Exact BER analysis of DS PAM UWB multiple access system in lognormal multipath fading channels

Abstract

We derive exact BER formula for DS PAM UWB multiple access (MA) system using the characteristic function (CF) method. Exact BER analysis has been reported in some earlier works only for AWGN channels. In contrast to previous study, we adopt lognormal multipath fading channel model, which is more practical for real UWB applications. We use the CF method to deal with the exact probability distribution function (PDF) of total noise without making any approximations on the PDF of interference. In applications where the number of interference sources is small, we show that BER obtained by the GA method is less accurate than the CF method in large SNR range. Discussions about the BER results based on the characteristic functions are also provided. © 2006 IEEE.