All Optical Generation and Processing of IR UWB Signals

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1.1 Impulse Radio (IR) Ultra Wideband (UWB) Communications Ultra wideband (UWB) communication is a fast emerging technology that offers new opportunities such as high data rates, low equipment cost, low power, precise positioning capability and extremely low interference Ghawami (2005). A wide range of possible UWB communication system applications includes radars due to UWB ultra high precision ranging at the centimeter level, wireless personal area networks (WPAN), sensor networks, imaging systems, UWB positioning systems, etc. Yang (2004), Kshetrimayum (2009). From a commercial point of view, the high data rates are the most attractive feature of UWB systems for which speeds of over 100Mb/s have been demonstrated Ghawami (2005). There exist three main types of UWB technologies: impulse radio (IR UWB), direct sequence (DS UWB), and multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB OFDM) Ran (2009). IR UWB communication technique is essentially different from all other communication techniques because it is carrier free and uses for communication between transmitters and receivers very narrow radio frequency (RF) pulses generated from the UWB pulse generator, while traditional transmission systems transmit information by varying the power, frequency, and/or phase of a sinusoidal wave in a modulation process Kshetrimayum (2009), Yao (2007). Consequently, complicated frequency mixers and local oscillators for carrier frequency up and down conversion are not necessary Yao (2007). IR UWB modulation techniques are especially important because the UWB spectrum has been made available by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and it can be used with IRs developed to date Lin (2005). Waveforms for IR UWB are designed to obtain a flat frequency response over the bandwidth of the pulse and to avoid a DC component. The large spectrum of a UWB signal may interfere with existing users. In order to keep this interference to the minimum, FCC specifies spectral masks for different applications, i.e. the allowed power output for specific frequencies Ghawami (2005). A contiguous bandwidth of 7.5GHz is available in the frequency interval of (3.1− 10.6)GHz at a maximum power output of −41.3dBm/MHz which is considered as extremely low Ghawami (2005). The power spectral density (PSD) of UWB systems defined as a ratio of the transmitted power P in watts and a signal bandwidth B in hertz is extremely low as compared to other communication systems due to the very wide bandwidth B of short pulses that are typically of nanosecond or picosecond order Ghawami (2005). The selection of the impulse signal type for IR UWB communication system is essential since it determines