Optimal Sampling and Processing of an Impulse Radio Signal Subjected to Narrow Band Interference

In this paper the sampling, quantization and processing of an ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio (IR) receiver signal is considered when the propagation link is subjected to additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and narrow band interference (NBI) which may be non-Gaussian. The Neyman Pearson log likelihood ratio formulation results in receiver processing that consists of a Generalized Matched Filter (GMF) and linear sampling which exploits the correlation of the NBI noise to effectively suppress it. However, the processing requirements to implement the GMF are prohibitive in the context of an UWB IR. Hence an alternate highly efficient processing scheme based on crude 2 and 3 level quantization with maximum ratio combining (MRC) Rake processing is considered and analyzed. As demonstrated in this paper, the 3 level quantizer is an excellent compromise between receiver performance and computational efficiency and can in some cases exceed the performance of a comparable Rake receiver using linear sampling. This happens in some practical instances when the noise is non-gaussian as will be demonstrated. John Nielsen obtained his BASc and MSc from the University of Toronto in 1981 and 1983 respectively and his PhD from the University of Ottawa in 1990. He became a faculty member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Calgary in 2002 as an Associate Professor. He is also an affiliated researcher with Telecommunications Research Laboratory of Calgary. His primary research interests are in physical layer wireless communication systems. Prior to his faculty position, Dr. Nielsen was with Research in Motion and Nortel.