Adaptive CA-CFAR Threshold for Non-Coherent IR-UWB Energy Detector Receivers

Abstract : In the present letter, a new adaptive threshold comparison approach for time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation in ultra wideband (UWB) signals is proposed. This approach can be used with non-coherent energy detector receivers in UWB. systems. It exploits the idea of cell averaging constant false alarm rate (CA-CFAR) used in radar systems, where the threshold changes every energy block. The performance of several approaches are compared via Monte Carlo simulations using the CM1 channel model,of the standard IEEE 802.15.4a. Both simulation results and comparisons are provided highlighting the effectiveness of the proposed approach.