A Programmable Receiver for Communication Systems and Its Application to Impulse Radio

<jats:p>The design of a programmable receiver for an ultra wideband (UWB) communication is presented. The receiver is using a fast analog to digital converter (ADC) and a field programmable gate array (FPGA) allowing a rapid performance evaluation for various system architectures and signal processing algorithms. To demonstrate the performance and the versatility of the receiver, a simple communication system and a localization system are implemented. The accuracy of the latter is presented for an indoor environment.</jats:p>