UWB for multi-gigabit/s communications beyond 60 GHz

The recently allocated 71–76 GHz and 81–86 GHz bands provide an opportunity for realizing Line Of Sight (LOS) links for directional point-to-point “last mile” applications. An efficient use of this spectrum may allow wireless to finally “catch up” with wires, leading to systems such as “multi-Gigabit wireless Ethernet,” and “wireless fiber.” However, the transmission at such a frequency range is characterized by several additional challenges compared to lower frequency bands, from both technological and propagation point of view, which makes difficult to use them efficiently. In this scenario, IR (Impulse Radio) UWB (Ultra Wide Band) technology might offer some more degrees of freedom for the design of a highly integrated and low cost transceiver. This work has at its core the design and BER (Bit Error Rate) performance evaluation of an IR-UWB architecture based on an 85 GHz up-conversion stage of train of Gaussian pulses having duration lower than 1 ns. Finally, we compare performance of this architecture with the ones of a more traditional continuous wave communications system with FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) modulation. Simulation results show that BER performance, in presence of RF non-linearities, for an IR-UWB transceiver architecture operating at 85 GHz (with same data rate and bandwidth) are better than a coherent BFSK scheme working in a similar scenario. Finally, some conclusions are reported, pointing out the UWB antenna design and the future works related to the modeling of the channel at frequencies beyond 60 GHz and the implementation of the test bed.