallel. By channelizing the incoming signal, the circuit requirements in both the analog front-end and digital back-end are dramatically relaxed, especially when large narrowband interfering signals are present. This research will demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed architecture for reception and transmission of UWB signals. He will provide a complete design framework based on a clear understanding of various design options and the corresponding trade-offs in performance and implementation complexity. Furthermore, he will demonstrate the feasibility and the advantages of the proposed architecture by realizing it on silicon. The goal is to design a high-performance single-chip UWB radio. Many of the concepts and techniques developed in the proposed research are not limited to UWB systems. They can be generalized to other high-bandwidth communication systems, such as high-speed satellite and wireline communication systems. A specific application that he plans to pursue in this project based on the techniques developed for the UWB radio is multimodal radios, which are radios that support multiple communication standards. The above research plan is coupled with an education plan that describes the PI's educational motivation and strategy at all levels of teaching. It includes specific plans to teach students how to learn, introduce a new class on communication transceiver design, instill high-quality oral and written skills, train research students with broad technical backgrounds, assist with university-sponsored outreach programs aimed at helping the neighboring area, and pursue applied research that is guided by the needs of our society.