An ultra wide band simulator using MATLAB/Simulink

Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is a promising technology for sensor networks, broadband wireless data access and location finding applications. This study outlines the development and validation of a single transmitter and receiver system across the multipath channel proposed by Saleh-Valenzuela. We have designed and tested a UWB simulator using MATLAB’s Simulink in combination with the Real Time Workshop(RTW) Tool box for Simulink using the Fixed Step Discrete Solvers of RTW which is required to produce executable simulations on multiple computers (both Linux and Microsoft based devices). This paper outlines the basic design and modules chosen for the simulation and compares our results to those published in the literature. We found that our simulator provides similar performance to the reported results. We also found that an error floor occurs at high signal to noise ratio when the Saleh-Valenzuela channel is used and the assumption is made that the channel changes every symbol period. Using time traces from the simulation we show the mechanism behind this phenomenom.