LOW POWER, HIGH RESOLUTION TIMING GENERATOR FOR ULTRA-WIDE BANDWIDTH COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

• US 20110122921A1
• Filed: 01/31/2011
• Published: 05/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: North Star Innovations Inc. (Wi-LAN Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NXP Semiconductors NV)
• Inventors: McCorkle, John W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,311,074 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/130
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7174 Pulse generation in general H04L25/03834
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7176 Data mapping, e.g. modulation

Abstract

A data communication method is provided, comprising: processing high-speed digital data for communication to produce processed data; generating short impulse wavelets; constructing a digitally modulated ultra wideband signal from the short impulse wavelets in response to bits of the processed data, wherein the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal comprises a series of the short impulse wavelets, and the value of each bit of the processed data is digitally modulated onto the shape of at least one of the short impulse wavelets of the series, to produce a series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets; and transmitting the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal, including the series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets, via an antenna.

Claims

1. A data communication method, comprising:

processing high-speed digital data for communication to produce processed data;

generating short impulse wavelets;

constructing a digitally modulated ultra wideband signal from the short impulse wavelets in response to bits of the processed data, wherein the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal comprises a series of the short impulse wavelets, and the value of each bit of the processed data is digitally modulated onto the shape of at least one of the short impulse wavelets of the series, to produce a series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets; and

transmitting the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal, including the series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets, via an antenna.

2. The data communication method of claim 1,

wherein the short impulse wavelets comprise a basic shape, an inverse of the basic shape, and a basic shape multiplied in amplitude by an integer.

3. The data communication method of claim 1,

wherein each of the short impulse wavelets in the series of the short impulse wavelets is one of bi-phase modulated, quad-phase modulated, multilevel bi-phase modulated, and multilevel quad-phase modulated.

4. The data communication method of claim 1,

wherein each short impulse wavelet of the series has a duration of between 100 and 1000 picoseconds.

5. The data communication method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing comprises:

receiving high-speed digital data as input data;

encoding the input data for forward error correction (FEC); and

differentially encoding the FEC encoded data.

6. The data communication method of claim 5, wherein the step of processing further comprises:

repetitively generating a codeword to produce a digital code signal; and

digitally modulating the digital code signal with bits of data from the differentially encoding step, to generate the processed data.

7. The data communication method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing further comprises:

wherein the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal has a fractional bandwidth in the range of about 0.25 to 2.

8. A data communication method, comprising:

receiving an input of high-speed digital data for communication;

repetitively generating a codeword to produce a digital code signal;

modulating the digital code signal in accord with the high-speed digital data, to generate a modulated code signal;

generating a modulated ultrawideband impulse signal in response to the modulated code signal, wherein;

(a) the modulated ultrawideband impulse signal comprises a sequence of short impulse wavelets, and

(b) the sequence of short impulse wavelets is modulated in accord with bits of the modulated code signal; and

transmitting the modulated ultrawideband impulse signal via an antenna.

9. The data communication method as in claim 8,

wherein the sequence of short impulse wavelets is shape modulated in accord with bits of the modulated code signal.

10. The data communication method as in claim 8,

wherein the sequence of short impulse wavelets is bi-phase modulated in accord with bits of the modulated code signal.

11. The data communication method as in claim 8, wherein the generating of the modulated ultrawideband impulse signal further comprises:

generating first short impulse wavelets of a first predetermined shape;

generating second short impulse wavelets having a second predetermined shape; and

selecting between one or more of the first short impulse wavelets and one or more of the second short impulse wavelets, in response to the value of each bit of the modulated code signal.

12. The data communication method as in claim 8,

wherein the sequence of short impulse wavelets is analog modulated in accord with bits of the modulated code signal;

and

wherein the transmitting of the modulated ultrawideband impulse signal includes transmitting the analog modulated wavelets.

13. The data communication method as in claim 8, wherein the modulated ultrawideband impulse signal has a fractional bandwidth in the range of about 0.25 to 2.

14. A data transmitter, comprising:

at least one encoder for processing high-speed digital data to produce processed data;

at least one wavelet generator for generating short impulse wavelets;

means for constructing a digitally modulated ultra wideband signal from the short impulse wavelets in response to bits of the processed data from the at least one encoder, wherein the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal comprises a series of the short impulse wavelets, and the value of each of said bits is digitally modulated onto the shape of at least one of the short impulse wavelets of the series, to produce a series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets; and

an antenna for transmitting the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal, including the series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets.

15. The data transmitter as in claim 14, wherein the at least one encoder comprises:

a forward error correction (FEC) encoder, for FEC encoding of the high-speed data; and

a differential encoder coupled to the FEC encoder for differentially encoding the FEC encoded data.

16. The data transmitter as in claim 14, wherein the at least one encoder further comprises:

a chip code generator for repetitively outputting a codeword, to form a cyclical chip code sequence; and

a code modulator responsive to an output of the differential encoder and an output of the chip code generator, for digitally modulating the chip code sequence with bits of differentially encoded data, to form the processed data.

17. The data transmitter as in claim 14, further comprising:

a code modulator coupled between the output and the means for constructing,

wherein the code modulator generates a plurality of time offset replicas of each respective modulated short impulse wavelet of the series, and modulates and combines the time offset replicas of each respective impulse wavelet in accord with a code, to form coded groups of impulse wavelets for the transmission.

18. The data transmitter of claim 14, further comprising:

a power amplifier, coupled to the output, for amplifying the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal comprising the series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets; and

an antenna coupled to an output of the amplifier for transmitting the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal comprising the series of digitally shape modulated impulse wavelets over a wireless link.

19. The data transmitter of claim 14,

wherein the at least one wavelet generator is adapted to generate short impulse wavelets of duration between 100 and 1000 picoseconds.

20. The data transmitter as in claim 14,

wherein the the digitally modulated ultra wideband signal has a fractional bandwidth in the range of about 0.25 to 2.