Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband Modulation and

Detection Techniques for Body Area Networks

Igor Dotlic and Ryu Miura
Dependable Wireless Laboratory, Wireless Network Research Institute,
National Institute for Information and Communications Technology
3-4, Hikarino-oka, Yokosuka, 239-0847, Japan
Email: {dotlic, ryu}@nict.go.jp
(Invited Paper)

AbstractThe paper analyses several modulation and detection pairs for Impulse-Radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) Body
Area Networks (BANs). First, transceiver architectures with
and without chirp pulse compression are described. After that,
exact expressions for the bit error probabilities in noise are
given. At the end, numerical analysis is performed that includes
performances in noise and performances in multiple access
interference, which are especially critical for medical IR-UWB
BANs.
Index TermsUltra-Wideband (UWB); Transceiver Design;
Interference rejection techniques; Body Area Network (BAN).

I. I NTRODUCTION
Recently published IEEE 802.15.62012 standard for Body
Area Networks (BANs) [1] includes two Impulse-Radio UltraWideband (IRUWB) Physical Layers (PHYs); namely, Pulse
Position Modulation (PPM) PHY and Differential Phase Shift
Keying (DPSK) PHY. PPM PHY specs are included in order
for low-complexity Energy Detection (ED) receiver architectures to be able to be employed; in this sense the standard
follows the philosophy of IEEE 802.15.4a2007 IRUWB
standard [2] with its hybrid modulation. Nevertheless, it is
known that IEEE 802.15.4a2007 ED receivers are very sensitive to multiple access interference [3]. For this reason, IR
UWB BAN chips with ED receivers nearly compliant with
the IEEE 802.15.4a2007 standard [4] did not experience any
commercial success.
This shortcoming of ED receiver was the main motivation
to include in the standard specs for DPSK IR-UWB PHY. This
PHY promotes differentially coherent receiver architectures
which are considerably more resilient to multiple access
interference. This quality is very important in BANs, especially medical, where scenarios with many co-located BANs
are probable. Furthermore, in contrast with fully coherent
IRUWB receivers, envisioned by the IEEE 802.15.4a2007
standard, differentially coherent receivers need considerably
less channel information. The purpose of this paper is to
explore different IRUWB receiver architectures for PPM and
DPSK modulations and evaluate their performances in noise
and multiple access interference environments. Furthermore,
performances with and without chirp pulse compression [5]

are examined; this is also a link of this work to IEEE 802.15.6

2012 IRUWB PHY specs, since these includes chirp pulse
as a transmitted IRUWB waveform [1].
II. S YSTEM MODEL
A. Transmitted signal
The symbol waveform used is a single ideally linear chirp
pulse denoted c(t) with frequency sweep interval fc and
duration Tp [5]; it is either DPSK or binary PPM modulated.
Hence, the transmitted signal of the k-th symbol can be
expressed as
ak (t) = exp (jk ) c (t l(k)Th kTsym T bk )

(1)

where Tsym is the symbol duration, and Th < Tsym and l(k)
are the time-hopping resolution and sequence, respectively.
l(k) has the property l(k) {0, 1, . . . , bTsym /Th c}.
If the system uses Binary PPM (BPPM) modulation k = 0
is set and information bits bk {0, 1} modulate the position of
the chirp pulse with BPPM delay T . For DPSK modulation
bk = 0 is set and symbol phases k are differentially encoded
as
k+1 = k + k mod 2.
(2)
Here, k is the information-carrying phase. For DBPSK,
k {0, }, whereas for Gray-encoded DQPSK, k
{0, /2, , 3/2}. 0 is arbitrary as it serves only as a reference
phase for detection of 0 .
B. Received signal
The transmitted symbol waveform ak (t) passes through the
channel with impulse response hc (t) to produce a waveform
at the input of the receiver, denoted rk (t), which is given by
rk (t) = ak (t) hc (t),

(3)

where denotes convolution.

C. Receiver operation
Considered receiver architectures with quadrature baseband
signal processing is shown in Fig. 1. When the switch marked
S is in the lower position, the receiver is in a chirp receiver
configuration [5], while when S is in upper position receiver

vkQ (t, R )

90

hLP (t)

sQ
k (t, R )

rk (t)

zQ
k

Carrier pulse generator

R Detection
Chirppulse generator

vkI (t, R )

hLP (t)

sIk (t, R )

TABLE I
Pe CALCULATION PARAMETERS .

ADC

zIk
ADC

Fig. 1. Receiver architectures considered. Switch S in the upper position

gives a sampling receiver. Switch S in the lower position gives a chirp
receiver.

operates as a sampling receiver [5]. For the energy detection

of PPM modulated symbols analog detection implementation
may be preferred. Then, receiver architectures depicted in
Fig. 1 can be viewed as baseband equivalents of the receivers
with the analog detection.
Both receiver architectures considered sample a period of
time of duration Tp per position [5], i.e. one position per
symbol is sampled in the case of DPSK modulation and
two positions are sampled in the case of BPPM modulation.
Hence, for kth DPSK modulated symbol a vector of complex
samples zk of length M is sampled with a sampling period
Ts = 1/BLP , where BLP is the bandwidth of the low-pass
filter hLP (t), hence M = BLP Tp . Similarly, in the case of of
{0,1}
BPPM modulation two sample vectors are produced, zk .
Fading parameter is defined as a ratio of SNRs in
received signal and detection = (Eb /N0 )r /(Eb /N0 )s [5].
The difference between the sampling receiver and the chirp
receiver is that in the chirp receiver pulse compression occurs
[5]. Hence, BLP and thus M can be considerably lower in
the chirp receiver compared to the sampling receiver in which
the sampling rate equals fc , while is comparable in two
receivers [5].
III. D ETECTION SCHEMES CONSIDERED
A. SDPSK detection
SDPSK represents crosscorrelation of vectors of two consecutive symbols samples in order to detect the information
which is encoded in the difference between the symbols
phases:
dk = zH
(4)
k1 zk .
Vector zk1 can be considered as an estimation of a matched
filter which also includes a phase reference. Hence, instead of
correlating zk with a matched filter impulse response, as in
classic DPSK [6], it is correlated with zk1 . Thus, receiver
avoids increase of its complexity that comes from the symbol
signature estimation.
B. Energy Detection of BPPM symbols (EDBPPM)
In energy detection the decision variable for the k-th symbol, dk , is calculated as the difference between the energies
of vectors z1k and z0k :
2 2
dk = z1k z0k .
(5)

Mod./Det.

Pe

EDBPPM

Po

SDBPSK

Po

SDQPSK

Po

SDBPPM

2Po
1+2Po

2 2
p

1
32 2
2

2+ 2
p

1
3+2 2
2

C. Sample-wise differential detection of BPPM symbols (SD

BPPM)
Sample-wise differential detection of BPPM symbols (SD
BPPM) handles BPPM modulation similarly to how SDPSK
handles DPSK modulation. In SDBPPM the difference bek1 . Here, z
k is
tween vectors z1k and z0k is correlated with z
the estimate of zck vector of samples at the position at which
the symbol energy is located. In other words, bk = 1 produces
k = z1k and bk = 0 produces z
k = z0k . Decision variable for
z
the k-th symbol is calculated as
 H


k1 z1k z0k .
dk = < z
(6)
D. Probability of error in noise
When expressions for the bit-error probability for detection
schemes like (4) and (5) are derived in the literature, e.g., [7],
M is usually considered to be sufficiently large in order to
apply the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) and regard the distribution of the decision variable dk as approximately Gaussian.
However, with chirp pulse compression typical value of M
can be relatively small and hence CLT cannot be employed
with satisfactory accuracy.
For this reason the result derived in [8] and later rewritten in
the closed form in [6] is applied here; the result was originally
derived as a generalized bit-error probability expression for
narrowband multichannel non-coherent detection with equal
gain combining [6], however, it can be employed for the
decision variable formulations given here (4, 5, 6). It is stated
as

M 
X
1
2M m
1

Po = + 2M 1
2 2
M m
m=1

[Qm (a t , b t ) Qm (b t , a t )],

(7)

where Qm (, ) is a generalized Marcum Q-function of mth order, t = (Eb /N0 )s = (Eb /N0 )r / and rest of the
parameters together with relations between Po and probability
of bit error Pe are given in Table I for all modulation/detection
pairs considered.
IV. N UMERICAL ANALYSIS
A. Simulation parameters
For the numerical analysis a system with Tsym = 8.192 s,
Tp = 256 ns, Th = Tp and T = Tsym /2 is chosen.
Hopping sequences from the IEEE 802.15.62012 standard
[1] are employed. The chirp frequency sweep used is fc =

520 MHz which is also compliant with the IEEE 802.15.6

2012 standard specs [1]. Furthermore, duty cycle employed
DC = Tp /Tsym = 1/32 is the same as in the IEEE 802.15.6
2012 standard [1]. The value of Tp and thus Tsym used is high
enough for the chirp pulse compression to have a significant
impact on the signal dimension reduction [5]. Hence, when
a Nyquist sampling period of Ts = 2 ns is chosen for the
sampling receiver the dimension of the signal in detection is
M = 128. However, when Ts = 16 ns is chosen for the chirp
receiver, the the signal dimension is reduced to M = 16.
All simulations are performed on the IEEE 802.15.4a channel
model CM2 [9] at f0 = 8 GHz with 10,000 bits transferred at
every of 1000 channel realizations, which yields 10,000,000
bits transferred per simulation point. An integrate-and-dump
filter is used for low-pass filter hLP (t) as in [5], [10], [11] for
its low complexity.

EDBPPM, simulation
EDBPPM, theory
EDBPPM & chirp compression, simulation
EDBPPM & chirp compression, theory
SDBPPM, simulation
SDBPPM, theory
SD-BPPM & chirp compression, simulation
SDBPPM & chirp compression, theory
no compression and SDBPSK, simulation
no compression and SDBPSK, theory
chirp compression and SDBPSK, simulation
chirp compression and SDBPSK, theory
100

101

B. Performances in the presence of noise

C. Performances in multiple access interference environments

The simulated multiple access performances of the modulation/detection pairs considered here are shown in Fig. 3. Noise
level is set to (Eb /N0 )r = 30 dB. All interfering transmitters
have the same power at the receiver as the transmitter of
interest, i.e., the nearfar ratio is 0 dB. Interfering transmitters
use the same signaling parameters as the transmitter of interest,
i.e., the same Tsym and Tp , as well as the same set of hopping
sequences. Waveform used by interfering transmitters can be
either a chirp pulse identical to the one of the user of interest or
a short-pulse burst of the same duration. These short pulses are
Root Raised Cosine (RRC) pulses defined in IEEE 802.15.6
2012 standard [1] as well as IEEE 802.15.4a2007 standard
[2].
Fig. 3 shows that the performance of EDBPPM without
pulse compression does not depend on the type of interfering
waveform. This was expected, since EDBPPM integrates the
received signal energies in integration windows and different
waveforms of the same duration produce approximately the
same energy in the same time windows. A short-pulse burst
interfering waveform is considerably more attenuated in the
chirp pulse compression compared with the chirp pulse in ED
BPPM. Considerable performance enhancement achieved by
the chirp pulse compression in EDBPPM in the case of the

103
Pe

The performances of the three modulation/detection pairs

considered here, EDBPPM, SDBPPM, and SDBPSK, in
the presence of noise are shown in Fig. 2. All performances were attained for cases without and with chirp pulse
compression. Theoretical curves were calculated from (7)
with determined numerically for each channel realization
An excellent match between theory and simulation may be
observed. SDBPPM has roughly 2 dB better performance
compared with EDBPPM. Similarly, SDBPSK has about
2 dB better performance than SDBPPM. The reduction in
signal dimension achieved through the chirp pulse compression improves the performance by approximately 2 dB for all
modulation/detection pairs considered.

102

104

105

106

107

12

16

20

24

(Eb /N0 )r (dB)

Fig. 2. Performances in the presence of noise.

chirp interference can be explained by effective reduction of

the signal dimension in which the interfering signal needs to
be located in order to pass through the chirp pulse compression
with little or no attenuation.
Chirp pulse compression does not significantly improve the
performance of either SDBPPM or SDBPSK in the case
of chirp pulse interference. Here, unlike with EDBPPM, the
{0,1}
energy of the interfering signals that goes to zk and zk
is
not the only important parameter in the detection performance
of SDBPPM and SDBPSK. In both these detection schemes
interfering signals are cross-correlated with the useful signal
and other interfering signals. Having higher signal dimension
helps to suppress interference in the correlation operation,
since it makes the levels of cross-correlation with interfering
signals lower on average. The higher M of the sampling receiver compensates for the higher level of interference energy
that reaches the detection side.
Observed levels of suppression of short-pulse burst interfer-

Performance of EDBPPM may be regarded as acceptable

in noise, considering small ranges at which BAN devices
operate. However, it proved to be very poor in multiple access
interference. This can be critical in medical BAN applications,
hence EDBPPM is not recommended there. Introduced SD
BPPM detection technique can considerably improve multiple
access interference performance of BPPM detection. Furthermore, SDBPPM is also noncoherent and does not need
channel estimation; it does need, however, digital detection
implementation, since it has to memorizes previous symbol
waveform and analog delay lines are impractical for this
purpose.
As expected, SDBPSK showed to have the best performance of all modulation/detection pairs considered since
it uses a single position per symbol and cross-correlation.
Therefore, it allows less noise and interference in decision
variable compared to BPPM detection techniques considered.
Chirp pulse compression proved to be a useful technique
that via signal dimension reduction lowers both noise and
interference in detection and hence improves performance. Its
efficiency was especially visible in short pulse burst interference suppression.

no compression and EDBPPM, chirp interf.

no compression and EDBPPM, burst interf.
chirp compression and EDBPPM, chirp interf.
chirp compression and EDBPPM, burst interf.
no compression and SDBPPM, chirp interf.
no compression and SDBPPM, burst interf.
chirp compression and SDBPPM, chirp interf.
chirp compression and SDBPPM, burst interf.
no compression and SDBPSK, chirp interf.
no compression and SDBPSK, burst interf.
chirp compression and SDBPSK, chirp interf.
chirp compression and SDBPSK, burst interf.
100

101

102

Pe

103

R EFERENCES

104

105

106

107

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Number of interfering transmitters

Fig. 3. Performances in multiple access interference environments.

ence in the SDPPM and SDBSPK receivers with chirp pulse

compression are very high. Moreover, the level of performance
enhancement made possible by using chirp pulse compression
in the case of short-pulse burst interference is roughly the same
for all three modulation/detection pairs considered because of
the aforementioned effect of suppression of burst interference
in chirp compression.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
The paper analyzed performances of different modulation
and detection pairs found in IEEE 802.15.62012 IRUWB
standard for body area networks. The chirp pulse that is also
a part of IEEE 802.15.62012 IRUWB standard specs was
used. In order for the chirp pulse compression mechanism
to have a pronounced effect on the detection performance,
data rate was lowered compared to the mandatory data rate in
the standard and hence duration of the chirp pulse used was
increased.

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