Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-57). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Dec. 14, 2009). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta." Includes bibliographical references.

For low data rate ultra-wideband (UWB) communication systems employing non-coherent detection and autocorrelation detection schemes, timing of integration region significantly affects their error rate performance. Time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation of the first channel tap is also the foundation of the UWB based ranging applications. In this thesis, a data-aided, autocorrelation based timing and synchronization method is developed. First, estimation of the optimal integration region, i.e., the initial point and the length of the integration, using the new timing method is presented. It is shown that the proposed method enhances the error rate performance compared to non-optimal integration region-determining methods. After that, TOA estimation using the proposed timing method is studied for the dual pulse (DP) signal structure. The performance improvement of this approach over the conventional energy detection based method is demonstrated via simulation.

Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/08). Includes bibliographical references.