Design and performance analysis of a space-time block coding scheme for single band UWB

Ultra wide-band (UWB) systems have recently attracted much research interest owing to their appealing features in short-range mobile communications. These features include high data rates, low power consumption, multiple access communications, and precise positioning capabilities. Space-time coding techniques, such as the block coding scheme or the trellis coding scheme, are known to be simple and practical ways to increase both the spectral efficiency and the capacity in wireless communications. So far, few contributions have looked over multiple-inputs-multiple-outputs UWB systems. In the paper, a method to adapt the space-time block coding technique to single band UWB signalling is proposed. A space-time block codec, based on orthogonal pulses to achieve spatial diversity and collect the multipath diversity is developed. A theoretical analysis is conducted to enlighten the performance enhancements provided by the proposed scheme compared to the classic single link scheme. Simulations support analysis, for various numbers of transmit and receive antennas, several types of channel scenarios, and different detection techniques. In a typical studied UWB environment, the results revealed that the proposed scheme improves the bit error rate performances compared to those of a single link scheme and it provides a strong immunity against timing jitter.