The ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has a vast unlicensed frequency spectrum, which can support precise indoor positioning in orders of centimeters. The features of UWB signals can be utilized for variety of applications. In this project first we present an empirical channel models to analyze the localization accuracy of the UWB technology for interactive electronic gaming (Ping-Pong) in Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Obstructed LOS (OLOS) scenarios. Then we introduce a new concept that we refer to as micro-gesture detection to handle the more refined motions of the hand, such as rotation, while one antenna is held by the user using features of UWB signal. We use four specific features of the UWB signals: time of arrival, power of the first peak, total power, and the Root-Mean Square (RMS) of the delay spread, for this purpose. As the hand rotates the position of the antenna in the hand and the external antenna changes from LOS to OLOS. We demonstrate that features of the UWB signals are more useful than the RSS signal of the Wi-Fi to detect this class of micro-gestures. We foresee this micro-gesture detection capabilities become helpful for the people with limited ability or visually impaired for implementation of simplified sign language to communication with electronic devices located away from a person. We compare gesture detection using multiple features of the UWB signal with traditional gesture detection using the received signal strength (RSS) of the Wi-Fi signal.

Une communication est impulsive chaque fois que le signal portant des informations est intermittent dans le temps et que la transmission se produit à rafales. Des exemples du concept impulsife sont : les signaux radio impulsifs, c’est-à-dire des signaux très courts dans le temps; les signaux optiques utilisé dans les systèmes de télécommunications; certains signaux acoustiques et, en particulier, les impulsions produites par le système glottale; les signaux électriques modulés en position d’impulsions; une séquence d’événements dans une file d’attente; les trains de potentiels neuronaux dans le système neuronal. Ce paradigme de transmission est différent des communications continues traditionnelles et la compréhension des communications impulsives est donc essentielle. Afin d’affronter le problème des communications impulsives, le cadre de la recherche doit inclure les aspects suivants : la statistique d’interférence qui suit directement la structure des signaux impulsifs; l’interaction du signal impulsif avec le milieu physique; la possibilité pour les communications impulsives de coder l’information dans la structure temporelle. Cette thèse adresse une partie des questions précédentes et trace des lignes indicatives pour de futures recherches. En particulier, nous avons étudié: un système d'accès multiple où les utilisateurs adoptent des signaux avec étalement de spectre par saut temporel (time-hopping spread spectrum) pour communiquer vers un récepteur commun; un système avec un préfiltre à l'émetteur, et plus précisément un transmit matched filter, également connu comme time reversal dans la littérature de systèmes à bande ultra large; un modèle d'interférence pour des signaux impulsifs. / A communication is impulsive whenever the information-bearing signal is burst-like in time. Examples of the impulsive concept are: impulse-radio signals, that is, wireless signals occurring within short intervals of time; optical signals conveyed by photons; speech signals represented by sound pressure variations; pulse-position modulated electrical signals; a sequence of arrival/departure events in a queue; neural spike trains in the brain. Understanding impulsive communications requires to identify what is peculiar to this transmission paradigm, that is, different from traditional continuous communications.In order to address the problem of understanding impulsive vs. non-impulsive communications, the framework of investigation must include the following aspects: the different interference statistics directly following from the impulsive signal structure; the different interaction of the impulsive signal with the physical medium; the actual possibility for impulsive communications of coding information into the time structure, relaxing the implicit assumption made in continuous transmissions that time is a mere support. This thesis partially addresses a few of the above issues, and draws future lines of investigation. In particular, we studied: multiple access channels where each user adopts time-hopping spread-spectrum; systems using a specific prefilter at the transmitter side, namely the transmit matched filter (also known as time reversal), particularly suited for ultrawide bandwidhts; the distribution function of interference for impulsive systems in several different settings.

Inductors are extensively used in the design of radio-frequency circuits. In the last decade, the integration of passive components, especially inductors on silicon chips, has led to the widespread development and implementation of Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs) in CMOS technologies. However, on-chip passive inductors occupy a large silicon chip area and hardly scale down with technology scaling. Therefore, on-chip passive inductors become formidable obstacles to the realization of highly dense RFICs to be integrated with other highly dense digital circuits on a single chip using a common fabrication process. In recent years, researchers have focused on replacing passive inductors with transistor-only active circuits, namely active inductors. Active inductors can be realized with only a few transistors, which scale down with technology scaling. Therefore, they occupy a fraction of the chip area of their passive counterparts, and can be implemented densely in CMOS processes. Unlike passive inductors, bias dependent operations of active inductors allow for the tuning of their inductance and quality factor Q, and in turn, tuning the performance parameters of RFICs. This thesis focuses on the design and development of passive inductorless CMOS RFICs for ultra-wideband (UWB) receiver front-ends using active inductors. A new Q-enhanced and a new bandwidth-extended tunable active inductors are designed. Using the Q-enhanced active inductor, two tunable UWB low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) (two-stage and three-stage UWB LNAs), a UWB mixer and a wideband local-oscillator (LO) driver are designed. Active inductors are utilized to develop a novel wideband active shunt-peaking technique that decreases high-frequency losses to yield a flat gain over a wide bandwidth. A tunable multiband-UWB front-end integrating a two-stage UWB LNA, and a pair of UWB mixers driven by a pair of wideband LO drivers, is fabricated in a 90nm digital CMOS process. The passive inductorless two-stage UWB LNA, three-stage UWB LNA and UWB front-end occupy chip areas of only 0.0114mm2, 0.0227mm2, and 0.1485mm2, respectively. The active CMOS UWB front-end exhibits a measured flat gain of 22.5dB over 2.5-8.8 GHz bandwidth, and its tunability allows for varying the gain and bandwidth. / Integrated Circuits and Systems

Modern wireless communication systems call for ultra wideband operations to meet the continuous growth in the number of users of these systems. Since antenna is an integral part of any wireless communication system (transmitter or receiver), designing antennas with good gain over large bandwidth needs to be considered first. To meet the popular demand, wireless communication systems should be as cheap as possible which require antennas with small size, light weight, low profile and low cost, and that are easy to fabricate and assemble. A type of antenna that satisfies most of these requirements is the microstrip antenna. Most of the wideband techniques for microstrip antennas utilize complicated geometries such as stacked multiple metal/dielectric layers, complicated feed arrangements etc., which elude the primary attraction of microstrip antennas. On the other hand, single layer suspended configurations are considered the best choice as these are simple to fabricate and assemble. The objective of this research is to investigate simple microstrip antennas with large bandwidth. A single layer suspended microstrip configuration was chosen for the purpose. In the first part of the research, the bandwidth was increased to about 50% with linear phase characteristics by optimizing the feed configurations while retaining the overall simplicity. This study has resulted in proposing a criterion for obtaining maximum bandwidth in the suspended microstrip configuration. An analytical model has been developed for such an antenna configuration. Although several analytical tools are available for the microstrip antenna analysis, equivalent circuit based approach proves to be a simple one and offers convincingly accurate results. Another advantage of the proposed equivalent circuit modeling scheme is that it is suitable for computer aided design (CAD). In order to make this approach even more useful, the antenna designed in the first part was modified to meet desired specifications such as reduction in the air gap to make the antenna compact, symmetrical patterns, making antenna circularly polarized (LHCP or RHCP) without changing the feed configuration. Nearly symmetrical patterns were obtained throughout the band of operation by modifying the profile of patch close to the feed strip. Circular polarization (CP) operation has been obtained from the basic antenna by cutting a diagonal slot on the radiator patch. Here the slot orientation decides the type of CP i.e., LHCP or RHCP. In this work obtained of 7.1% axial ratio (3dB) bandwidth with other characteristics unaffected. The overall height of the antenna is reduced by 55% by cutting a slot and re-optimizing the feed strip dimensions. These studies emphasize flexibility offered by the design approach in realizing practical antennas for various applications.

Effective construction management involves real-time decisions regarding the progress of specific activities, the location of materials and equipment, and the construction site safety. The decision making process can be improved using real-time positioning technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) systems, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Ultra Wide Band (UWB) sensors. While the GPS is not applicable to indoor positioning and RFID tags cannot provide a fully automated system for position location, the characteristics of UWB systems make this technology a strong candidate for a fully automated positioning system in an indoor construction environment. This thesis presents a comprehensive study of the performance of UWB systems in a controlled laboratory environment and in an institutional construction site in Waterloo, Canada as well as for a particular safety application. A primary objective of the research was to establish the accuracy of real-time position location under various conditions, including the effect of different construction materials (e.g., wood and metal), and to analyze changes in the accuracy of position location as construction progresses and the indoor environment physically evolves. Different challenges faced in implementing such a system in an active construction environment are addressed. Based on a statistical analysis of laboratory data, and considering the construction site experience, the reliability of the UWB positioning system for the aforementioned environments is discussed. Furthermore, an automated safety system is proposed using the real-time UWB positioning technology. Based on the error modeling of the UWB position location, an optimum alarming algorithm is designed for the proposed safety system and the reliability of such system is evaluated through a statistical analysis.

Die extrem große Bandbreite, die UWB-Systeme zur Übertragung von Daten nutzen können, ermöglicht theoretisch eine sehr hohe Datenrate. Eine mögliche Umsetzung der UWB-Technologie ist die sogenannte Multiband-Impuls-Radio-Architektur (MIRA). Dieses UWB-System basiert auf der Übertragung von Daten mittels kurzer Impulse parallel in mehreren Frequenzbändern. Als Empfänger kommen einfache Energiedetektoren zum Einsatz. Diese Komponenten haben entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Leistungsfähigkeit des gesamten Systems. Deshalb liegt der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit auf der Untersuchung der Leistungsfähigkeit und im speziellen der Herleitung der Bitfehlerwahrscheinlichkeiten für Energiedetektoren in unterschiedlichen UWB-Kanälen. Aufgrund des sehr einfachen Aufbaus eines Energiedetektors wird dieser auch in vielen anderen Bereichen eingesetzt. So werden Energiedetektoren zur Detektion von freien Bereichen im Übertragungsspektrum bei Cognitive Radio und für weitere unterschiedliche Übertragungssysteme wie z.B. Sensorsysteme mit geringer Datenrate und Übertragungssysteme die zusätzlich Ortung ermöglichen, genutzt.

The Ultra-Wideband (UWB) channel is a dense multipath channel. The system performance and design complexity issues of selective-Rake receiver (SRake) are studied. Rake receiver has difficulties achieving desired system performance in the dense multipath environment. The main ideas of SRake receiver are to obtain the SNR level on known multipath channel and determine the desired number of Rake fingers. In the implementation of the SRake, the CLEAN algorithm is used in selecting the paths with relatively high energy. We can improve the performance of SRake receiver by increasing the accuracy of path selection. By the property of local maximum peak within the smaller partition, Two-Stage CLEAN algorithm acquires the more accurate delay time of multipath. In order to mitigate the sidelobe effect and noise interference, the key assumption in the Deng¡¦s Modified CLEAN algorithm is that using average amplitude around the considered data change as the criterion to determine if the data value is a true path. In this thesis, we investigate CLEAN, Two-Stage CLEAN and Deng¡¦s Modified CLEAN algorithm in three different systems including UWB-Impulse Radio, Pulse Radar and DS-UWB. From the performance comparison, it can be seen that the Two-Stage CLEAN algorithm that has the highest accuracy of path selection in UWB system.

There are large groundplane variations for the folder-type mobile phone in the talk and idle conditions, which makes its embedded antennas not easy to maintain good radiation characteristics in the two states. The radiation efficiencies in the idle condition are often less than 15%. To solve this problem, two novel antennas for the folder-type mobile phone are proposed. The first antenna is the coplanar coupled-fed planar inverted-F antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS operation in the talk condition, and the radiation efficiencies over the desired operating bands in the idle condition is larger than 32%, which is acceptable for practical applications for the folder-type mobile phone. The second antenna is the ultra-wideband coupled-fed loop antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS/UMTS penta-band operation in the talk condition. In the idle condition, good performances over the five operating bands can still be obtained, and the radiation efficiencies are better than 53%. The effects of the housing and the user's hand and head on the antenna are also studied. From the obtained results, it is seen that the effects of the housing on the radiation efficiencies are small. However, since the user's hand and head are high-loss materials, large decrease in the radiation efficiencies is usually observed.

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