Characterization and Modeling of an Experimental UWB Pulse-Based Distance Measurement System

This paper presents a distance-measuring system based on the accurate round-trip time-of-flight measurement of single ultrawideband pulses propagating between two transceiver devices. The architectures of two realized devices, which are referred to as the master and the slave, are described. The master device implements the time-interval measuring function by means of a time-to-digital converter (TDC) integrated circuit, whereas the slave acts as a pulse repeater. Both devices are designed for low-cost realization and low-power operations. Furthermore, two pulse-detection modules are described based on signal-threshold and energy detection, respectively. This paper also presents and discusses some experimental results that are obtained from the system prototype. Finally, some numerical simulation results, which provide an explanation for the nonidealities in the observed distance-measuring behavior of the system, are shown.