On IEEE 802.15.6 UWB symbol length for energy detector receivers' performance with OOK and PPM

The IEEE 802.15.6 standard for short range communications in or around human body was published in February 2012. The wireless body area network (WBAN) standard characterizes both medium access control and physical layer (PHY) specifications. The medium access is disregarded here and the focus is on PHY definitions. There are three different PHY options defined in the standard. The interest in this article is in impulse radio ultra wideband (UWB) definitions. In it, the on-off keying (OOK) modulation is stated to be the one used with the mandatory mode. The simulation model has been implemented according to the standard's UWB PHY definitions. The target in this study is to define (close to) an optimal integration interval for an energy detector receiver and an energy threshold required for the OOK detection. For the energy detector receivers, the optimal integration interval is channel dependent and playing an important role in the detection performance. As the data rate increases, the symbol duration is shortened in impulse radio UWB. Depending on the channel conditions, short symbols can be vulnerable for inter-symbol-interference. The used channel models in the simulations are the IEEE 802.15.6 channel model 3 (C M 3) and another one, measured in a real hospital environment at the Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland. The study is continuing our earlier work related to the previously published impulse radio UWB standard, the IEEE 802.15.4-2011, earlier known as the IEEE 802.15.4a.