Design of a pulse sensor to detect medium activity in UWB networks

Impulse-based ultra wideband (I-UWB) is an attractive radio technology for large ad hoc and sensor networks due to its robustness to multipath effects, sub-centimeter ranging ability, simple hardware, and low radiated power. Current medium access control (MAC) protocols for I-UWB target small wireless personal area networks (WPANs) and cellular networks, but they are not suitable for large, multihop ad hoc and sensor networks. In a previous work, we proposed a method, termed pulse sense, to quickly, reliably, and efficiently detect medium activity in an I-UWB network. Pulse sense enables a distributed MAC protocol for I-UWB radios that is similar to carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) in narrowband systems. This paper investigates CMOS RF circuit implementation of a pulse sensor and its system level design considerations. Simulation results show that the proposed implementation is practical and improves the network performance.