Performance evaluation of a relay network with UWB links exploiting time-reversal technique

We present the bit error probability (BEP) of a relay network employing UWB links between its nodes. Since UWB systems can resolve many paths, the use of the Rake receiver is very potentive. However, because of the complexity, it is impractical in the scenarios with portable terminals. The time-reversal technique is known as an approach to achieve the performance equivalent to the Rake combining without increasing the receiver complexity. The performance of such a network is analyzed, considering a simple correlator for each link at the receiver side. The results show that there is a great potential in combining time reversal and UWB techniques with respect to both reducing the receiver complexity and improving the system performance. In addition, simulation results are presented to validate the analytic ones.